When the Blog Tour Ends... by Savita Kalhan

If you have ever organised a blog tour for your book then you will know that it can require months of work, researching book blogs, finding the blogs that a relevant to your area/age group, sending out enquiries to those bloggers, waiting for responses, (wondering whether anyone will ever get around to responding...). I was very lucky that fourteen bloggers wanted to be part of the blog tour and several others wanted to review the book on their blog. And that's only phase one.

Phase two involved organising the schedule, the dates, the blog tour banner, collecting the bloggers’ addresses, making sure review copies were sent to each of them ahead of time. This is not even taking into account the content I had to write for each guest post of the blog tour. 

But it was amazing. It was like stepping on a roller-coaster – each day it went somewhere else, spreading the word about my book, which was a fantastic feeling. I have a lot of respect for YA bloggers – they read voraciously, they review the books, they tweet and instagram them and spread the word about books they love. Some of them spend a lot of time on graphics like these photos by OLIVIA SAVANNAH 

So when it all comes to an end, what do you do? I decided to get away. First stop was a remote hilltop in Shropshire - and working out an internet connection for the live Twitter chat on my new book THE GIRL IN THE BROKEN MIRROR for #OHYABOOKCLUB hosted by the most enthusiastic school librarian Lucas Maxwell. Connection sorted, I spent an amazing hour answering questions on the book on Twitter. 

Okay, so 'getting away' from social media had to be deferred until the Friday!

A rainy day dawned, so a long hill walk was out of the question. A stroll around Bishops Castle was much more inviting, and here I fell in love with this beautiful metal work warrior fairy. The place outside which she was walking was closed, so I'm working finding her origins. 

I stepped further back into time and went on walking tour in and around Aberystwyth, where I went to Uni, with a reunion thrown in too. And I discovered things there that I could not believe I had missed out on doing as a student. I had never been on the Vale of Rheidol, a narrow steam guage train between Aberystwyth and Devil’s Bridge, so I did that. It’s a stunning one hour train journey that takes you along a track cut into the steep banks of the hillsides.

Devil’s Bridge is the setting for an episode of Hinterland – a brooding, dark and disturbing episode!

I had also never heard of the Hafod Estate, out near Devil’s Bridge. If you are ever in want of inspiration it is the place to go. It is a stunningly beautiful place. The mansion that once sat on the acres of land has long since gone, but the walks remain. 

You can choose from easier short trails, such as the 3.64 km Lady’s Walk, to the more challenging 6 km walk, The Gentleman’s Walk, which we did, where the distance is not the strenuous factor but the narrow, steep paths that wind around the hills, across rope bridges and waterfalls, and tracks that have you teetering on the edge of long drops down to the gorge!

Entrance to an old mine shaft

Robbers Cave

Cascade Falls from inside Robbers Cave

Where ever you are on the estate, the beauty of Hafod will take your breath away. 

And then sun came out for the weekend. Ynyslas beach, a couple of miles north of Aberystwyth is a huge stretch of sand and sand dunes. What could be more perfect?

Whether it’s a break you need, or inspiration, or a place to go to walk and write and think, a place of natural beauty is where I would go. Where would you go?

THE GIRL IN THE BROKEN MIRROR by Savita Kalhan was published by Troika Books on 1st May 2018

Savita's Website

@savitakalhan