# Irish Bestsellers on Kindle



## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

Hi,

My name is Susanne O'Leary and I have just e-published three books on Amazon Kindle (also on smashwords). The first two were bestsellers in Ireland when they came out. And I just finished writing the third.

I write in the Womens' Fiction genre. My books are : Fresh Powder







is set in the French Alps (about a group of people who get snowed into a luxury chalet) and pure chick-lit

Finding Margo







, set in Paris and a Chateau in the French countyside (about a woman who walks out on her husband in the middle ot a French motorway after a row about her mapreading skills), a little more serious but a fun read.

Swedish for Beginners







is set in Stockholm, Sweden (about a young woman who goes to Sweden to discover the family of her late mother).

I know you're allowed on thread per book but I decided it would be less boring to put them all into one.


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## LCEvans (Mar 29, 2009)

Hi, Susanne,
Your books sound really good. I love women's fiction and also write it (my woman's fiction book is We Interrupt This Date). I sampled Finding Margo and Swedish for Beginners and also tagged them for you. I tried to do the same for Fresh Powder, but the Amazon page said they weren't available yet. Best of luck with your writing.


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

Thank you that's very kind of you. My books are also available on Smashwords (www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Susanne) where you can see their lovely covers.  

My problem with Amazon is that I don't seem to be able to upload a cover picture for any of my books. I've converted them to the right size and type--but still nothing.

these days authors have to be computer-specialists as well!


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## Carol Hanrahan (Mar 31, 2009)

I downloaded the free samples.


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

I uploaded three books on Amazon Kindle about two weeks ago, two of them, Finding Margo







and Fresh Powder







had already been published in print in Ireland and Swedish for Beginners







is my brand new novel that hasn't been published in print yet.

Since then the sales have been really good and continue to tick away every day, but what has astounded me is the response from readers. 'Finding Margo' has already a four star review and 'Swedish for Beginners' got a five star one a few days ago. Also, I have noticed readers recommending my books to each other on the Amazon Kindle discussion forum!

Fresh Powder is ticking away on its own and is doing well also. So, I am certainly a very happy author!


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## Ricky Sides (Sep 16, 2009)

Congratulations!

I hope you continue to enjoy success in all of your endeavors.

Sincerely,
Ricky


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## CJ West (Feb 24, 2010)

Congratulations.  Glad you are getting such great feedback on your work.  

CJ


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## J Dean (Feb 9, 2009)

Good to hear.  Keep up the good work!


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## Dana (Dec 4, 2009)

Great news!  Seems like the Swedish for Beginners title didn't hamper your success!


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## Carol Hanrahan (Mar 31, 2009)

Great news, Susanne!  I like the title Swedish for Beginners!


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

Thanks everyone! Swedish for beginners is supposed to go with the story of someone discovering a strange country.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Congratz, especially about seeing people recommend your books to others. That's gotta give you a warm fuzzy feeling.

David Dalglish


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

It's amazing. And hearing from readers who loved my books is better than anything.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Hi, Susanne!

Congratulations on your sales and on the great feedback from your readers!  I'm going to get samples of your books as soon as I finish posting this.

I've merged "Overwhelmed and Delighted" with your original book thread "Irish Bestsellers on Kindle." as we ask that authors post news and information about their books in their original thread. This helps members and fans keep up with what's going on with your books.  You can bookmark your thread so you can easily find it in the future to add updates to.  We do ask that you bump your thread no more than once a week (a bump being a post when there have been no other member posts to it.) but of course you can respond to any member posts to the thread as they happen.

Thanks for being a member of KindleBoards.

Betsy
Book Bazaar Moderator


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

Thanks a lot Betsy. Good idea to merge the threads. I understand about the bumping too. Otherwise the boards would be run over with athors promoting their books.


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

As I haven't 'bumped' this thread for a while, I hope there are no objections to me doing it today.


The news I have about my books is that Swedish for Beginners will be out in print in late May-early June and in the bookshops by September. Some pre-orders have already come in.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Good news, Susanne!

