Category: Book Birthday

The one where The Secret to Happiness celebrates its 4th birthday

Jessica Redland Author2 Comments

Today I’m celebrating a book birthday. It’s four years since The Secret to Happiness was released on 3rd September 2019 but this is an extra special book birthday because The Secret to Happiness was the book which secured me my publishing deal with the amazing Boldwood Books who then went on to find me loads of wonderful readers and help sell over a million copies of my books globally. Eek!

In interviews, authors are often asked ‘What’s your favourite book?’ and this is a really hard question to answer because there are typically different reasons why we love each and every one of our books. I can certainly give a reason for every single one of my books, whether that’s a plot point I particularly loved, a character, a setting, a twist, the journey of self-discovery the protagonist goes on, or because of where I was in my own journey when I wrote it. I do, however, have a handful of extra special books and The Secret to Happiness is one of them.

As you can probably imagine, I love this book because it secured me my publishing deal but there are several other reasons too. It’s the only book I’ve written from three viewpoints so it was more complex to write. It’s the only book of mine written in third person which was also a new challenge for me. And it’s a book with a complex plot interweaving the lives of three women with challenges in their past and present to face up to, along with a few twists and turns.

When I finished writing The Secret to Happiness, I genuinely believed it was my best work and, even though I was feeling very bruised by how unsuccessful I’d been as an indie author, I felt quietly confident that, when I started a round of submissions in the second half of 2018, it would find a publishing home.

It didn’t. Well, not at first anyway. I’d been to the RNA’s conference in July (Romantic Novelists’ Association) and had received some positive feedback from four industry professionals who wanted to see the full manuscript. I came back from the conference buzzing. The buzz of excitement soon became the whimper of tears when, one by one, they – and a couple of other publishers – all rejected the manuscript.

Feedback included:

“[I’m] looking for in-depth emotional stories that can be pitched in a single line [and this book] didn’t quite hit the mark for me.”

“I struggled to empathise with the characters. Rather than being invested in their journeys I felt they lacked the necessary depth and layers. Sadly I just couldn’t find myself getting lost in Alison or Karen’s story as I couldn’t connect with them.”

“Concept wasn’t ‘hooky’ enough to stand out in a very crowded market.”

“While the premise is fun and engaging and original, we just feel the bootcamp idea is not quite right for us… very well written, however, so please don’t let this stop you – you just need a cracking idea and you’ll be on your way.”

Fortunately Boldwood Books thought that this was ‘a cracking idea’ and the bootcamp set-up worked for them. They also thought it did have depth and layers and that they had (and readers would) connected with the characters and get lost in their journeys.

Rejections can be difficult but every editor will see something different in a book and it’s about finding that person who loves what you’re offering. Having the right manuscript landing in the right inbox at the right time requires a lot of stars to align and it can take quite some time to get there.

I’m a great believer in everything happening for a reason and those rejections were absolutely right for me because my publishing home hadn’t even opened for business yet and I can’t imagine a more perfect place for my books than Boldwood Books.

The Secret to Happiness has done me proud in the four years it has been out and I love that it had a brand new cover to celebrate me hitting a million sales earlier this year. It’s still the same concept as the previous cover but it’s more in-line with my other books and looks much fresher.

I wrote a post celebrating three years last year and reported nearly 72,000 copies sold as at end of June 2022. This has risen to just shy of 77,000 in the space of a year so sales have definitely slowed down but it’s still selling.

The sales figures aren’t fully reflective of actual sales as the audiobook version has spent two years in Audible’s Audible Plus programme where members get access to a catalogue of audiobooks for free as part of their subscription. Sales are reported back on a quarterly basis in terms of minutes listened and it would be extremely difficult and unwieldly for Boldwood to try to convert this into units sold because every audiobook in the programme is a different length. We therefore get ‘1 unit’ recorded each quarter for the royalties payment on each audiobook in the Audible Plus programme. Audible halted the programme in August and my titles all came out. I’m waiting for the final breakdown of minutes listened across my six titles for the two years they were in Audible Plus but, based on a previous breakdown I had, my guestimate is that we’re at about 100,000 full listens of The Secret to Happiness through Audible Plus which blows my mind! That means that sales for this book are really more in the region of 177,000. Not too shabby!

Last year, I reported 3,820 ratings/reviews on Amazon UK, 92% of which were positive. At the time of writing, it’s a whopping 6,659 and 93% of those are positive.

I didn’t report it last year so I can’t compare but there are 5,075 reviews on Audible UK. It’s a little harder to comment on a positive rating as listeners can rate overall, performance and story or just overall and I’m too lazy to get my calculator out to work them all out but here’s the graph.

Because this audiobook was free for two years, the figures are likely to be a little skewed against it as lots of listeners would have tried it when it’s not normally their thing and been quite scathing about it when that was proved to be the case. ‘Just as well it was free’ is a comment which appears against several of the 1-star haters! But those averages are still really decent.

