Launching my novel on St Patrick's Day

I have finally plucked up the courage to launch my first novel onto the unsuspecting public. Dancing with the Ferryman was dreamt up one sunny afternoon when I looked out of my kitchen window and saw an ordinary man. At the risk of people identifying him I don’t wish to go into too much detail, but suffice it to say he was a typical Shetland man. That is to say, he was family oriented, hardworking in his three different jobs, not to mention maintaining a croft, and living in the house he built himself.

I thought of all the handsome heroes I had read about in the numerous chick-lit books and realised that there was an untapped source of romantic heroes right here on my island. Now all the women in Shetland reading this would probably think this was hilarious, as Shetland men are not renowned for their romantic notions. But it occurred to me that with a little bit of poetic license I could create the first proto-type. His name is Magnus – a typical Shetland name. He does not have a glamorous career in the city, he does not wear designer suits, drive a flash sports car and he is not tall dark and handsome with a chiselled jaw and a six pack. He is quietly spoken, maybe even a little shy and just a tad old fashioned. Not quite the standard issue 21st century hero.

Turning to my heroine I decided to see how far away I could get from the norm here as well. Jo is a rather ordinary woman. A civil servant, not stunningly gorgeous, maybe even a little frumpy, and she is pregnant as well.

With the two characters fairly well formed in my head all I had to do was find a way to get Jo to Shetland. The resulting novel is a love story, but not just between the characters. It is in effect a love story about Shetland.

The story is entirely fictional, but it was inspired by my love of Shetland. I first visited Shetland on the 8th February 2003 for a weekend. It was grey and miserable when I landed but it was still love at first sight. I went back to work on Monday and resigned. I put my house on the market and moved up on 2nd June 2003; and never regretted it. Although I am now living in Ireland I do not think it will be too long before we move back home.

Dancing with the Ferryman can be downloaded from the Amazon website from 17 March 2010. It costs $2.99 or the sterling equivalent (about £2.15). If you do not own a Kindle you can download the Kindle software from Amazon onto you PC, Mac or as an Android application onto your smart phone.