Release day!

It’s February 1st and A Stage Over Ruthless Stars is officially out in the world! Happy book birthday to my first but not my last.

First for the links and important info:

Paperbacks are available. You can buy them from amazon wherever you are. Unfortunately you cannot yet order them online from whichever bookshop you normally use such as Waterstones or WHSmiths. Apparently, on one of the many forms i filled out. I missed one check box and now it’ll take another month or so for it to be updated and available through those websites. When it does get updated, you will be able to go into your local branch and ask them to order it in for you if you prefer not buying books online! However, until then, paperbacks are available through amazon!

The ebook is live and you can purchase it from wherever you buy your ebooks from. Here is the link for a bunch of places to buy it and you can also get it from Amazon.

Thank you to everyone who has already bought the ebook through preorder! I hope you enjoy reading and would love to hear what you think. Here, review websites, on social media. Everywhere! I worked pretty hard on this little story of mine after all! I’d also love to see any photos of the paperback out in the world for anyone who gets their hands on a physical copy!

And of course a special thank you to everyone who helped me get it to this point; from the encouragement to start writing in the first place, to early readers who gave me feedback and loved it as much as I did, to final readers who helped pick out the tiny little typos that always manage to slip through! A bunch of you get a mention in my authors note at the end of the book so keep an eye out for that!

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It’s been a long ol’ journey for this book. I started it in summer of 2018, got my autism diagnosis as part of the journey of writing Kairo who has so much of myself in him. I started querying to get a literary agent to represent this book in 2019, got an agent who loved this little book in 2020. We went on submission to publishing houses in 2021 but unfortunately the book wasn’t picked up. Too niche, YA sci-fi wasn’t selling, my little book maybe was a Kyle too queer and a little too disabled. I switched focus to other books I had written after that, my agent left, I wrote a different book. But I couldn’t get this one out of my head. I loved it too much. I was too determined to get it out into the world somehow so I finally made the decision to self publish it. At least it wouldn’t be sitting in my files unread.

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind since I made that decision a few months ago. There was so much to learn. A book cover to design (that I’m rather proud of if I do say so myself!), a title change, formatting to do so the word file I had would look like an actual ebook and paperback. Distributors and printers to choose, accounts to set up. But we’re here!

A Stage Over Ruthless Stars is a published book!

I’m so very grateful to everyone who cheered me on along the last six years. And everyone who helped make this book what it is.

Personally, as a release day treat, I’m planning on ordering pizza from our favourite Italian pizza place with my parents to celebrate and watching the six nations rugby (c’mon Ireland!).

As you can tell, I have the yummy food planned, which is the most important part of any celebration.

But back to the book!

Ways you can continue to support this book now that it’s out in the world:

✨Tell your friends about it – in real life, online, shout it into the void! The more people talking about it the more happy dances I do (and it helps get the book into people’s hands)!

🚀Ask your library to get a copy in paperback or ebook – most have websites where you can request a book for them to get but you can also go into the branch and let them know about it! You’ll have to wait a few weeks to request the paperback but the ebook is there for libraries to get right now!

💫Request it on libby – if you use library apps like libby, then you can request it in app. It’s super easy and it REALLY helps me find readers and get seen.

📚Add it on goodreads & storygraph – the more people who add it, the more people will see it and check it out!

🏆Review or rate it – whether on your own socials, on book shops, or through review sites. Everything helps, but especially on places like amazon, more reviews and ratings mean it shows up on more people’s suggestions which helps more people find it!

Of course, this is not the end of the journey! A Stage Over Ruthless Stars is now out there and I hope it finds its readers. But I have other books too! Next up will be a short story that I adore, and will be available at the start of summer. More info will be around closer to the time so make sure you’re signed up to the newsletter so you don’t miss any news from me!