So The Secret to Happiness has made lots of readers and listeners happy and it has certainly made this author very happy because it was the book that started my journey towards being a full-time author and hitting a million sales. It was the book which stopped me from walking away from writing. Thank you Alison, Danniella and Karen – my three brave women who found friendship and a whole lot more.

And thank you to you the readers who have read or listened to this story. Thanks for the recommendations to friends and family and for the gorgeous reviews and messages on the socials. Happy 4th birthday to The Secret to Happiness. And thank you to Boldwood for loving it and believing in it and my writing.

If you haven’t already tried it, it’s on a special offer of almost half-price on Audible UK at £5.99 for the whole of September. Another three of my former Audible Plus titles are in this offer at various price points too – Making Wishes at Bay View at £3.99, New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms at £5.99 and Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow at £4.99.

It’s currently in Global Prime Reading on Amazon so is free to Prime Readers and it’s also free in Kindle Unlimited, as are all my titles.

Have you read The Secret to Happiness? What did you think of it?

Big birthday hugs
Jessica xx

THE TOP 10 BESTSELLER

Everyone deserves a chance at happiness…

Danniella is running from her past, so when she arrives at the beautiful seaside resort of Whitsborough Bay, the last thing on her mind is making friends. After all, they might find out her secrets…

Alison is fun, caring and doesn’t take herself too seriously. But beneath the front, she is a lost soul, stuck in a terrible relationship, with no family to support her. All she really needs is a friend.

Karen’s romance has taken a back seat to her fitness business. But she doesn’t want to give up on love quite yet. If only those mysterious texts would stop coming through…

When the women meet at their local bootcamp, a deep friendship blossoms. And soon they realise that the secret to happiness is where they least expected to find it…

An uplifting story of friendship and finding the strength to come to terms with the past, from million-copy bestseller Jessica Redland.

What readers are saying about The Secret To Happiness:

‘An emotional but uplifting page turner.The Secret to Happiness is a beautiful story of friendship and love’ Fay Keenan.
‘I loved how realistic and flawed the characters were, no perfect people, just honest characters with real problems.’

‘Easily Jessica Redland’s best novel so far. The amount of heart and depth that has gone into it is astounding.’

‘This is a story that will have you enthralled from the start to the end with its many twists and turns. Jessica has the knack of drawing you into her “heroines”. She always includes some humour in her books but wow, does she know how to bring you to tears as well.’

‘Reading this book is the secret to happiness. Wow!’

‘Loved the characters and didn’t want it to end.’

The one where I celebrate Boldwood’s 4th Birthday and The Secret to Happiness goes into Prime Reading

Jessica Redland Author3 Comments

If you follow me on the socials, or if you follow my publisher Boldwood Books, you’ll already be aware that Boldwood turned 4 years old on Tuesday (1st August 2023). Boldwood have two birthdays – the day they opened for submissions (1st February) and the day their first book was published.

In that first month of trading, three books came out:

  1. The Daughter in Law – a psychological thriller by Nina Manning
  2. Honeymoon for One – a romcom by Portia MacIntosh
  3. Villa of Sun and Secrets – women’s fiction by Jennifer Bohnet

My Boldwood debut, The Secret to Happiness, was the fourth release on 3rd September 2023. To celebrate four years of publishing, these four ebooks are all 99p worldwide for a limited time so, if you haven’t read any, it’s a great time to take advantage. (Note, The Daughter in Law is no longer part of this offer at the time of writing this post so the offer is unlikely to last much longer on the other titles).

The Secret to Happiness has had a new cover (which I reported in an earlier blog post) as looked different to all my other covers. I’ve been admiring the new version online for several weeks and am excited about seeing it in paperback form soon. The adjustments are still going through to make sure that any new books published do have the new cover.

In exciting news today, I’ve just heard that The Secret to Happiness has gone into Prime Reading globally so, if you’re a Prime subscriber and haven’t read this already, you can get hold of it for free. It is also free in Kindle Unlimited (as are all my other titles and, indeed, all Boldwood titles).

Boldwood asked the author group if we could focus on the number four and share four tropes, four writing tips, four locations which have inspired our writing or 4 books that have inspired us. I decided to do three of the four.

Here are my four writing tips:

Four locations which have inspired my writing are:

  1. Scarborough – predominant inspiration for Whitsborough Bay
  2. The Yorkshire Wolds – inspiration for Hedgehog Hollow
  3. Scarborough Lifeboat Station and Ravenscar – inspiration for The Starfish Café
  4. Derwent Water, Portinscale and The Lingholm Estate – inspiration for Willowdale and Willowdale Hall in my new ‘Escape to the Lakes’ series

To find four tropes which have appeared in my books, you can watch a video on my Facebook page here.

Speaking of videos, I’ve got a couple more – one showing four of my series (and some future plans) can be found here and one where I wish Boldwood a happy 4th birthday and talk briefly about my journey to publication with them can be found here.

We did a little photo shoot outside Scarborough’s beach huts with my series (and misc books). I particularly love the one of the stack – took a lot of effort to lift and balance them all – and the first and last (most recent) release.

