The one where it's 3 years since the start of Hedgehog Hollow
Today – 2nd July 2023 – is a double anniversary for me. It is three years since readers first took a journey to Hedgehog Hollow with the publication of the very first book – Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow – on 2nd July 2020.
It is also twenty years since I met my husband, Mark, on our first date after meeting through an online dating site a few days earlier. This September we'll be celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary. We've had a lovely day out to celebrate, visiting Danby Lodge in the North York Moors National Park which is somewhere neither of us have been since childhood.
We had lunch and a walk round there with our dog, Ella. I absolutely loved the dragon sculpture in one of the meadows but dogs weren't allowed in the area where most of my other photos are taken as it's the education area. The little house at the base of a tree was so gorgeous and I adored the owl throne.
Next stop was Danby Beacon which I've never been to before. Being a beacon, it needs to be at the highest point and, my goodness, it was blowy up there. But those views! They wouldn't have come out well in my photos but, believe me, it was stunning with the coast to the east and the stunning countryside of the North York Moors on all other sides.
There was nobody there when we arrived so we parked up and walked to the other side of the beacon to get photos without looking into the sun. I managed to snap a couple on my phone and hubby was lying on the ground with his camera out taking a photo with some heather in the foreground when an elderly man in a bright red coat came striding across towards the beacon. He looked at hubby lying on the floor with with his camera out but still continued up to the beacon and then stood leaning against it for ages. The beacon stand isn't very wide so it was impossible to get a photo without him. I don't get that. Nobody else there at all and if he'd just waited for one minute – thirty seconds, even – hubby would have taken his photo and Red Coat could have stood there as long as he wanted. Aren't folk strange?
You can see him in all but one of my photos although part of me thinks having someone in a bright red coat leaning against the beacon does add a little something to it!
I caught hubby and Ella in one photo after Red Coat had gone. There was a large stone nearby (not the trig point in the pics below) with an engraved panel on the top explaining what could be seen in each direction. There was a ewe and two lambs lying in the heather beside it and they looked like something straight out of a Lucy Pittaway print with the purple heather behind them. I was about to slowly approach to take a photo when another car pulled in and two women and a young girl (maybe age 12-13) got out with a couple of dogs. The girl ran after the sheep (why?!) so, of course, they ran away, poor things. So I didn't get my photo but it would have been lovely if I had.
EDIT to add that hubby has just done some research and Danby Beacon is actually on the site of what was RAF Danby Beacon – an early warning station for raids in the north midlands and northern industrial cities during World War II and the start of the Cold War. You can read more about it here.
After that, we took a long route back to Scarborough via various villages and then went out for a meal this evening with our daughter. Very lovely day out, even if my daughter only realised at the end of the meal that she still had the price tag on her dress. Just as well her long hair had covered it!
Anyway, enough about our 20-year anniversary and onto the three-year anniversary of Hedgehog Hollow. When I got approval to write a book set in a hedgehog rescue centre, I had no idea whether it would go down well with my readers. Up until that point, everything I'd written was set in Whitsborough Bay and I was a little concerned that readers might not respond well to a new setting. I needn't have worried because readers have completely taken Hedgehog Hollow to their hearts.
Three years on, the six books in the series combined have sold 360,000 copies. I thought I'd share a few facts:
MOST COPIES SOLD: Book 1 - Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow - just 3,000 sales shy of 100,000
BIGGEST INCOME GENERATOR: Book 3 – Family Secrets at Hedgehog Hollow. Despite having sold the third most copies – 33,000 fewer than book 1 – this book has earned the most income. This is because the first two books have been on more 99p deals which earn an author pennies so the bestsellers have actually earned fewer royalties
MOST PRE-ORDERS: Book 4 – A Wedding at Hedgehog Hollow – 7,639 pre-orders, presumably on the back of the whopping cliffhanger at the end of book 3
MOST REVIEWED: Book 2 – New Arrivals at Hedgehog Hollow – 6,848 reviews/ratings on Amazon UK
BIGGEST % OF 5-STAR REVIEWS: Book 6 – Christmas Miracles at Hedgehog Hollow – with 81% of reviews/ratings at 5-star on Amazon UK
MOST FOREIGN RIGHTS DEALS: Book 1 – Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow – with three deals. The Swedish translation came out last year, a Serbian translation should be out this year and there's another deal just signed but I don't think I can mention that one just yet
LONGEST BOOK/AUDIOBOOK: Book 4 – A Wedding at Hedgehog Hollow – at 110,000 words or 10 hours, 51 minutes
SHORTEST BOOK/AUDIOBOOK: Book 1 – Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow – is the shortest book at 96,500 words but it's actually the second-longest audiobook at only 2 minutes shorter than A Wedding at Hedgehog Hollow. The shortest audiobook is book 6 – Christmas Miracles at Hedgehog Hollow – which is actually the second shortest book (99,000 words)
NUMBER OF NAMED HEDGEHOGS: There are a whopping 92 named hedgehogs across the entire six-book series!
I feel bad that book 5 – Chasing Dreams at Hedgehog Hollow – hasn't been mentioned in one of those so I’ll throw in that it’s my personal favourite of all the covers!
If you’ve loved visiting Hedgehog Hollow, I’m so very grateful for your support, your reviews, and your recommendations. I had no idea that this series would touch so many hearts, turn so many readers into hedgehog obsessives, and actually play a part in raising so much awareness around this gorgeous little mammal who is vulnerable to extinction.
I do keep getting asked if I’ll write more Hedgehog Hollow books and, although I’ll never say never, the answer is no. There will be a prequel in 2025 (hopefully) but readers can get their fix of Hedgehog Hollow through Bumblebee Barn. Book 1 – Healing Hearts at Bumblebee Barn – features Hedgehog Hollow and readers get to see what happened to their favourite characters and the rescue centre after book 6 ended. This glimpse into life at Hedgehog Hollow will continue in book 2 of that series, likely to be out in April 2024 so please take a trip to Bumblebee Barn if you haven’t already done so. I think you’ll like what you find there.
Big hedge-hugs
Jessica xx