Being filmed discussing La Ferme du Bout du Monde.

Much of an author's life - or this author's life - is mundane and isolated, I've discovered. Compared to the buzz of a newsroom when a story's breaking, or the hum of a lobby corridor, my previous work environments, it can be solitary, doubt-inducing, and, when the words won't flow, a peculiarly toxic combination of stressful and dull*.

So it's particularly lovely to experience rare moments of excitement and glamour: a recent trip to the London Book Fair to have dinner with my US and UK editors; a Simon & Schuster crime evening where I met fellow writers; and, most recently, three packed days in Paris launching and promoting La Ferme du Bout du Monde, the French version of The Farm at the Edge of the World.

At Thé-rittoire, Paris, discussing La Ferme, and answering questions from bloggeurs, some of whom I recognised from my previous French launch.

It's fair to say that, while The Farm at the Edge of the World has had the most beautiful reviews in the UK it hasn't troubled the bestseller lists. But the French edition, published by Préludes, a sumptuous imprint of Le Livre de Poche, entered the charts in the top 50 has already reached number 34. There have been reviews and a full page advert in French Elle and it was reviewed on Télé-Matin by Nathalie Iris, the owner of Les Mots en Marges bookshop, which held a signing. Click for the link for the TV review here. There's also a fantastic Youtube review with influential bookseller and literary festival organiser Gérard Collard here.

Likened to Daphne du Maurier - a huge inspiration for this novel - in French Elle.

My trip involved being interviewed by bloggeurs and journalists, two signings, videoed interviews, in which my schoolgirl French finally became more fluent, and a celebratory lunch where I was plied with raspberry macarons infused with lychee and rose water and rosé champagne just because they complemented my novel's spine. But the best moment came in Les Mots en Marges bookshop where a voracious reader told me she was so immersed in the book she walked to work reading, dodging other commuters and lamp posts. "It's the pearl in my day," she said.

Signing at the launch, where we drank tea - or champagne - and ate delicate savoury scones, a take on the food of Cornwall.

Le Livre de Poche/Préludes team - with my editor, Audrey Petit, dressed to co-ordinate with the cover; directrice générale Véronique Cardi, (right), and marketing director Florence Mas (left). Photo by Bobby Hall (my lovely mum.)

At Les Mots en Marges - Notes in the Margin - bookshop, where one reader made my trip by telling me she walked to work while reading my book. 

Celebratory Pierre Hermé macarons, forest fruits and basil ice-cream, and rosé champagne, consumed because they correspond with this edition's raspberry pink spine.

I've deliberated about posting these pictures, back home in a world shaken by the Manchester bombing - an echo of the Bataclan shootings - and the political unease generated by Brexit and an imminent, needless general election. But just as I went to Paris weeks after the devastating November 2015 attacks - and blogged about it here - so I've decided to celebrate something so positive.

I was overwhelmed by the response from French readers, whose questions were, without exception, thoughtful, probing and incisive. It seems that a novel which probes the past - the dramatic thrust set during the Second World War, something within living memory of the parents of these readers - and is preoccupied with "la psychologie feminine" resonates across the Channel. There was also much enthusiasm for La Cornouailles.

La Ferme du Bout du Monde has been described as "une petite pépite" - a little nugget - and this trip is my equivalent. A reminder of the best part of writing - engaging with readers; and that - with the connections I've made with readers and my French publishers - I feel more European than ever. 

As I battle with book 4 - currently in its disconcertingly anarchic first draft stage - I'm feeding off these memories - and looking forward to creating more. On June 24, I'll be at the Salon Saint-Maur en Poche, the largest paperback literary festival in France. If you're a French reader who's come across this blog, I'd love to see you there.

*It can, of course, be wonderful. There are days when the characters start writing the novel themselves - but my view, at the moment, is clouded by my writing an early draft.

The Farm at the Edge of the World has just come out in paperback and to celebrate I'm organising an exclusive give-away of a copy of the novel and a box of clotted cream fudge for local readers of the Great and Little Shelford newsletters.

All you need to do is tell me, in the comments below, your favourite childhood memory. It doesn't have to be long, exotic, or exquisitely written. It just needs to capture the essence of childhood. The competition ends on February 10 and I'll get David Martin, who compiles the newsletters, to choose the winner.