We also nipped down to the beach where I couldn’t resist the opportunity to recreate Autumn’s pose on the cover of The Start of Something Wonderful. I call this #DoingAnAutumn and there’s a little something special we’re going to be doing around this later this year so do keep your eye out for more information.

It’s been so lovely celebrating Boldwood’s 4th birthday. I’m honoured to have been one of the first twenty authors to join them when they first set up. They have done such amazing things in the first four years and I’m excited to be part of their plans for the next four and beyond. They’re so innovative, supportive and friendly and I can’t thank them enough for everything they’ve done for my career.

Thank you also to the readers who have supported me and any other Boldwood authors. We couldn’t keep writing without you.

Big birthday hugs
Jessica xx

The one where it’s 3 years since the start of Hedgehog Hollow

Jessica Redland Author8 Comments

Today – 2nd July 2023 – is a double anniversary for me. It is three years since readers first took a journey to Hedgehog Hollow with the publication of the very first book – Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow – on 2nd July 2020.

It is also twenty years since I met my husband, Mark, on our first date after meeting through an online dating site a few days earlier. This September we’ll be celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary. We’ve had a lovely day out to celebrate, visiting Danby Lodge in the North York Moors National Park which is somewhere neither of us have been since childhood.

We had lunch and a walk round there with our dog, Ella. I absolutely loved the dragon sculpture in one of the meadows but dogs weren’t allowed in the area where most of my other photos are taken as it’s the education area. The little house at the base of a tree was so gorgeous and I adored the owl throne.

Next stop was Danby Beacon which I’ve never been to before. Being a beacon, it needs to be at the highest point and, my goodness, it was blowy up there. But those views! They wouldn’t have come out well in my photos but, believe me, it was stunning with the coast to the east and the stunning countryside of the North York Moors on all other sides.

There was nobody there when we arrived so we parked up and walked to the other side of the beacon to get photos without looking into the sun. I managed to snap a couple on my phone and hubby was lying on the ground with his camera out taking a photo with some heather in the foreground when an elderly man in a bright red coat came striding across towards the beacon. He looked at hubby lying on the floor with with his camera out but still continued up to the beacon and then stood leaning against it for ages. The beacon stand isn’t very wide so it was impossible to get a photo without him. I don’t get that. Nobody else there at all and if he’d just waited for one minute – thirty seconds, even – hubby would have taken his photo and Red Coat could have stood there as long as he wanted. Aren’t folk strange?

You can see him in all but one of my photos although part of me thinks having someone in a bright red coat leaning against the beacon does add a little something to it!

I caught hubby and Ella in one photo after Red Coat had gone. There was a large stone nearby (not the trig point in the pics below) with an engraved panel on the top explaining what could be seen in each direction. There was a ewe and two lambs lying in the heather beside it and they looked like something straight out of a Lucy Pittaway print with the purple heather behind them. I was about to slowly approach to take a photo when another car pulled in and two women and a young girl (maybe age 12-13) got out with a couple of dogs. The girl ran after the sheep (why?!) so, of course, they ran away, poor things. So I didn’t get my photo but it would have been lovely if I had.

EDIT to add that hubby has just done some research and Danby Beacon is actually on the site of what was RAF Danby Beacon – an early warning station for raids in the north midlands and northern industrial cities during World War II and the start of the Cold War. You can read more about it here.

After that, we took a long route back to Scarborough via various villages and then went out for a meal this evening with our daughter. Very lovely day out, even if my daughter only realised at the end of the meal that she still had the price tag on her dress. Just as well her long hair had covered it!

Anyway, enough about our 20-year anniversary and onto the three-year anniversary of Hedgehog Hollow. When I got approval to write a book set in a hedgehog rescue centre, I had no idea whether it would go down well with my readers. Up until that point, everything I’d written was set in Whitsborough Bay and I was a little concerned that readers might not respond well to a new setting. I needn’t have worried because readers have completely taken Hedgehog Hollow to their hearts.

Three years on, the six books in the series combined have sold 360,000 copies. I thought I’d share a few facts:

MOST COPIES SOLD: Book 1 – Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow – just 3,000 sales shy of 100,000

BIGGEST INCOME GENERATOR: Book 3 – Family Secrets at Hedgehog Hollow. Despite having sold the third most copies – 33,000 fewer than book 1 – this book has earned the most income. This is because the first two books have been on more 99p deals which earn an author pennies so the bestsellers have actually earned fewer royalties

MOST PRE-ORDERS: Book 4 – A Wedding at Hedgehog Hollow – 7,639 pre-orders, presumably on the back of the whopping cliffhanger at the end of book 3

MOST REVIEWED: Book 2 – New Arrivals at Hedgehog Hollow – 6,848 reviews/ratings on Amazon UK

BIGGEST % OF 5-STAR REVIEWS: Book 6 – Christmas Miracles at Hedgehog Hollow – with 81% of reviews/ratings at 5-star on Amazon UK

