“Red Dirt Diary” by Katrina Nannestad
“We have an extra special coffee and dessert evening planned for you !” said the woman at the front of church. “With a guest author!”
“Oh dear,” I thought.
A name was mentioned – Katrina Nannestad. I hadn’t heard it before.
“Oh dear,” I thought.
Someone beside me whispered that the author was somebody’s wife’s something.
“Oh dear,” I thought. “I bet it’s someone who’s busily congratulating themselves on the decision to self-publish their utterly awful drivel, and who is now desperately self-promoting while putting off the realisation that no-one would willingly buy their book except through sheer face-to-face embarrassment.”
And everyone at church knows I’m a writer, too. I bet they think I’m SO pleased.
Oh dear.
I went home and googled Katrina Nannestad. The word “diary” in the title rang loud alarm bells – but she WAS published by Harper Collins, so she had to be pretty all right. I emailed the woman from church saying I’d come, and ordered “Red Dirt Diary” from the library. If it was awful, I could just keep quiet at the ladies’ evening and no-one would get hurt.
The rest of the review is at Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
Felicity Banks 
Red Dirt Diary 2: Blue About Love « Louise Curtis said,
July 12, 2012 at 10:20 pm
[…] Last week I wrote about my surprise and delight to discover a brilliant new (to me at least) author, Katrina Nannestad. When I really love an author’s first book, I get quite scared to read any more of their work. What if they’re not as good? […]