Betsy


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## Tina C. (Jan 20, 2010)

I found your book "Swedish For Beginners" while reading on Kindleboards, read a sample from Amazon & was so intrigued because of my own family history, just had to buy the book which I started reading today.

    You see, my mother immigrated from Norway in 1927 at the age of 16.  She came through Ellis Island, no one was there to pick her up on the day she processed out of Ellis Island.  She sat all day long upon her steamer trunk on the wharf waiting until the family she was to work for as a Nanny could pick her up.

    I do not know very much about my mother's early life in Norway, it was a very unhappy time for her, she would not tell me very much at all.  Because of a very kind Norwegian man I now know the names of my grandparents.  He did research at the church in Drammen where birth records are kept.  One day I would like to go to Drammen,  see the city where my mother was born, lived in. 

I'm enjoying your book.

Tina


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

Thank you so much Tina! And yours is a fascinating story. I really want to know what happened to that young woman...


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## Tina C. (Jan 20, 2010)

I've finished your book, I enjoyed it so much.  Seeing the character grow, change was such fun. Your character was searching for knowledge of her mother, her mother's people.  This I identified so closely with.  I've wondered all my life about my own mother's past, my maternal grandparents. Mom passed away at 76, we were very close.  I have one child,  a daughter that turned 16 in Jan, she resembles her grandmother so it's been such a joy for me to see a little of what my own mother may have looked like at that age. 

    There is very little that I know of mom's early life in Drammen, Norway.  She was born in 1911, lived for the first 4 years with her mother, than because her father became sick, her mother had to take care of him she could no longer live with her.  She lived with another family.  Mom told me that they were paid to take care of her, when the money was late for her care it would be taken out on her.  The man of the house was in a wheel chair, he was kind but his wife was not.  Mom remembered being locked in a closet as punishment by the woman.  

    The only thing mom ever said about her father was that she would see him walking around Drammen, that he would place his hands behind his back as he walked, that I did the same thing when I would be out walking.  She never said anything about her mother.  One of my sisters told me that mom had said her mother would visit her once a week, but she never told me this herself.  Mom mentioned that her grandmother was a pianist.

    Mom had a brother that was a couple of years older than her, he lived in Drammen too, but mom did not know him, he drowned in a river.  During the summers mom would go to stay with an aunt in the country on a farm which she did enjoy. 

    She loved school, in norway at that time students went to school 6 days a week, or at least she did at the school she went to, the dentist came to the school, filled, pulled teeth without any type of pain killer. After mom came to the united states she wrote to one of her teachers in Norway until World War II, after that there were no more letters.

      Mom loved to read, because she loved "A Girl of the Limberlost" which she first read in Norwegian, I read it too.  Mom was not very good at ice skating, she claimed it was because of  "fat ankles" but she did well on skis.

      Because of things that my mother told my sisters, they believe that when she left norway her parents had already passed away, but I just don't know for sure. 

    When mom immigrated to this country she like almost everyone else at the time came in a ship.  She told me that she was terribly sea sick, was in a cabin with one other lady whom she did not care for at all.  

Ellis Island has always been portrayed as place of such hope, but mom also experienced the dark side of Ellis Island, she told me if a member of a family was not "healthy", did not meet certain health criteria for the year 1927, they were NOT allowed to leave Ellis Island to come into the country, but instead were sent back to their country of orgin.  Families were separated, some to never see each other again.  

      I have very few pictures of my mom, she became a us citizen in 1948 so I have a picture of her from the age of 37 due to when her paper work was filed.  I remember in the 1960's there would be commercials on TV about the need for aliens to register before the end of the year, mom would always make some type of comment, she really hated to remember when she was an alien in this country, she was so proud that she was a citizen that she no longer had to register.  Everytime a baseball game was on TV, when the National Anthem would play, mom would sing along, loudly,  she was so proud to be a part of this country.  Every year she and dad would vote, she took this matter of voting very seriously.  I would go with them, watching them go behind the curtain to cast their ballots.
    
