New release - it's been a while!

I know, I know it's been FOREVER since I brought out a new book but there are reasons for this which I'm unable to share for the moment.  As soon as I can, I will.  Promise.

Anyway, 'Half as Good as You' is now available for pre-order on Amazon and will hit your Kindle on 4th October.  The paperback version will be available shortly, once I decide whether to publish through Lulu or Amazon.

If you read it and love it, PLEASE leave a review  - your words help to sell mine.  If you've enjoyed any of my other books, I'd be really grateful for even a one line review.  They really DO make a difference.

Right ... here's the blurb ...

The day after discovering her husband’s infidelity, TV make-up artist Fizz finds herself knocked off her feet (quite literally!) by a passing stranger in the busy Covent Garden rush hour.  

Rescued by an elderly gentleman, an unusual friendship forms, a mystery lottery ticket appears and Fizz realises that she’d never really been as content in her marriage as she’d allowed herself to believe.

With the arrival of two new men on the scene, how long will it be before Fizz hits the jackpot?

And the links for UK Amazon

And USA Amazon 

Just £1.99 - less than a coffee and will last longer!

There’s a new Cat Café in Town

FANFARE PLEASE ... !

'Catnaps & Flapjacks' is now available to pre-order from Amazon for your Kindle.

Release date is still WEDNESDAY 2nd DECEMBER but if you order now it can be on your Kindle the minute it goes 'live'.

DOUBLE FANFARE ... !

Cover reveal, including the back cover/blurb for the paperback which can soon be bought at Lulu.com.  Details to follow shortly.

Here's my lovely new cover ... 

[Click to Enlarge]

... and the blurb on the back:

[Click to Enlarge]

Kindle copies can be bought NOW in the UK and US (elsewhere please check your local Amazon site)

Jamelia - punching above her weight

I’m beginning to think that ‘Loose Women’ should be re-named ‘Loose Cannons’.

I gave up watching some time ago but when one of their panelists spouts venom, bigoted views or claptrap it always hits Twitter and you find yourself thinking, ‘Whose career is in need of a boost now?’

Surely that can be the only reason these women come out with such contentious views.  We’ve seen the Vile One (Hopkins) do it time and time again (her empire is built on it), we cringed at Judy Finnigan’s rape comments and now we have Jamelia with this beauty:

“I think everyone should have access to lovely clothes, BUT I do not think it’s right to facilitate people living an unhealthy lifestyle … I don’t believe stores should stock clothes below or above a certain weight. They should be made to feel uncomfortable when they go in and can’t find a size.”

What was she thinking?  And what will she be thinking this morning now that the dust has settled?

Yes, she’s entitled to her opinion but has she really considered the implications of what she said?

1. What is this ‘certain weight’ she’s talking about?  Do we have scales at the doors to ascertain who can and can’t be allowed to enter?  Or maybe we have a radar that automatically brings down a shutter if it detects non-perfection?  Who decides on the ideal weight?  A doctor?  A catwalk model?  A chat-show panelist?

2. How should these people be made to feel uncomfortable?  Pointing?  Jeering?  Making them try clothes on whilst standing on the shop floor rather than in the privacy of a changing room?  Maybe a Tannoy could be used to announce the arrival of a fatty or a skinny?  A fanfare perhaps?

3. Who says that being overweight or underweight is due to an ‘unhealthy lifestyle’?  There are many medical conditions which cause weight gain or loss, just as there are many people carrying a little extra weight or not enough who are totally healthy, happy and fit.  Your mind is as narrow as your hips, Ms J.

4. What message are you giving your daughters?  ‘Oh, the scales have tipped over the perfect weight!  Greedy girl! or ‘Too skinny, sweetheart!  Sick girl!’

5. What right do you have to enter women’s living rooms and make them feel bad about themselves?  I’m not talking about the ones who are happy and confident in their skins (be that large or small), I’m talking the ones who are already struggling - the young mum who’s lonely and trying to shift a few extra pounds, the uni student who’s battling bulimia.  Did you think about them?

6. Where exactly should these ‘freaks’ go to buy their clothes?  Must we keep them all behind closed doors and only allow them to shop on the internet?  If so, why draw the line at clothes shops?  Let’s keep them inside all of the time so that they don’t offend your sensitivities.

7. Start saying your prayers to the Beauty Gods.  May your bottom never sag, your metabolism never change, your health never throw you a curve ball that affects the holy scales and may you always be allowed in the hallowed shops.

On a final note, dear readers, let me leave you with the perfect body - yes, I do mean the rabbit.

Chicklit? Predictable? Hell, yeah!

How do you like your eggs in the morning?
Fried, scrambled, boiled, poached?
There are so many ways.

How do you like your chicklit?
Predictable.
There is only one way.

