Friday, 11 April 2014

FUNKY FRIDAY - With Reviewer Bella Lane


Today we welcome book blogger, Bella Lane.  We settled with our coffee and popcorn and talked all things bookish.

Bella, what made you start up a book blog?

I love to read, and I get so enthused when I have read a good book that I just want to shout it from the rooftops and get my friends to experience it too.  Rather than get the sack from too much time spent "at the water cooler" sharing my reading recommendations with my friends at work, I decided to write a blog.  There I could share my reading jewels with like minded people and hopefully to get comments back which would expand my reading "stable".

What type of book will keep you up all night turning the pages?

I would have to say thrillers and suspenseful novels are most likely to keep me turning the pages deep into the night.  If the book is particularly scary, then I may not want to turn the light off at all!  I find the fast paced action and the "in and out if trouble" storytelling in the Sookie Stackhouse series (by Charlaine Harris) is likely to keep me reading way past my bed-time too!

What type of book makes you want to chuck it at the wall?

The last book I threw at the wall was Fifty Shades Darker!  I had been curious to read Fifty Shades of Grey to see what all the fuss was about, and was pretty disappointed, partly with its lack of complexity and finesse, but mostly because it was not worthy of the hype - (having read much more explicit and raunchy material). The sequel however did  a u-turn on the premise on which the first novel had been built, in a way that I found totally unbelievable, so at that point I boiled over and the book got tossed!

What's your ideal nibble and tipple when you're reading?

Coffee is, I  guess, a bit obvious but I do love it sweet and black, along with oodles of chocolate or butter-toffee popcorn. One particular series of books I enjoy - the Stephanie Plum bounty-hunter series (by Janet Evanovitch), makes me long for all the fast food and fantastic Italian home cooking with which she punctuates her adventures, but I think I might get stuck in the armchair if I ate every time Stephanie did!

As an avid reader, would you ever be tempted to pen your own book?

I'm tempted all the time.  Then I read a really well crafted novel, with a twisty-turny plot, and I think "I'm not worthy" and I wonder how I would ever write something I feel proud of.  But like a cork, my urge to write creatively soon bobs to the surface again.  I have a few chapters written of a couple of different ideas, one a teen chiller and the other on a chick-lit theme.

Have you ever read a book that you've thought was begging to be made into a film?

Yes - anything I have ever read by John Grisham always rolled like a film in my head, similarly the Lee Child novels, and happily the Cassandra Clare 'Mortal Instruments' series (with a film just out of the first book I think I'm behind the curve).  Last summer I read Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Laini Taylor) - and with the current fascination for supernatural and other-worldy themes I think the audience would lap it up if the film-makers made an authentic version.

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You can find out more about Bella at her blog - she also contributes to the entertainment section of 'The Best of Hertford and Ware'.

* * * NEWSFLASH * * *

I'm running another promotion of 'Stilettos & Stubble' so if you fancy a freebie with giggles, love, drag queens and good tempered bitching download NOW! Offer ends on Monday .  UK and .com

My current novel is about to be handed to Mr Misfit for his evil pen to begin its work.  We will EVENTUALLY go head-to-head and thrash it out (literally) to make it a better book and it will then head off to my test readers.  Watch this space for title and first chapter reveal ...

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