Kissed by Jilly Cooper!

As many of you know, Monday March 5th was a highlight for me as Coming Home to Cuckoo Cottage had made the contemporary RNA shortlist and was up for a RoNA along with fellow Simon and Schuster authors, Milly Johnson and Holly Hepburn.

Here we all are, with overall winner of the entire night, fabulous Dani Atkins! Dani is another S and S author and her book, This Love was nominated in another category. Don't you just love the height order in this pic taken by Sara-Jade Virtue. How I would love to be further up the order, but never mind.

The evening was amazing and even though I didn't win the award I did get to chat with, hug and kiss, the lady who made me want to put pen to paper when I first read racy Riders by torchlight after lights out at boarding school!

Obviously I had no idea Jilly Cooper was going to be attending and was rather overcome when I spotted her. However, after a quick recovery courtesy of the smelling salts and a brown paper bag, I screwed my courage to the sticking place and approached her for a pic.

Jilly was kindness itself  and wanted to know all about my writing career. She was much amused when I explained how I had had to hide Rupert C-B from the nuns at school.

I might not have bagged myself a RoNA but I achieved a lifetime ambition and can say very, very proudly, that I have been kissed by Jilly Cooper. Life can't possibly get any better than that!