'Good Housekeeping' Magazine features Sara Bailey and 'Dark Water'

We're delighted that the February Edition of 'Good Housekeeping' Magazine has now hit the shelves. This month's magazine features Sara Bailey's personal story "It's never too late to be brave". 

The article begins: "Every time I look out across the bay from the bench that's in my father's name, I am caught off-guard again by the beauty that surrounds me and the amazing good fortune that carrying out one simple act of remembrance has brought me..."

Sara, author of the novel 'Dark Water' published by Nightingale Editions, writes here about how she came to return to Orkney, her childhood home, after many years, to place a bench in her late father's memory. That trip changed her life in more ways than one. On that trip, Sara met her boyfriend from her teens once again and eventually moved back to Orkney. They were married in the Italian Chapel more than 30 years after they first dated. It was Sara's now-husband Leslie who encouraged her to submit 'Dark Water' for publication.

February's edition of 'Good Housekeeping' featuring Sara Bailey's article is now out in the UK.

'Dark Water' is available to order in all good bookshops in the UK and online on Amazon here and Waterstones here.

London Launch party for 'Dark Water' at Waterstones, Teddington

We recently celebrated the publication of 'Dark Water' with a wonderful London launch party at Teddington Waterstones. Jacqui Lofthouse from Nightingale Editions and Stephanie Zia of Blackbird Digital Books hosted the party for Sara Bailey and the wonderful Michael Redina of Sam Lane photography captured the evening with these stunning photographs. We do hope you will enjoy them and be tempted to read Sara Bailey's novel, set in the beautiful Orkney islands; we are thrilled at the good reviews it has garnered so far.

Once the guests had arrived, Sara Bailey treated us to a reading from 'Dark Water' and there was an opportunity for questions from the audience. There was a lot of laughter too!

Our sincere thanks to Teddington Waterstones, to Noble Green Wine in Hampton Hill and to Richmond Adult College too for providing such inspiration over the years to so many local writers.

We do hope that you will enjoy 'Dark Water'. If you are local to Teddington and Hampton Hill, please do pop along to Teddington Waterstones and pick up a signed author copy whilst they're still in stock! 

We are so proud at Nightingale to be a new independent publishing imprint (of Blackbird Digital Books). We are based in Hampton Hill and we rely on your word of mouth to make a success of this our first novel - so that we can go on to publish many more authors.

If you'd like to read a review of 'Dark Water', set in the Orkney Islands, here's take a look at this one in the Herald, Scotland. We look forward to reading your reviews too...

Nightingale Editions visits Orkney to celebrate the launch of Dark Water

We had such a wonderful time at the launch of Sara Bailey's novel 'Dark Water'. In addition to the fantastic launch event at Highland Park, we also had time to explore the island and the locations that inspired the novel. We do hope you'll enjoy these images of the island and that you will be tempted to visit and explore...

Our visit to Stromness Library was so inspiring. This is where Sara Bailey often works in the lovely sofas by the window. She will also be attending an event at Orkney Library on 22nd October where she will be reading from her work. Further photographs of Sara Bailey and Stromness Library will shortly be featured on The Library Project blog.

We were lucky enough to be given a tour of the island and we visited many locations featured in in  Dark Water including the Italian Chapel made by Italian prisoners in the Second World War, an astonishing story of human capability and the wrecks, sunk to protect the island. 

Orkney is such a stunning island and we were lucky enough to enjoy the sunrises and sunsets from the window of Sara Bailey's home.

Sara was brought up in the village of Evie and she showed us the bench that she placed as a memorial to her father. His poetry inscribed on the bench reveals, perhaps, where she may have got some of her talent. Orkney is definitely a very special place and I must admit, I have never seen so many rainbows...

We do hope that you have enjoyed these photographs of our Orkney visit and if you don't know the island already that you will visit one day. 

In the meantime, the pleasure of Sara's Orkney awaits in 'Dark Water'.

The Orkney Launch of Sara Bailey's novel 'Dark Water' in pictures

We were privileged to be able to hold the launch for Sara Bailey's first novel 'Dark Water' at Highland Park Distillery in Kirkwall, Orkney. The team at Highland Park laid on a wonderful spread for our intimate crowd and in particular offered us a sample of a very special whisky, Dark Origins, such a perfect complement to the book.

We had a wonderful evening at the launch. None of us could imagine a more perfect setting in which to celebrate the publication of Dark Water. Jacqui Lofthouse, founder of Nightingale and Stephanie Zia of Blackbird Books attended - on their first trip to Orkney. We were joined by local media (The Orcadian) and booksellers as well as Sara Bailey's family. A second larger launch will be held at Orkney Library on Saturday 22nd October. Our trip to Orkney was extremely memorable and we're looking forward to sharing our images of the island in a subsequent post...

We do hope you will enjoy reading 'Dark Water'. The writer Amy Liptrot, author of 'The Outrun' writes:  "I couldn't help but be fascinated by this book. It uses the Orkney setting beautifully, and the islands are intertwined with the story of a woman facing the past she'd evaded for years: both in the clarity of the light and the roughness of the sea. It uses suspense and structure with skill ... The final scene was brilliantly described. Suspense, sex and selkie girls: irresistible!"

Our thanks to the team at Highland Park for such a wonderful evening. It's one we will always remember.

Revealing the cover for Sara Bailey's novel 'Dark Water'

We are delighted to reveal the cover design for our launch novel, Sara Bailey's 'Dark Water'

Dark Water

We do hope you love the design as much as we do. We believe that our cover expresses the essence of Sara's Orkney-set novel beautifully and hope that it entices you to want to know more about the novel and, of course, to read it. 

The cover was designed by the talented Mark Ecob of Mecob Designs, who was responsible for the wonderful and iconic Alexander McCall Smith covers and has designed covers for editions of Roald Dahl books and even for a Penguin edition of Charles Dickens' work, so we do feel that Sara's work is in very good hands!

The novel will be published by Nightingale Editions on 3rd October and will be available in both print and digital format. If you are interested in reviewing the book or interviewing the author, please do contact us and book your place on our blog tour. Dark Water will shortly be available for pre-order via Amazon. If you'd like to be kept informed of the launch of Sara's novel, and of developments at Nightingale Editions, including news of when we open for submissions, do sign up for our newsletter.