Electronic books? The very concept was blasphemous. Books were there to spend hours poring over in a library or bookstore. Books were there to smell, touch, thumb through, scribble notes in, bend pages, crease spines, share with friends and then finally place on a bookshelf amongst their peers.

You can't feel a downloaded book. You can't smell it. And you definitely can't put in on your bookshelf as part of your decor.

So yes, with that in mind, I loftily rejected the very notion and insisted that Desperate in Dubai, though not a classic masterpiece, would never, ever fall down the slippery slope of e-publishing.

Until I got an ipad.

One evening when the hubster was out with friends, when there was nothing decent to watch on TV and nothing appealing to read on my bookcase, I downloaded the Kindle App with guilt, fully aware that I was going against my beliefs just by entertaining the idea. I just wanted one book I could share the night with. It wasn't going to become a regular dalliance. I browsed through Amazon and with the tap of one button, there it was - instant gratification. In a region where books are horrendously expensive and often unavailable, it became the perfect, the only choice. Within seconds I had gained an entire collection of books that I could carry around in my (albeit rather large) tote bag. I could read in the dark long after the hubster fell asleep. I could get hold of books that weren't sold here. I could even get some books for free.

In one week, I had converted to e-bookism and as a result, decided to publish Desperate in Dubai in e-book format. I'm a lot of things but a hypocrite isn't one of them!

So here you go - the link to downloading DID on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008M7S7LW/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?cor=GB

Don't forget to leave a (hopefully good) review :)

Enjoy xxx

Follow me on twitter: @ameerahakawati

Like my page on Facebook: www.facebook.com/desperateindubai