Coming face to face with potential readers is always interesting.

In the case of One Year One Night by SL Roman, we’ve gone out and spoken to different types of reading groups.

Our furthest group was at a book festival in North Wales where we sold copies of the paperback edition. We had a warm welcome at the festival in the pretty town of Mold and the members of the audience also included local poets.

Our oddest group was when we addressed an otherwise very friendly care home in Egham in Surrey. Because Covid was still a thing, we had to speak to an audience separated by a transparent plastic barrier. However it went well and we had some vivid contributions from older British people who had been evacuated in World War 2.

And our nearest group was in our home town of Kingston where we both live – albeit on different sides of Kingston Bridge. Myself and my writing partner Laura Meloni Bywaters spoke to the library’s reading group after the publication in North America of One Year One Night by SL Roman, by Red Chair Press.

The members of the group thought SL Roman was one person and were surprised to see me – Sarah Onions and Laura walk in to talk about our successful young adult fiction novel ‘One Year, One Night’.

The event was organised by librarian Valeria Digiacomo and differed from book clubs in that readers were encouraged to examine short excerpts in depth.

The audience was interested to hear how we would cope with the N. American publication when it came to what publisher Keith Garton of Red Chair Press called ‘Britishisms’ – like ‘cuppa’, meaning a cup of tea,of course..

There’ve been other speaking events but those are the ones that stand out.

So let’s hope our first young adult novel stands out as a wartime romance featuring a teenage diary.

Happy Reading!

Note to editor. SL Roman is the pen-name of Sarah Onions and Laura Meloni Bywaters who both live in the borough of Kingston in SW London. Sarah was born in Brighton in southern England and Laura was born in Rome.

Now on sale everywhere: in the UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Year-Night-S-L-Roman/dp/B09GZPYRJ4 and in the US: https://www.amazon.com/One-Year-Night-2nd/dp/194715981X.

Also, at Barnes and Noble in North America. And in Surbiton, SW London at The Regency bookshop.