MOST FOREIGN RIGHTS DEALS: Book 1 – Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow – with three deals. The Swedish translation came out last year, a Serbian translation should be out this year and there’s another deal just signed but I don’t think I can mention that one just yet

LONGEST BOOK/AUDIOBOOK: Book 4 – A Wedding at Hedgehog Hollow – at 110,000 words or 10 hours, 51 minutes

SHORTEST BOOK/AUDIOBOOK: Book 1 – Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow – is the shortest book at 96,500 words but it’s actually the second-longest audiobook at only 2 minutes shorter than A Wedding at Hedgehog Hollow. The shortest audiobook is book 6 – Christmas Miracles at Hedgehog Hollow – which is actually the second shortest book (99,000 words)

NUMBER OF NAMED HEDGEHOGS: There are a whopping 92 named hedgehogs across the entire six-book series!

I feel bad that book 5 – Chasing Dreams at Hedgehog Hollow – hasn’t been mentioned in one of those so I’ll throw in that it’s my personal favourite of all the covers!

If you’ve loved visiting Hedgehog Hollow, I’m so very grateful for your support, your reviews, and your recommendations. I had no idea that this series would touch so many hearts, turn so many readers into hedgehog obsessives, and actually play a part in raising so much awareness around this gorgeous little mammal who is vulnerable to extinction.

I do keep getting asked if I’ll write more Hedgehog Hollow books and, although I’ll never say never, the answer is no. There will be a prequel in 2025 (hopefully) but readers can get their fix of Hedgehog Hollow through Bumblebee Barn. Book 1 – Healing Hearts at Bumblebee Barn – features Hedgehog Hollow and readers get to see what happened to their favourite characters and the rescue centre after book 6 ended. This glimpse into life at Hedgehog Hollow will continue in book 2 of that series, likely to be out in April 2024 so please take a trip to Bumblebee Barn if you haven’t already done so. I think you’ll like what you find there.

Big hedge-hugs
Jessica xx 

The one where my publisher celebrates their 3rd birthday

Jessica Redland Author4 Comments

Boldwood Books are celebrating their 3rd birthday today and I have no idea where those three years have gone but I can say they have been absolutely amazing.

What have they achieved during their first three years? So very much. Here are some of the stats:

  • Independent publisher of the year
  • 8 million books sold
  • 90+ authors
  • 70 global top 10 bestsellers
  • 300+ titles

And here’s how many books they’ve published from me during this time – sixteen titles plus two foreign translations published so far with book 17 out in September and a second Swedish translation in October:

Do you like my motivational sign? I bought that pre-Boldwood to give me inspiration. It really was a perfect day to start living my dreams the day I submitted to Boldwood in February 2019 when they first opened for submissions because they have completely changed my life.

So if Boldwood opened for submissions in February, why is it today they celebrate their birthday? It’s because today was the day the first Boldwood Books book was released. Nina Manning’s The Daughter in Law was out three years ago today, followed by Honeymoon for One by Portia MacIntosh on 6th August and Villa of Sun and Secrets by Jennifer Bohnet on 8th August. I was sure there’d been four books out in August and mine was the fifth – The Secret to Happiness – out on 3rd September but I can’t work out who the other August release could have been from. My memory didn’t serve me well but I’ve just been through the rest of the list of first twenty authors and they were all after me so maybe it really was three releases in August and I was book four.

We were invited to bake a cake to celebrate the birthday but I’m rubbish in the kitchen. Hubby says it’s a case of can cook won’t cook rather than can’t cook won’t cook. Whichever it is, the kitchen is not my happy place and my strongest relationship is with the toaster so I didn’t attempt a cake. Why try to bake when Mr Kipling already makes exceedingly good cakes? So here’s me with a lemon fancy. Mmm. Great excuse to scoff the rest of the box!

If you follow @BoldwoodBooks over on Twitter, there are some fabulous cakes being shared by other Boldwood authors. And a few cheats like me!

We were also invited to take pics of our pets wearing party hats and I’m really looking forward to seeing those later in the week. There’s absolutely no way my sprocker spaniel Ella would let me put a hat on her. It’s hard enough to get her to stay still for anything more than a blurred photo as it is! But my rather large hedgehog collection was willing to oblige.

First the larger hedgehogs raided Tesco for a chocolate cake…

But the little hedgehogs weren’t going to be outdone by that so they raided my box of lemon fancies and joined in with their own celebration…

And then they all got together for a chorus of happy birthday…

There are competitions and various other activities across social media this week so do keep your eye out for everything happening. You could be a winner!

I’m so very grateful to Boldwood for everything they’ve done for me as an author and so grateful to the readers, listeners, bloggers and reviewers who’ve shared the love for my books and any from my Boldwood buddies as you have helped us be the success we are. Here’s to the next three years…

Big birthday hugs
Jessica xx

The one with all the birthdays

Jessica Redland Author2 Comments

We’re celebrating three birthdays in our house today – 11th March 2022 – and another one tomorrow. Today it’s my husband’s birthday, our dog’s, and I have a book birthday today and tomorrow.