    My mother lived in New York state from 1927 - until around 1952.  The details that I had from her were very schechy, she just would not talk about her past, it's like her life started at 43 when she gave birth to me, but I've been able to piece together parts of her life from the little that she had told me over the years.

    She worked for the family that sponsored her as a nanny for a few years.  She may have been related to them, but I've never really been sure. 

    Not a word of English did she speak, she taught herself with a dictionary.  Mom would try to learn words, gets so frustrated that she would throw that dictionary across the room in anger, cry her eyes out, than go pick it up and keep on going.

    Two things that mom hated about New York, the humidity, she told me that she would take a shower, get dressed, walk to work, feel almost as damp as when she steped out of the shower, the other ?, pigeons, she could not walk down the street without being hit with pigeon droppings !

    Mom worked in a nail polish factory.  Was a candy girl at Schrafft's where she waited upon several 1930's, 1940's broadway stars.  She told me that  "kept women, misstresses of whealthy men"  would have charge accounts at Schraffs, one day they could charge anything they wanted, the next they would come in and be told;  "I'm sorry but you are no longer authorized, or a user on this account."  

    She lived either across the street from or near Carnegie Hall at one point.  Her last residence was in White Plains, I have the address because of her citizenship papers.  I looked up the address on google maps a few months age, the apartment that she lived in is still there.
  
      While living in New York state she was married twice, of one of the marriages her comment was " I was married for 11 years, one year in silence ", that marriage ended when she traveled across the country to get a divorce in Reno.

    Mom's first job in Reno was as a Keno girl in a casino.  At the time that she met my dad she was working at a nursing home where he was also employed at.  They married, moved to California where I was born a little over a year later, she was 43, he was 47.  

    Mom and Dad were married for 32 years at the time of her death.  As far as I know mom did not have any other children.  I have three sisters, two of which are stilling living, one brother that passed away in the 70's. I was very close to my sisters, brother.  When I questioned my mother about what to call my dad's first wife I've been told she said to me:  "to call their mother Mama Jewel because she is another mother".  I really loved my sister's, brother's mother, she was such a wonderful person.


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

Tina, that is so moving. What a story! There is a book there, have you ever thougth of writing it?

Thank yo so much for telling me about it. I now understand why my novel would have been so important to you.


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## Tina C. (Jan 20, 2010)

Susanne:

*Tina, that is so moving. What a story! There is a book there, have you ever thougth of writing it?

Thank yo so much for telling me about it. I now understand why my novel would have been so important to you.*

You're welcome Susanne, 
But as far as telling it, I really do not have the special gift for writing that would take. Just telling you has brought back so many memories, things I had forgotten.

Tina


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

That's wonderful, Tina. I have to tell you that I have been amazed by the reactions to this novel, that sprang form my own feelings of rootlessness and confusion about my identity. Many readers, especially in America, have told me similar stories and said that this novel brought back memories of their families in foreign countries.

I suppose that, if you write what's in your heart, you touch more people than you can imagine.


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## Belita (Mar 20, 2010)

Those sound like books I might be interested in. I downloaded the samples. Thanks!


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

Hi Belita,

I hope you enjoy them!


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

My weekly bump and also to say that all my books have been reduced to $2.99.

Happy Easter!
Susanne
Fresh Powder








Finding Margo








Swedish for Beginners - a novel


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

I haven't bumped 'my' thread for ages.

Nothing much to report, except I'm proofreading Swedish for Beginners- a novel







for the paperback version, which will be available in a month or so.

One strange thing: a reviewer complained about the 'casual sex an nudity' in the book. I don't remember writing any, except a brief mention of two people being in love... But I suppose if you look for something to be shocked by, you'll find it anywhere.


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## Tina C. (Jan 20, 2010)

You just can't please everyone, not wanting to give any spoilers, but if the little that you hinted at was a cause for concern in a modern novel, than no one tell her about Fanny Hill by John Cleland published way back in 1748 !


