My favourite type of book is one where a romance supports a wider plot, where the growing relationship is interwoven naturally with the characters’ situation rather than the purpose for it, and The Elephant Girl delivers just that. A whodunit chock full of red herrings and a list of suspects that would make Agatha Christie proud, the romance is the perfect addition to this tightly woven mystery. I was so excited to work on this manuscript and couldn’t be happier that publication day has arrived for my author Henriette Gyland, who’s here today to talk about writing and editing this story.

                                        ***

Rachel: Welcome, Henri. Can you tell us about how this story came to be published?

Henri: I wrote the first draft a few years ago during the month of November, taking part in the international challenge National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) where the aim is to write at least 50,000 words in one month. After I’d finished it I sent it to my writing buddy and started the first revision following her input. Then it went to the New Writers’ Scheme run by the Romantic Novelists’ Association, received a good reader’s report, but there was still work to do on the manuscript so I revised it one more time before sending it to about six agents. None of them took it although two of them requested the whole manuscript.

Blurb: How much must she pay for the chance to call her life her own?

When Bet­sey Dob­son dis­em­barks from the Lon­don train in the sea­side resort of Idensea, all she owns is a small valise and a canary in a cage. After an attempt to forge a let­ter of ref­er­ence she knew would be denied her, Bet­sey has been fired from the typ­ing pool of her pre­vi­ous employer. Her vig­or­ous protest left one man wounded, another jilted, and her char­ac­ter per­ma­nently besmirched. Now, with­out money or a ref­er­ence for a new job, the future looks even bleaker than the deba­cle she left behind her.

But her life is about to change … because a young Welsh­man on the rail­road quay, wait­ing for another woman, is the one finally will­ing to believe in her.

Mr. Jones is inept in mat­ters of love, but a genius at things mechan­i­cal. In Idensea, he has con­structed a glit­ter­ing pier that astounds the wealthy tourists. And in Bet­sey, he rec­og­nizes the ideal tour man­ager for the Idensea Pier & Plea­sure Build­ing Company.

After a life­time of guard­ing her secrets and break­ing the rules, Bet­sey becomes a force to be reck­oned with. Together, she and Mr. Jones must find a way for her to suc­ceed in a soci­ety that would reject her, and fig­ure the price of sur­ren­der­ing to the tides of love …

Why I read this book: While at the 2013 RT Convention I passed an author’s gorgeous display in Author Alley, by far the best there. The display made me stop and look, and the book’s cover made me want to read it. I also admired the creative marketing tools like magnets advertising the fictitious vacation resort where the book is set. The following day the author had set-up station at the Giant Book Fair and was standing in front of her stall, telling passers-by that they could have a play on her vintage typewriter. The author’s engaging attitude got me to stop and have a quick chat, and I couldn’t resist buying the book – the only book I bought from an unknown-to-me author at the Giant Book Fair, out of hundreds of authors (and I only bought two other books, from my fav authors). My point with all this? Creative marketing really does pay off. In fact, I was so intrigued by The Typewriter Girl that it was the first book I chose to read out of the 30+ books (mostly free) that I left the convention with.