I’ve won an award!

I can hardly believe it. My heart hasn’t stopped racing since the awards ceremony. Many novels become successful without awards, but for a new author starting out, a prize is equivalent to a case of famous champagne and a bowl of best caviar and truffles, with the Ritz thrown in. It’s fabulous and life affirming and makes you glow.

Some months back, I entered the Page Turner Awards with soon to be published novel, Daisy Chain (Claret Press March 2023). As the book has a publisher, I didn’t enter it in the new writer’s book awards, instead I opted to try my hand in the Book Adaptation category. (There were many entries!) Tom Joyce, below, won the Book Award and also an Audio Book award which would turn his novel into an audio book for free. I mention him because his book sounds thrilling and is a thriller. But my prize was the free services of a scriptwriter, who will turn Daisy Chain into a manuscript, and then take it to various studios and producers.

Daisy Chain is a visual dream. It is the American version of Downton Abbey, or the next decade on from The Gilded Age. The novel is set in the (now) historic houses along the Hudson River Valley including the Roosevelt family homes and Wilderstein. The characters travel from the north, down to Washington DC and the White House, and then to his centre for victims of polio, Warm Springs, in Georgia. The story revolves around the women in his life who advised and supported him. Many people are unaware that President Roosevelt was separated from his wife, Eleanor, before his first term in office. They were a show couple, and she was the only First Lady never to live in the White House. What a film this could be!!

My sincere thanks to all the judges in the Page Turner Awards, to Ken and Paula Sheridan who organise it. Thank you for the vote of confidence in my book. It has meant the world to me.