A huge happy birthday to my amazing husband, Mark, who is impossible to buy for so has chosen his own gift today. He is such an amazing supporter of my writing and I’m so exceptionally grateful and lucky to have him.

Happy 6th birthday to our sprocker spaniel, Ella, who may now be 42 in human years but still believes she’s a puppy.

And happy 1st book birthday to All You Need Is Love.

Many of my books have two birthdays – like the Queen! That’s because they were originally released by me as an indie writer or through my original publishing deal but, as they barely made any impact pre-Boldwood, I count their re-release through the amazing Boldwood Books as their official birthday.

All You Need Is Love is one of my personal favourites. I absolutely love Jemma and Sam’s emotional story intertwined with the challenges Jemma’s mum is facing and the backdrop of a specialist teddy bear shop on Whitsborough Bay’s Castle Street. A few lovely achievements during its first year include:

  • 40,000 copies sold across all formats
  • Over 1,600 reviews/ratings on Amazon
  • Over 300 reviews/ratings on Audible
  • Kindle UK Top 100 (highest position #81)
  • Kindle Australia Top 50
  • Audible UK Top 50
  • Several #1 Best Seller category tags

I have another book birthday to celebrate tomorrow so I’m including that here too rather than doing a separate blog post. Coming Home to Seashell Cottage is two tomorrow (12th March).

This is another personal favourite of mine. It’s the fourth (and final) book in the first series I penned – ‘Welcome to Whitsborough Bay’ – and it’s the book where I found my voice and the type of book I really wanted to write. Full of twists and turns and packing an emotional punch, it was a game-changer for me and I’ll always be immensely proud of it. Across two years, it has also had some lovely achievements:

  • 43,000 copies sold across all formats
  • Over 1,800 reviews/ratings on Amazon
  • Nearly 325 reviews/ratings on Audible
  • Kindle UK Top 200 (highest position #165)
  • Kindle Australia Top 100
  • Audible UK Top 50
  • Apple UK Top 25 (and #5 in the Romance category)
  • Several #1 Best Seller category tags

Coming Home to Seashell Cottage is currently on a 2 for 1 Audible Credit Deal which ENDS TOMORROW at 11.59pm (Saturday 12th March) so it’s the final chance to get this on a deal.

I’m so thrilled to see it in the overall Audible Top 50 as I write this! THANK YOU xxx

So a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my man, my dog and two of the books in my life!

It’s funny looking at the sales figures for the two because All You Need is Love got off to a bit of a slow start and it looked like it was going to be my least-sold book but that has changed and it is only just behind Coming Home to Seashell Cottage in sales figures but in half the time. Which then makes me feel sorry for Coming Home to Seashell Cottage. I wonder if it’s because All You Need is Love can be read as a standalone book so new readers are more likely to pick that up than a four-book series. Hmm.

I can tie yourself into knots wondering why some books sell better than others so it’s best not to think about it too much and just focus on how incredibly grateful I am that they sell at all!

If you’re celebrating a birthday today, tomorrow or any time this month, I wish you all the best. Thank you as always to everyone who has bought/borrowed/downloaded these two books (or any others) in any format, and/or has spread the word. It’s so much appreciated.

Big birthday hugs
Jessica xx

The one where Making Wishes at Bay View makes a 2nd birthday wish

Jessica Redland Author3 Comments

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

Happy Book Birthday to Starry Skies

Jessica Redland AuthorLeave a comment

I’m celebrating another book birthday today with Starry Skies Over The Chocolate Pot Café hitting its first birthday since the re-release through Boldwood Books.

Originally independently published in 2018 as Christmas at The Chocolate Pot Café, I do tend to think of my Boldwood birthdays as the official birthdays as so few readers discovered my work before I joined them.

I love this story and, with over 1700 reviews/ratings on Amazon – 94% positive – and more than 35,000 copies sold in a year, it seems readers do too. Thank you to everyone who has bought/borrowed/listened and left a review/recommended this story. I appreciate that so much.

Starry Skies Over The Chocolate Pot Café is best read after Christmas at Carly’s Cupcakes as the two books feature friends Carly and Tara with businesses next door to each other and follow on chronologically.

Officially, Christmas Wishes at the Chocolate Shop is the 1st book in the Christmas on Castle Street Series as it’s set chronologically before the other two but it isn’t as closely connected as they are.

Happy book birthday Starry Skies xxx

Big hugs
Jessica xx

Here’s the blurb…

Cosy up with a mug of hot chocolate for some festive sparkle from bestseller Jessica Redland.

Everyone is getting into the festive spirit on Castle Street – snow is falling, fairy lights are glistening and Christmas shopping is underway.

But for Tara Porter, owner of thriving cafe, The Chocolate Pot, this is the most difficult time of the year. From the outside, Tara is a successful businesswoman and pillar of the community. Behind closed doors, she is lonely. 

