My Writing Year in Review
It's that time of year when I stop and reflect on what's happened in my life over the past 12 months.
For a writer, the big news is always about published books, and in 2015, I had two new books o
ut.
The first one was Wanting Mr Wrong – my first time writing in the first person.
The second book was The Millionaire’s Proposition, which is probably my sexiest book yet. This was different kind of challenge for me, because Harlequin approached me to write it for them as part of a continuity series. A continuity series means different authors write different books based on the one theme – in this case, Sydney’s most eligible… Each book can be read as a standalone, but they feature interconnected characters.
If you’re interested in all four books, this is the order they came in:
Her Boss by Day, by Joss Wood
The Millionaire’s Proposition, by Avril Tremayne
The Tycoon’s Stowaway, by Stefanie London
The Hotel Magnate’s Demand, by Jennifer Rae
I was also lucky enough to have a new edition of one of my first books published by Random House. The Contract was one of winners of Harlequin and Wattpad’s So You Think You Can Write competition in 2013, and helped to kickstart my writing career. I was thrilled to have it republished after Harlequin discontinued its new E-book line – especially because there are two more books to come in the series.
I also took a foray into short story writing as a thank you to all those who read Wanting Mr Wrong and took the time to tell me they enjoyed it. When Jack Met Evie takes readers back to three months before the start of Wanting Mr Wrong, to the all-important first meeting between the main characters, which is alluded to a couple of times in the book.
And because I thought it would be fun to give some insight into Jack’s head this time around, I told the story from his point of view. When Jack Met Evie was subsequently included in a short story anthology called The Day We Met, which was published by Random House Australia in October. It’s FREE, so grab your copy if you haven’t already!
The other big news for me is that, sticking to one of my 2015 New Year resolutions, I have been slowly transitioning to longer books.
Up until 2015, I was concentrating on books at the 50-55,000 word length, but I was finding that the complexity of my plots and characters neede
d a little extra room to breathe.
The first of my longer books is Escaping Mr Right, which I finished writing in the first quarter of 2015. It’s the story of television journalist Chloe, who was one of the important secondary characters in Wanting Mr Wrong, and football playing alpha male Nick. This book started life as a NaNoWriMo project in 2014 (NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, in which writers challenge themselves to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November). It was a daunting prospect when it came time to develop and edit those words that had been written under such a time pressure – but it was also very exciting. Escaping Mr Right comes out on January 17 and I don’t mind admitting, it's one of my very favourite books.
The second of my longer books has only just been finished and I hope you’ll see it out in the wild in 2016! It is book 2 in The Contract series, featuring some of the characters from there (Adam'ds sister and Lane's 'other man'), although, as with all my books, it's a standalone – no end-of-book cliffhangers, I promise. This book has some of the fastest and funniest dialogue I’ve ever written, but also some of the most heart wrenching scenes, and even had me bawling my eyes out at one point.
I already have a book started for 2016 (slightly whacky and very good fun), and three other books in my head, so I think 2016 is going to be a busy year.
In closing I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone for your support in 2015. Here’s to a wonderful new year, full of reading and writing and fun and love.
Avril