I also thought I'd share the cover of the German edition of this novel, which has a changed title of The House of Hidden Dreams. The low-slung granite farmhouse has been a rather beautiful Georgian home and Maggie, my farmer's daughter, has become rather more glamorous but I love the high cliffs and sense of romance and impending tragedy:

Here, too, is the French version, published on 5 April, which keeps my title. This farmhouse reminds me of those in East Sussex but the sense of it being isolated and remote - a farm at the edge of the world - is intense. This Maggie is truly at the cliff's edge. I'm fascinated by how my farm at the edge of the world has been interpreted:

If you'd like to hear more about the story of the novel, and how I came to write it, I've recently been interviewed on local radio. Here I am with Jeremy Sallis at BBC Radio Cambridgshire, 2 hrs, 22 minutes in; and here on Radio Cambridge 105's Bookmark programme, 14 minutes 50 seconds in.

And if you're unsuccessful in the giveaway, The Farm at the Edge of the World will  be half price - £3.99 - from 7-21 February in WH Smith stores if you buy a copy of Woman magazine. Thank you for taking the time to read, and I hope you enjoy it.

First sighting in the wild - at WH Smith's Travel, Heathrow Terminal 5.

The Farm at the Edge of the World was published in paperback last Thursday and to celebrate Hodder have kindly arranged a giveaway of 10 copies of the novel plus 20 boxes of sea salt and caramel and clotted cream fudge. 

All you need to do is visit the Bookends page on Facebook and mention your favourite childhood holiday adventure after clicking here. I'd enter if I could because the caramel sea salt, from the Buttermilk shop in Padstow, is mouth-wateringly good. Hopefully, you'll also enjoy the book.

I've also been on local radio discussing the inspiration for my novel, the setting, and how I write. Normally I hate listening to myself - "posh" says one child; "low" says another - but I think these interviews might be interesting and perhaps even useful to readers and writers.

Here I am talking to the perceptive Leigh Chambers, on Cambridge 105's Bookmark programme, 14 minutes 50 seconds in (for about ten minutes). To listen, just click here.

And here I am on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire's Jeremy Sallis's arts and entertainments show. I'm 2 hours 23 minutes in for nine minutes (until 2 hrs, 32) if you click here. I never know if you should admit to how difficult writing can be - but I'd be interested as a novelist or a reader in knowing the various stages of writing; and in hearing about the inspiration for a novel. Anyway, lulled by Jeremy, I divulge all...(or quite a lot...)

And now it's back to the brain ache of copy edits for Anatomy - and the excitement and daunting trepidation of starting a new novel: all those characters I'm creating want to get going but I'm not quite sure how to order them in my book.

The very best of luck with the competition - and if you do buy The Farm - half price from February 7-21 at WH Smith's with Woman magazine - I'd love to know what you think.  Happy New Year, and thank you for reading.

Publication day flowers from Hodder 

One chilly midwinter's night nine years ago my youngest was born: a mewling mass of dark hair and skinny limbs who gazed at me with the deep blue eyes of a newborn and reminded me of Christmas as a time of birth and renewal.

That Christmas baby is now the tallest boy in his class. A delicious combination of that infant, still, but with ever stronger flashes of the beautiful young man I can see him growing into. Adolescence is a good few years off but so are those precious baby years.

If Christmas makes me contemplate change then that cycle is played out in my writing. The day my children broke up for school two years ago, I delivered the manuscript of The Farm at the Edge of the World, my second novel, with a feeling of intense relief. Four or five drafts, and many, many revisions later, it's been published in hardback and this week a box of paperbacks arrived ready to be sent out into the world on January 12 - a hopeful start to the new year.

I'm very proud of this novel - about love, loss and atonement played out on a desolate stretch of the north Cornish coast. And yet, just as the mother of a newborn can never give her toddler enough attention, so I'm going to have to let the paperback edition of The Farm make its own tentative first steps. Because, the day my box of books arrived, I was finishing the copy edit for Anatomy of a Scandal, my third novel, which will be published in a year's time - in January 2018.

It would be tempting to focus solely on this book baby in the New Year. To my utter delight, it's sold to 15 different publishers and will be published in 20 countries so I imagine it will be clamouring for attention. And yet it will have a new sibling of a novel, still very much in the gestation process, to stretch the birthing analogy, but with a clear due date - or deadline - of February 1 2018.

The writerly cycle of birth and renewal will continue just as my not-so-baby boy and his big sister will grow and flourish. And, at the end of a universally bleak 2016, that fills me with hope and an immense, almost overwhelming sense of gratitude.

Thank you for reading and supporting. And a very Merry Christmas.