With a lifetime of secrets weighing on her shoulders, she has retreated from all friends, family and romance, and shut her real self away from the world. Afterall, if you don’t let them in, they can’t hurt you. She’s learnt that the hard way.

But as the weight of her past becomes heavier and an unexpected new neighbour moves onto the street – threatening the future of her cafe – Tara begins to realise that maybe it’s time to finally let people back in and confront her history. It could just change her life forever…

Publication Day for Snowflakes Over The Starfish Café and belated Happy Birthday to The Secret to Happiness

Jessica Redland AuthorLeave a comment

Ooh, I’m so late with these! I’ve returned from a wonderful week in the Lake District (post and pics to follow soon) and I meant to write and schedule three posts before I went away – one to celebrate publication day, one to reflect on August, and one to celebrate a book birthday – but time escaped me and none of them got written.

With no WiFi at our holiday cottage, I had to leave it so I’ve combined two of them and decided not to do the reflections posts anymore. Instead, I’ll post more regularly but shorter posts. Me? Short posts? Well, I’ll try!

Firstly, publication day. My 13th novel, Snowflakes Over The Starfish Café, came out on Tuesday 31st August and gathered a category bestseller flag on day one which was lovely. Less than a week after release, it has 69 reviews (at the time of writing this), 85% of which are 5-star which is amazing.

It’s on a super-lengthy amazing blog tour and the feedback so far has been so touching with a mix of regular reviewers and newbies reading my work for the first time. Thank you to everyone taking part.

I may have caused a tissue shortage in the country (and possibly other countries – Belgium has been cited!) as this book is a weepie. It is NOT a light Christmassy rom-com and it doesn’t claim anywhere to be one as you’ll be able to tell from reading the blurb (see below).

I never intentionally set out to write a story that will make readers cry but this was the story that these characters needed to tell and, while there will always be a few critics who call it ‘depressing’, I am blessed with so many amazing readers who completely get the story, who love the light that appears among the tragedy, and who feel the hopeful and uplifting message.

“With courage, nothing is impossible” (Sir William Hillary, RNLI Founder) is a theme throughout. Hollie and Jake have had tragic pasts, but the beauty of this story is how they find their way forward … with the help of the most gorgeous dog who readers have fallen in love with.

Hot on the heels of publication day, I’m celebrating a book birthday.

Friday 3rd September was TWO YEARS since The Secret to Happiness was published by Boldwood Books. And what an amazing two years that has been! (Blurb below too)

This was a book I submitted when I knew I was failing to make an impact as an indie author. I did have some regular readers but I only sold a handful of eBooks a week and there was no way I’d was ever even going to come close to being able to write full-time; my absolute dream.

A few rejections of the manuscript floored me and I had to as myself some tough questions about whether I really was good enough to make it as an author. I could have easily given up at that point but writing is part of who I am and I couldn’t let go.

Around that time, I saw an advert for a newly-formed company called Boldwood Books and thought, “maybe one last try”. Thankfully they loved it and took me on. Boldwood found me my readers and my readers have loved Whitsborough Bay and Hedgehog Hollow and have made my dreams come true. I’m so incredibly grateful to you all.

It’s particularly appropriate that I’ve ended up posting about these two events together because, almost exactly a year from publication of my first Boldwood release, Snowflakes Over The Starfish Café is not only my 13th release but also the start of a brand new 12-book publishing deal with Boldwood Books.

The books in my first contract were a mix of new books (The Secret to Happiness and the three books so far in Hedgehog Hollow series) and re-edited versions of my backlist. Starting with Snowflakes Over The Starfish Café, everything I release from now on will be brand new, never been released before, which is really exciting for me and my readers.

Thank you to everyone who has bought/downloaded/borrowed either of these stories – and any of my others – and shared lovely feedback about them. I cannot thank Boldwood Books enough for taking me on and my amazing editor Nia Beynon for her continued enthusiasm, belief and expertise which help shape each of these stories into the final versions the readers/listeners fall in love with.

Wishing you an amazing start to September.

Big hugs
Jessica xx

Snowflakes Over The Starfish Café is available as an eBook on all platforms, a paperback, a large print, a hardback, as a physical audio, for audio download and audio streaming. Please contact me if you’d like a signed copy of the paperback.

Here’s the blurb:

Welcome to The Starfish Café – where you will find stunning views, delicious food and lifelong friendships.

Two broken hearts.

Since she inherited The Starfish Café, Hollie has poured her heart into the business, striving to keep her mother’s traditions and warm-hearted spirit alive. But behind closed doors Hollie is searching for true happiness as she grieves the tragic loss of her family who were once the beating heart of the café…

An unexpected meeting.

Jake lives by two rules: don’t let anyone get close and don’t talk about what happened. Little does he know that a chance meeting at The Starfish Café, facilitated by a fluffy lost dog, is about to turn his world upside down…

The chance to love again.

Can Hollie and Jake break down the barriers that have been holding them back from finding love and happiness, before Christmas comes around? After all, with courage, nothing is impossible…

The Secret to Happiness is available as an eBook on all platforms, a paperback, a large print, as a physical audio, for audio download and audio streaming. Please contact me if you’d like a signed copy of the paperback.

