Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
So far, I’ve written three books. Decadent Publishing have published two of them – both contemporary romance and definitely related. Her Dollmaker’s Desire is the first, and Her Undercover Christmas is the second. I have a further two to three I could write in that world. Three World’s Press has published my Women’s Fic/Chick Lit/Contemporary Romance genre straddler. It could appeal to fans of Outlander, although it’s not historical, or fans of the TV series Fringe, I suppose.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My most recently published book is Her Undercover Christmas – release just in time for the holiday season. 🙂 The original inspiration was Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling.
Our society has grown used to The Ugly Duckling as a metaphor for an awkward female teen blossoming into a beautiful woman but, in my opinion, the original is far more about fitting in, finding your tribe, somewhere to belong. The Ugly Duckling’s appearance is simply what marks him out as different – it is a visible sign to everyone else that he is different, somehow wrong. And, that brings me to another point… HIM. Hans Christian Andersen’s Ugly Duckling was male, not the female we all think of when we talk of ugly ducklings.
Essentially, the story is about the displaced signet (the confusion of the swan egg in the duck nest isn’t explained) finding himself a new family in the form of the duck and her ducklings. My hero makes himself a new family, in the form of a street gang, but—like The Ugly Duckling—all is not as it seems. Just as the duckling is driven out of his surrogate family, so is my hero when his differences start to come to light, and they both run away to the wider world.
All through the story, The Ugly Duckling is reminded he is ugly, as is my hero, although his reminders come from the one person he wishes didn’t find him ugly.
There are, of course, differences – Bastian isn’t struck by tongs in a kitchen, or pecked by hens, unless you count the heroine’s mother, and he isn’t hunted by dogs, but I hope I have managed to stay true to the message of the original story.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Child neglect? 😉 In all seriousness, my children are used to nudging me or repeatedly saying my name while I murmur ‘Just a minute’ as I scribble out that one final thought.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I wish the answer could be as simple as the question. I think all of the books I’ve read have, in some way, influences me. I love reading, I admire authors…I aspire to achieve what they have. I read, and always have read, books by authors no longer with us. What a feat to achieve that sort of immortality.
What are you working on now?
Too many things! Seriously. I have a folder full of files with ‘beginnings’ in it. I have a lot of beginnings. In my head, I have still more stories stewing. At least four that I can list up right now. I just need middles and ends, I think.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I wish I knew a best method. I ask a lot of people, but the answer is always the same – promotion is fickle, what works one week, one day, one hour isn’t guaranteed to work the next. I’m still such a new author with a very small catalogue of work, so I think my best promotion will be time, building contacts, building a reader base, and getting to know people.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t stop writing. 🙂 I recently write a light guest blog on How to Succeed as a Writer. In the end, it turns out that there is only one thing you can control. You can control not succeeding by not writing.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Get the words on the page. You can edit words on a page, you can’t work with a blank one.
What are you reading now?
I think I have maybe three books on the go? I have a books on my Kobo app, and books on my Kindle app… and I’m only a few pages into any one of them. I’m restless at the moment. I’m unwilling to start something too long because December is coming, and December means Christmas themed books. I’ve already started scoping out books with Christmas in the title and magical-looking covers. I’ll read my Christmas themed books from the beginning of December until Christmas Eve.
What’s next for you as a writer?
To get past a beginning. 🙂 I might start the next in my Biker Beware series, or I might write a time travel romance currently bubbling in my head, or I might pick up one of my beginnings. I have a partial small town romance story, a partial modern witch romcom style one, and at least two women’s fiction ones waiting for attention.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I think I’d have to say Lisa Kleypas’s The Wallflowers series.
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