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

I thought it a little old fashioned, I have to say. I mean this is the 21st century after all.


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## sierra09 (Jun 20, 2009)

I have to agree with the others. I honestly can't think of one book recently that I've browsed, owned and read that didn't have some form of sex or nudity involved. Heck, these days it's more than casual or modest. To read a modern contemporary romance and not expect some of that is silly. I wouldn't worry too much as we can't please every reader.

To be honest, I read your post and was amazed. I've been expecting one of those with my latest book.


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

Anyone who's read mine will be amazed too and wondering what they missed? sex is mentioned, yes but not in any way explicit.

As for the 'nudity' mentioned in my novel... If you find yourself on an island in the Stockholm archipelago on a beautiful summer's morning and wander down the path to the rocks, well, who wouldn't slip out of ther pj's and swim in the cool, blue water, only accompanied by a fish or two and a couple of seagulls? And then to lie on a smooth, warm rock and dry off in the sun... Its the most delicious thing. I see NOTHING wrong with that at all.

Those who don't like that, are missing a wonderful experience.


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

I just got another wonderful five star review on Finding Margo









I also want to thank those who sent me messages of support during the last few days. It really cheered me up and felt like the sun breaking through dark clouds.


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## lib2b (Apr 6, 2010)

Hi Susanne,

I just wanted to say that I started reading _Fresh Powder_ this weekend, and I'm really enjoying what I've read so far. I purchased the epub format from Smashwords, and the formatting is very strange on my Nook though. Every few paragraphs the font becomes very large and then gets smaller again, and a few paragraphs are centered instead of being justified to the edges like the rest. I tried changing the font display size on my Nook itself, but it doesn't seem to affect the size differences. Do you know if anyone else who has purchased from Smashwords is seeing strange formatting as well?

It's definitely still readable, and as I said, I'm enjoying what I've read so far, but it is a little distracting. Not the end of the world, I was just wondering if anyone else saw this too.


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

That's very strange. I had it formatted professionally and nobody has said anything since it was published in February. It was also approved for Smashwords Premium Catalogue. 

I also did a second formatting especially for Kindle. Glad you're enjoying it anyway. I might get on to Smashwords about this.


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## lib2b (Apr 6, 2010)

I don't know if this helps at all, but here are pictures of what it looks like on my Nook. I put thin red boxes around one of the strangely centered paragraphs in one picture and around the smaller font size in the second picture.

Font size changes
Centered text

One thing I noticed, when a paragraph is centered instead of justified, it always seems to be right before one of those *** breaks between sections. It doesn't happen every time there's a break, but when it happens, I've noticed it's right before one of those breaks. I don't see a pattern with the font size changes, but almost every "page" has at least some text that's a different font size.

I'm also not sure if it's intentional that the paragraphs are double-spaced _and_ indented. If I look at the HTML version on the Smashwords site, it doesn't have the double-spaced paragraphs, weird font changes, or centering problems. I even re-downloaded the epub file to see if it would make a difference, but it doesn't.


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

I'm really sorry about this and also somewhat puzzled as the formatting was properly done. I have sent a report to Smashwords with links to the text you menioned and we;ll see what they say. Thanks for pointing it out to me. I hope you continue to enjoy my novel.


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

Swedish for beginners







has a new cover, which I love (the old one had copyright issues and had to be changed) and I recently heard that the Irish libraries have put in an order for it across Ireland.

My romantic comedy, Villa Caramel







, set on the French Riviera has started to take off and I have already two lovely reviews

http://www.assoc-

[url=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003JMEKZ2?ie=UTF8&tag=kbpst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003JMEKZ2][img]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5145TiEFoAL._SL160_AA115[/url]


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## Susanne O (Feb 8, 2010)

Hello all,

haven't bumped my thread for ages. I'm happy to say all my books are selling really well and I got some lovely new reviews.

Many thanks to all who have read and then took the trouble to let me know you liked my books.

Susanne x


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