It’s been a giddy week, full of wonderful messages of support from readers. Mine has been out for a few weeks and reviews are starting to appear online. I absolutely adore the amazing book posts on Instagram. But I’ll do a blog about that soon.

The book was officially launched at the Book Lounge last Wednesday. If you haven’t visited it yet (where have you been?) The Book Lounge is the coolest bookshop in the city. Not only do they have a wide variety of signed local and international titles (including Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer), zines and children’s books, the store also hosts regular book launches in the evenings, which are extremely popular.

So naturally, I was super excited to launch my new novel there. My excitement quadrupled when owner Mervyn Sloman asked if he could do the Q&A himself. (I’ve been told this is quite the honour – just ask Karina Szczurek).

It was such a brilliant evening. Mervyn’s questions really got to the heart of the story. We spoke about my reasons for writing the novel, the tough emotional toll it took to write certain scenes, and we explored the character of Kayla at length. She really was the hardest character I’ve ever written. She’s bright, beautiful and bursting with potential – and yet tragically damaged, which affects the choices she makes. It was important for me to write truthfully, to scratch beneath the surface of the classic boy-meets-girl love story and write honestly about love. It’s not always heart emojis and butterflies. Love can be a Pandora’s Box of doubt, fear and jealousy.

Mervyn’s questions were tough, but it was great to finally talk about the book with someone who totally got it and to celebrate with SO MANY FRIGGING PEOPLE. Wow.

Thanks to everyone who turned out to support me and buy the novel despite Budget Speech chaos happening down the road. I hope you managed to get hold of the limited-edition Mine bookmarks and stickers – if not, I think The Book Lounge still have some bookmarks left.

I want to say a special thank you to The Book Lounge for graciously hosting the event and to everyone at NB Publishers for being so wonderfully supportive. And of course Leopard’s Leap for the yummy, yummy wine (always handy when public speaking is required).

It was just perfect.

Pics taken by NB Publishers, Helene Prinsloo and Karina Szczurek.