I was up in London this week to attend a Not Afternoon Tea with fellow bloggers at the invitation of HarperCollins. When I tell you the venue for this meeting was the restaurant at the top of the Oxo Tower on the South Bank, you will understand why I was happy to accept...
It was a great pleasure to meet up with Simon, from Stuck in a Book again, we are old friends and to meet for the first time Claire of Paperback Reader, Marsha Moore whose book on 24 Hour London I reviewed a while back and who is now working on a novel under the pen name of Talli Roland, Jackie of Farm Lane Books, Amanda from One More Page and author Mel Sherratt who blogs out of High Heels and Book Deals. Hosts for the afternoon were Kat and Elinor who presented us with a goodie book bag and who looked after us beautifully. After starting with a glass of champagne, we then went onto cocktails and we were then each presented with a plate of matching desserts. Just look at how gorgeous they were!
We had the pleasure of meeting with Fanny Blake who, after years of being in publsihing, has written and published her own first book, What Women Want, and such fun to chat and laugh and to found out how she set about it. Also lots of girl chat about matters I will not mention here....
Have read and enjoyed her book and will be reviewing next week.
Other author was David Nobbs who I know well from his activities as a TV screen writer and author of many novels. His latest book is It Had to be You which I took with me and David very kindly signed it for me. We ended up talking about commuting of all things and some of the weird and wonderful things that we had all experienced. It was such a great afternoon, great company, great venue and lots of good conversation.
And it wasn't all over. When we left the Oxo Tower a gentle stroll along by the river, glorious sunny afternoon, to the Globe, magical as ever and then boarded a River Taxi which I have never indulged in before now, and off to the second Tower of the day, the Tower of London. Was rather hoping we would be going in by Traitor's Gate, but of course not we used the main entrance. Best thing about this was the Tower was now shut so we had it to ourselves and marvellous to wonder around with no crowds. The evening function was a joint event sponsored by the Historical Palaces Charity and HarperCollins to launch The Girl in the Mirror by Sarah Gristwood. This book, a first novel by this historian, is all about Elizabeth I and Essex and as my knowledge of their relationship is limited to my reading of Jean Plaidy years ago and the film with Errol Flynn and Bette Davis, I found the talk given by the author absolutely fascinating. It appears that after Essex burst into the Queen's bedroom and caught her sans makeup, sans teeth etc he was hauled off to the Tower where he later had his head cut off. Now I know no woman likes to be caught without her mascara on, but this seems a bit of an over reaction....
Joking aside, a simply fascinating evening and I decided not to be a cheapskate and to blag a free copy from HarperCollins but to lay out some spondoolicks and actually purchase the book - so I did and then I got it signed and am looking forward to reading it very much indeed.
It was a simply wonderful day but so tiring as I had been up at 6am to be in London early to look after Florence until 3pm and by the time I got in the car and drove home I was fairly shattered. Fell into bed and surfaced ten hours later....
My thanks to HarperCollins for their generosity in giving us this terrific time and to Liz and Kat for taking such good care of us.
