Heidi Stephens

TUESDAY 8TH MARCH 2022 Chippenham novelist, Heidi Stephens, has won the Katie Fforde Debut Romantic Novel Award with her novel, Two Metres From You, for the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s annual Romantic Novel Awards for 2022. The awards celebrate excellence in romantic fiction in all its forms.

Heidi has spent her career working in marketing and advertising; some of her early writing work includes instruction manuals for vacuum cleaners, saucepans and sex toys. Since 2008 she has also freelanced as a journalist and, on autumnal weekend evenings, can be found liveblogging Strictly Come Dancing for The Guardian. She wrote her debut novel Two Metres From You whilst furloughed in 2020, and lives in Wiltshire with her partner Pip and Labrador Mabel.

She commented, “It’s such a huge honour to win this award, particularly for my first novel. The past couple of years have been something of a rollercoaster, and I’m hugely proud of what I’ve achieved. I can’t wait to see where my writing adventure takes me next!”

TWO METRES FROM YOU BOOK BLURB (Publisher: Headline Accent)

Gemma isn’t sure what upsets her more – the fact that she just caught her boyfriend cheating, or that he did it on her brand new Heal’s cushions. All she knows is she needs to put as many miles between her and Fraser as humanly possible. So when her best friend suggests a restorative few days in the West Country, it seems like the perfect solution. That is, until the country enters a national lockdown that leaves her stranded with her dog, Mabel, and the mysterious (and handsome!) stranger who lives at the bottom of her garden …

ADDITIONAL MEDIA INFORMATION ABOUT HEIDI STEPHENS

I’ve always been a writer of sorts, but mostly commercial (marketing/advertising) as well as some freelance journalism. I’ve always wanted to be a novelist but never had the time, until I was furloughed from my job for a marketing agency in London in April 2020 and suddenly had lots of time on my hands. It started out as an experiment/way of passing the time – I never imagined I’d end up with a published novel and a 4-book deal.