Here’s the blurb:

Everyone deserves a chance at happiness…

Danniella is running from her past, so when she arrives at the beautiful seaside resort of Whitsborough Bay, the last thing on her mind is making friends. After all, they might find out her secrets…

Alison is fun, caring and doesn’t take herself too seriously. But beneath the front, she is a lost soul, stuck in a terrible relationship, with body confidence issues and no family to support her. All she really needs is a friend.

Karen’s romance has taken a back seat to her fitness business. But she doesn’t want to give up on love quite yet. If only those mysterious texts would stop coming through …

When the women meet at their local bootcamp, a deep friendship blossoms. And soon they realise that the secret to happiness is where they least expected to find it…

Two years ago today, I received an email that changed my life…

Jessica Redland Author6 Comments

In a month which signals a whole year since the UK first went into lockdown, I have a happier milestone to celebrate because today is the two-year anniversary of receiving an email that completely changed my life.

“Thanks for submitting to us – I really enjoyed Wish I Could Tell You Goodbye. What a gorgeous read! … Would you be free next week for a phone call?”

Eek! I squealed, I shook, I bounced about on my chair like I had ants in my pants! A phone call had to mean an offer, didn’t it?

It did. That phone call turned into a 9-book publishing deal with the amazing Boldwood Books, which later extended to a 12-book deal (and a further 12-book deal beyond that) and that book became The Secret to Happiness published in September 2019.

Since then, I have had ten books published through Boldwood, had five of them enter the UK Kindle Top 100, become an international bestseller, sold over 300k copies and have been able to resign from my day job to become a full-time author. Wow! Dreams come true all over the place!

It feels appropriate that my tenth Boldwood release – out last week – is entitled All You Need Is Love because that’s exactly what I needed; for my manuscript to land in the inbox of someone who loved the story and characters as much as I did and for that publisher to love my writing and believe in me so much that they wanted to offer me a publishing deal. And another.

If you’re struggling to find a home for your writing at the moment, whether at the start or part-way through your career, don’t give up. All you need is love and, just like finding Mr or Mrs Right, it may not happen immediately. There may be tears and disappointments along the way but hang in there because love can be found if you keep looking and keep believing.

Thank you to my amazing editor, Nia, and the fabulous team at Boldwood Books for believing in me. To steal another of my book titles, you unlocked the secret to happiness for me two years ago today and I’m eternally grateful!

Big hugs
Jessica xx

Celebrating a very special book birthday

Jessica Redland AuthorLeave a comment

It’s a busy end to the week as I was celebrating the publication day for All You Need Is Love yesterday and, today, I’m celebrating a special book birthday.

Today is one year since the final part of the ‘Welcome to Whitsborough Bay’ series was released through Boldwood Books. Woo hoo! Happy book birthday to the series!

The four-book series had previously been published under different titles and the rights were acquired by Boldwood as part of my original publishing deal. They all had a fresh edit and were updated for a quick-succession re-release between January and March 2020. My writing was largely undiscovered before joining Boldwood and the idea of four novels being released so close together was to build my name and create an appetite for the next part in the series.

This plan absolutely worked and I still can’t quite believe how well my debut series (which is also available as a boxset with additional exclusive content) has done during this year after five years of struggling to get noticed:

  • More than 130k copies of the books combined (across all formats) since being re-released by Boldwood
  • Nearly 3000 reviews/ratings on Amazon, 93% of which are 4 or 5-star
  • Making Wishes at Bay View (book 1) going into The Works
  • Making Wishes at Bay View being free book of the week on Apple UK and USA and reaching #1 on the free UK chart/#16 in the USA
  • Making Wishes at Bay View breaking the Top 100 in Australia and Canada
  • New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms (book 2) going into Prime Reading and reaching #14 in the overall UK Kindle chart
  • All the books making it into the UK Kindle Top 200 and staying there for the whole of the summer
  • Books 2-4 making it into the Apple Romance Chart Top 5 at the same time and the overall Top 25
  • Best seller tags for all books at the same time

I often get asked which of these books is my favourite and I love them all for a different reason:

  • Making Wishes at Bay View (book 1) was such a fun story to write and Ruby is one of my favourite characters. She was fascinating to create and I love the banter she has with Iris
  • New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms (book 2) was the first book I ever wrote. The main character, Sarah, is predominantly based on me and the premise of the story is a true-life event. As this was where it all started, this book will always have a special place in my heart
  • Finding Hope at Lighthouse Cove (book 3) is a lovely story of how to pick yourself up after everything in your life falls apart. I love Elise’s journey and I also love the way the friendship dynamics between the main characters in this series begin to shift. The relationships with friends and family are a very important aspect of my stories and often take centre-stage over the romance
  • Coming Home to Seashell Cottage (book 4) is Clare’s story and I have to confess it is my favourite as I love the plot. Clare arrived in book 2 as a spiky character with a mysterious past and here we discover why she’s the way she is. It’s a story full of twists and turns and I’m so proud of this book

I have amazing reviews for all the stories which makes me so very happy but New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms does have a few more negative reviews than the others. In some quite angry ranty 1 and 2-star reviews, Sarah is accused of being silly and her actions childish or selfish. While I completely accept that everyone likes different things and not everyone is going to love my work, I do feel sad that those readers have missed the point of a character arc. Sarah does make some some questionable decisions early on but her journey is one of learning from those and she experiences major character development over the course of the book.

