February 24, 2011

Made It Moment: Geraldine Evans

Filed under: Made It Moments — jenny @ 8:40 am

Deadly Reunion

One of the joys of having a blog–and of the web in general–is “meeting” people I never otherwise would have. Literally never, in the instances where we come from different states, or even countries. Sometimes in retrospect it’s hard to track the circuitous paths that lead to these meetings, but I do actually recall the chain that brought me to a post by Geraldine Evans, where I caught sight of her absolutely spectacular book cover. Please take a look at it–then read what Geraldine has to say about making it.

Geraldine Evans

My first ‘Made it’ Moment was the acceptance letter for Land of Dreams, after six long years and six rejected books-worth of trying. Alas, there was a sting in the tale. Well, two stings actually: The discovery that the last page was missing from this, my first published book and the rejection of my follow-up romance.

My next ‘Made it’ Moment was when my very first crime novel, Dead Before Morning, was plucked from Macmillan’s slush pile and published in hb and pb both in the UK and in the States. There was even a sniff of interest from a Los Angeles film company… The latter came to nothing as these things generally do, but I went on to publish another three books in the Rafferty series with Macmillan.

They were then taken over by a firm of German publishers and I was given my marching orders. There followed a second six year period when I received nothing but rejections.

But, phoenix-like to the last, I rose again, when one of the agents to whom I had sent Up in Flames, the first novel in my second series, rang me. As it turned out, she not only placed that novel with Severn House, she also placed Absolute Poison, the novel rejected by Macmillan. She also sold Reluctant Queen, my first historical about Henry VIII’s little sister, Mary Rose Tudor (written under the name Geraldine Hartnett), to Robert Hale. Altogether Vanessa, my agent, has gone on to sell Severn House twelve other novels, ten in my Rafferty & Llewellyn crime series and a second in my Casey & Catt crime series.

Perhaps, after all that, my best ‘Made it’ Moments, have been those brought about by readers throughout my publishing career, whether I was in or whether I was out, those lovely people – the readers, who take the trouble to write in about how much they loved a particular book or particular characters. Truly, those are the ‘Made it’ Moments that most inspire.

Geraldine Evans has been writing since her twenties, though only began to get novels published halfway through her thirties. As well as her popular Rafferty & Llewellyn crime series, she has a second crime series, Casey & Catt and has also had published an historical, a romance and articles on a variety of subjects–Historical Biography, Writing, Astrology, Palmistry. She has also written a dramatization of Dead Before Morning, the first book in her Rafferty series.

She is a Londoner, but now lives in Norfolk England where she moved, with her husband George, in 2000.

Deadly Reunion is her eighteenth novel and fourteenth in the humorous Rafferty & Llewellyn crime series. She is currently working on the next in the series.






9 Comments »

  1. Thanks for hosting me, Jenny. I look forward to reading the comments on this, my publication day for Deadly Reunion.

    Comment by Geraldine Evans — February 24, 2011 @ 9:43 am

  2. Wow, great stuff you have written! Congrats on making it! I didn’t know that about Macmillan–what a shame. But you kept going! Neat. And it shows how perseverance pays off in the end, which is very inspiring. It sounds like you could add a book about publishing to your repertoire, if you wanted to! :) (Hey, as a side note of possible interest, I actually descend from Henry’s line, through Richard Edwardes. Fun stuff to know!)

    Comment by Savvy — February 24, 2011 @ 11:04 am

  3. Hi Savvy, Wow! You could be a Pretender to the throne! Seriously, though, I think perseverance is the greatest requirement in any writer: if you don’t have that, you have nothing because you’ll never get anywhere. Sad to say, but would-be writers ought to swallow that fact. Happy reading. Regards. G

    Comment by Geraldine Evans — February 24, 2011 @ 12:02 pm

  4. Enjoyed this moment!

    Comment by Judy — February 24, 2011 @ 12:31 pm

  5. Oh, yes, Geraldine, the writing life is, indeed, a rollercoaster. But it’s worth hanging on, isn’t it? After publishing almost 30 books in a variety of genre I was completely out of the loop for 10 years. But, as you say, the phoenix rise is worth waiting for. Wishing you the very best all the way up.

    Comment by Donna — February 24, 2011 @ 4:44 pm

  6. Judy, Thank you.

    Thank you, Donna. And the same to you with knobs on! Almost 30 books. That’s amazing. Have you thought of going the ebook route for your out of print books? Or even for your new ones. I wrote a post during the blog tour on how to go about preparing a book for epubbing: it might be worth your while reading it if you know little about the subject. It was the post on 10 February with Peg Brantley. If you’re interested, go to my website, scroll down till you get to Blog Tour. Click on this and you’ll find the post link. Good luck to you for the future.

    Comment by Geraldine Evans — February 25, 2011 @ 1:19 pm

  7. Now all I have to do is kill Every. Single. Person. that stands between me and the crown!! MWAH ah ha ha ha!!!

    Comment by Savvy — February 26, 2011 @ 11:08 am

  8. Savvy, Wait till the Royal Wedding’s over – we get a day off for that in the UK!

    Comment by Geraldine Evans — February 26, 2011 @ 1:46 pm

  9. Geraldine, you’re a great role model for fledgling writers who are tempted to give up in frustration. As well as a good writer, I might add. I enjoyed interviewing you at my Mysterious Writers site.

    Comment by Jean Henry Mead — March 15, 2011 @ 3:13 pm

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