The Best Review You Can Leave Me

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you might have noticed that I love a good natter with my followers. It’s one of my favourite parts of being an author — the conversations, the connections, the lovely people who pop up to say that Florence made them laugh, or that The Magical Tearoom on the Hill made them cry happy tears.

What I’m less keen on are the messages that barge into those conversations uninvited. You know the ones. ‘Send me that post.’ ‘I’ll review.’ No hello. No introduction. No warmth whatsoever. Just a demand, really — and almost always with a price tag attached.

I’ve had quite a few of these recently, and I want to be straight with you: paid reviews are not something I’ll ever go down the road of. Not because I’m being awkward, but because they’re simply not worth anything. A review that’s been bought tells you nothing about whether a book is any good. It tells you only that someone wanted to be paid for saying something about one of my books that they probably wouldn't even have read.

Sara the fairy would not be impressed, nor would Jessica.

The reviews that mean the most to me are the ones that come from my real readers. The ones that someone took five minutes out of their day to write because one of my books moved them, made them smile, or ended up as a bedtime favourite. Those are gold. Absolute gold.

Now, I know Amazon has been quietly making it harder to leave a review unless you’ve bought directly through them — which means most of my lovely customers, who buy through my website or meet me at my talks and workshops, may find themselves blocked from leaving one there. So I’d like to ask you something.

If you’ve read any of my books — whether that’s one of the Florence stories, The Magical Tearoom on the Hill, Beatrix the Time Travelling Collie, or Campervan Capers — would you consider leaving me a review right here in the comments below? It doesn’t need to be long. A sentence or two is just as precious as a paragraph.

And if you’re new here — hello, welcome, I’m so glad you found me — you might not know yet that I have eight books to my name. They’re all available in my shop, and I’d love for you to have a look.

Click here to see our books

You might also notice that both Florence and I will be a little quiet on social media over the next few days. As some of you know, I had to postpone my Land’s End to John o’ Groats cycling adventure until next year — I’m keeping an eye on somebody who needs a bit of looking after at the moment. So instead, I’m heading down to Blackpool on Friday for a quick trip.

Before you ask — no, I will not be seeing the lights. They were the same when I was forced to go and look at them as a child over fifty years ago, and I have it on good authority that nothing has changed. Nor will I be setting foot inside the Pleasure Beach either, which now costs an arm and a leg just to walk around it. Heck, I can remember my mum giving me a £5 note to go in the amusement park all those years ago. I thought that was a fortune, and I think I had some change left. Now I can’t even push Minnie and Harley on a roundabout without feeling queasy, so the Big Dipper and the Wild Mouse are entirely out of the question. Are they even still there?

Whether you’re a long-time reader or you’re just discovering Mother Murphy’s, your words mean more than you know. Thank you for being here.

Don't forget to leave a comment or a review.