Secrets, Schemes and Sewing Machines coverIt’s here at last – the official release day for Secrets, Schemes and Sewing Machines! I know some lucky people have been able to find it early online and in book shops – which is lovely, as it means I already have some brilliant reviews to blush over. Like this one from Maddie at Heart Full of Books, which says:

All in all, Katy Cannon knows how to write a perfect contemporary novel, with an excellent mixture of romance, friendship and drama. I can’t help but give this novel 5 out of 5 stars as well, which is unusual, as sequels normally never parallel the debut. I look forward to everyone getting to experience this novel and hopefully enjoying it as much as I did!

See? Blushing now.

Anyway, I’m so excited about this book being out in the wild, less than a year after Lottie and Mac’s story in Love, Lies and Lemon Pies. I hope you all enjoy Grace and Connor’s story as much as Maddie did.

Secrets, Schemes & Sewing Machines

As ever, I couldn’t have written, let alone edited and published, this book without some assistance. Sadly, there wasn’t room for an acknowledgements page in the book itself (you might notice it’s a bit heftier than its companion novel…) so I thought I’d say my thank yous here instead.

I have to admit had a lot of help while writing this book. In particular, I’d like to say thank you to my mum, Janet Cannon, for catching the sewing bug with me and spending time pouring over sewing books, choosing fabrics, and talking through ideas together. Thank you, too, to Georgina Hopwood for helping me with the projects, and everyone else who tested them for me.

Huge thanks must also go to the team at Stripes (and especially my editor Ruth Bennett) for all their hard work in making this story everything I hoped it would be.

And, as always, thank you to my agent, Gemma Cooper, for everything she does for me and my books behind the scenes, every day. You are a marvel.

Now that the book is out there, I’m hoping that plenty of you will be trying your hands at the sewing projects. To give you a hand, especially if you’re a beginner (as I was when I started this book!) in March I’m going to be Sewing Through The Story, in much the same way as I baked through Love, Lies and Lemon Pies. I’ll tackle every project again, from scratch, with plenty of photos and advice along the way. And if you need a little more assistance, I’m also putting together a page with helpful sewing links, tutorials and videos to accompany the project.

In the meantime, watch out for me on some of your favourite blogs and websites over the next month, on the Secrets, Schemes and Sewing Machines blog tour! I’ll be talking about all sorts of things, from my writing process to why craft matters. Oh, and there’s going to be a very exciting new competition too… details as soon as I have them to share!

Happy sewing, and reading, everyone!