I’m celebrating a book birthday today! Making Wishes at Bay View – book 1 in the Welcome to Whitsborough Bay series – is celebrating its second book birthday today. Woo hoo!

14th January 2020 was the start of a quick-release schedule for the four books in the series aimed to create an appetite for my writing and build my readership. Book 2 and 3 – New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms and Finding Hope at Lighthouse Cove were released in mid-February with the final book, Coming Home to Seashell Cottage out in mid-March.

It’s so strange to think that two years ago today, we were merrily going about our business, aware of the news of some flu-like bug that had taken hold in China, but with absolutely no idea of what was about to hit the world. A few days after book 4 was released, the UK went under restrictions around travel and working from home. Lockdown.

But we’re not here to talk about that! We’re here to celebrate!

Making Wishes at Bay View was the second title of mine to go into The Works and the first one I signed there which was a fabulous moment. In fact, so lovely that I got to do it twice as they had a second batch in when I went in to sign Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow stocked a little later (which is why I have 2 different masks on in the pics below).

I’ve seen it in two of my local garden centres too – Irton Garden Centre (British Garden Centres) and Dean’s Garden Centre – although I was too chicken to alert staff to me being the author and ask if they’d like me to sign them. Actually, that’s not true. When I first spotted it in one of the garden centres (won’t say which), I mentioned in a nervous garble that I’d written it and the sales assistant couldn’t have been less interested. I walked out mortified and really wished I hadn’t been brave and spoken up.

Looking back, it’s very possible she didn’t actually pick up what I’d said as we were all getting used to the world of mask-wearing and how muffled it makes the voice. Yes, that definitely could have been it. I’ll go with that!

I had the exciting news this week that the Welcome to Whitsborough Bay series hit the New Year with more than 185k sales. Each individual book has sold over 40k copies with Making Wishes at Bay View out int he front with 53k copies. My wish is for the other books to make it over that 50k hurdle and to reach the 200k mark for the series. What a special moment that will be.

It was interesting looking at my sales figures as my best selling individual book is Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow. I’d never totted up sales figures across each series but I always imagined that the Hedgehog Hollow series had sold the most because it seems to be the one most readers talk about. I was therefore surprised to see that the Welcome to Whitsborough Bay series was significantly further ahead. Granted, all the books in the W2WB series have been out longer and book 4 in the Hedgehog Hollow series has only just been released so it’s not quite a level playing field but, as I say, it was a surprise. A pleasant one. I sometimes feel sorry for these books because the hedgehogs get so much love and I’m so proud of them and love the stories. Great to see that they’re holding their own!

So happy birthday to Making Wishes at Bay View and thank you to anyone who has bought/borrowed one or more book in this series. As ever, I’m so very grateful.

Big hugs
Jessica xx