At the start of the book, Sarah has stayed in a relationship for a year too long (not an abusive relationship; just one that isn’t right) and there are also reviews commenting on how ridiculous that is and that she should have just left him/nobody stays in a rubbish relationship for that long. Who are these people as I’d like to congratulate them? I am in huge admiration of anyone who can be in a long-term relationship and walk away just like that but I would suggest that the reality of most relationships is that walking away is not that easy. The person may be very aware that the relationship is not right for them but there can be a million reasons why they don’t walk away including fear of being alone, financial challenges, where to live, children, self-esteem, mental health and so on. Sometimes what lies on the other side doesn’t seem more appealing than what they already have. I know this because I was in a relationship like that. I knew it was wrong all along but I wasn’t in a place where I could deal with walking away. I know so many men and women who would admit to the same. Thankfully hundreds of readers do relate to Sarah, find her scenario very realistic, and are rooting for her all the way.

One of my aims for 2021 was not to be hurt by negative reviews and to remain focused on the positive ones and I’ve made great progress with this but I have to admit that I was a bit (a lot) wounded by a particular scathing 2-star review I spotted on Audible for New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms a couple of days ago. I’ve pasted it below as it’s quite a long review:

Ouch! There are so many interesting things about this review. Firstly, book 1 of the series is not the chocolate pot cafe (Starry Skies Over The Chocolate Pot Café). That particular story is set in Whitsborough Bay but is not part of the ‘Welcome to Whitsborough Bay’ series. It was written several years later. Therefore the last paragraph all about the links is inaccurate because there aren’t meant to be links. The Chocolate Pot is mentioned a couple of times in New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms because it’s on the same street as Seaside Blooms but, at the time the book was written, Tara and her story from Starry Skies… did not exist.

So if we remove the comments about the two books not following on from each other, we have that the story was ‘flat’ and ‘like the writer had a multi book deal and had to bang out something else.’ Wow! That’s a bit harsh! Every author starts somewhere and, although New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms is book 2 in the series, it is the first book I wrote as book 1 was written afterwards as a prequel/introduction to the world of Whitsborough Bay. Seaside Blooms is my debut – my first book baby delivered into the world and I am immensely proud of it. It does have twists and turns in it. They may not have the same shock/surprise as a couple of the revelations in Starry Skies… but they’re still there. When I started out writing, I intended to write romantic comedies but my ideas developed and my writing style developed and I now write contemporary women’s fiction. My later books are more emotional than my early ones and some of the plots are more intricate. It’s common and natural for a writer to adjust their style the more books they write. Their voice will develop and their confidence will grow and they may well experiment with style and genre. That’s not to say romcoms don’t have complex plots – they absolutely do – but my natural style moved away from the comedy and more into the angst although all my books are warm and uplifting and do still contain humour which balances the more emotional moments.

The real shame about this is that I have lost a reader/listener who clearly has some gripes about the story but, given a significant focus of the review is the lack of link to a story it’s not meant to be linked to, I can’t help feeling that this misunderstanding on the reader’s part has heavily influenced their contempt for this story. I’m trying to put myself in their shoes and, if I wrongly believed this was a follow-on from Starry Skies… I’d be confused too. The thing is, Audible clearly does show which books are in the series (see below), as do Kindle, Apple, Kobo, Fantastic Fiction…

Stung by this review – and thinking of the small number of negative ones for New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms – I decided to conduct a poll in my Facebook readers’ group asking members who’d read the full series to let me know which was their favourite. We’re talking a small sample here but the results were interesting:

  • New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms – 53%
  • Coming Home to Seashell Cottage – 32%
  • Making Wishes at Bay View and Finding Hope at Lighthouse Cove tied – 7%

Many of those who voted did add a comment that they absolutely loved all of them but I had pushed them to pick one as I was curious as to the results and it was both surprising and reassuring that more than half the vote went to the book that has generated the most negative comments. I’m going to focus on the hundreds who love it and thank them so much for sharing that love.

So happy birthday to the Welcome to Whitsborough Bay series and thank you to everyone who has bought/ borrowed/ downloaded any of the stories, loved them, and reviewed/ rated/ recommended them. You are absolute superstars. Callie, Sarah, Elise, Clare and the rest of the cast of characters in Whitsborough Bay send you hugs of appreciation.

And thank you to Boldwood Books and my amazing editor Nia for breathing fresh life into these stories and taking them to such a wide readership. I’m forever grateful.

Big hugs
Jessica xx