Those who devour chicklit like to know what they're going to get - a light, frothy read that takes them on the heroine's journey until she has her man/kiss/ring/epiphany.

It's really very simple.  A chicklit reader will know (sometimes from Chapter One - and I have to say, in some books I've read, Page One) who the main character will end up walking into the sunset with but they want to know how she gets there.  They don't want plague, murders, famine and mass outbreaks of smallpox.  They want humour, trials, tribulations and tittilations until they reach that magic swoon.

Pick up any successful chicklit author's work and there will always be one thing that runs through them like a stick of rock - the happy ending that the reader nailed fairly early on in the read, laced with the thrill of wondering how it will happen.

If we took our reader on so many twists and turns with various men who our heroine might end up with and then threw in a curve ball at the end, we wouldn't be trusted and she'd be called a slut.

If we wrote the final chapter awash with misery and despair we shouldn't be writing chicklit.

People can be as snooty and snobby as they like but women love to cosy up with a read that will deliver - the Mansells and Kinsellas of this world are proof of that.

So to sum up ...

How do I like my eggs?
Poached.

How do I like my chicklit?
Predictable - but with humour and surprises along the way.

Otherwise, I'd opt for Dostoyevsky.  Or a self help book.

A Mixed Misfit Bag

It's been a busy week in the Misfit house.  The teen turned 19 and my cousin and her hubbie came to visit from Canada so there has been much fun and jollity.  Today saw me returning to the desk to chain myself up until my self-imposed 2K words for the day were written.

Here's a quick update on my week.  Oh, and be warned - it ends with a rant!

FORMULA 1 GO-KARTING

Oh boy!  What can I say?  The teen and Mr Misfit had a blast.  Me?  Well I simply tootled around the track, at an average of 16 miles an hour, like a nervous granny on her way to church. And the heat!  Dressed from head to toe in a rather unfetching BO-infused boiler suit, a beanie and a helmet, I was sweltering.  My only escape was putting myself in the Sin Bin so that I could remove the helmet and cool off.  The teen found himself covered in bruises as he has no flesh on his gangly bones and was thrown around in the kart as he swerved around corners. As each day passes the bruises grow and change.  We tell him it's the birthday gift that keeps giving!

 The teen pulling a daft pose.

Just as well this isn't a scratch and sniff photo!  The suits were ripe!

 His final lap

FAMILY PARTY

It's been 28 years since I last saw my cousin and her husband so it's been wonderful having them here.  They are both huge fans of my books and I was delighted to learn that I, at the grand old age of seven, had been the one to help my cousin's husband 'get' AA Milne.  He said it was the British accent that suddenly made it click for him.  Their lovely daughter is named after me and we keep in touch through Facebook and Twitter.  We were amazed at how many similarities there are between the two of us and also between her and the teen.  Families, can be spooky things!
On Saturday, our family got together at our place and a good time was had by all.

Sharing family memories.

My mum, me and my cousin.

 

THE SQUIRREL

On Friday night Mr Misfit and the teen came back from a late night walk and told me that there was an injured squirrel at the end of our cul de sac.  Being a bit of an animal nut, I headed off to see if he could be saved.  He was right in the middle of the road where he could have been squashed by any passing cars returning home or ripped apart by foxes (or our cats!) so we knew that we had to stay with him.  We managed to give him some Rescue Remedy (a herbal medicine) and for a while it looked like he might be perking up a bit. Sadly though, we suddenly realised that his leg was broken and there didn't seem to be much hope.  After willing him to live, I found myself willing him to let go and drift off to squirrel Heaven.  We called him Faith as we told him that we had faith in him and that we would stick with him to the bitter end.  Watching him die was horrible.  He threw his little head back in a final spasm of pain and then he passed.  The teen then decided it would be cruel to just throw him in the bushes and insisted on a proper funeral (the second one we'd been to that day!)
A shoe box was duly found and Faith was laid to rest with a gladioli.
Sadly, Faith was dug up again two mornings later and then he disappeared.
This reminds me of the time we buried our goldfish in a Dove soapbox and the teen, then quite young, was concerned that when he got to Heaven God would be confused as the box said 'Dove' and not 'Goldfish'!

THE RANT

I had drinks with 'Fenella' last night and I found out that she'd had a falling out with a Putney mum who had been rather vocal about me and the way I'd dealt with the teen's school phobia.  I was livid!  This was a mother I'd known reasonably well and always got on with.  How dare she pass judgment on me and my life when she knows nothing about what we went through.  As any mother knows, if someone starts to pick holes in your child you become like a protective tigress.
When we went 'public' with the teen's problems, people fell into two camps - those who sympathised or had been through something similar and those who thought they knew everything and that the condition quite simply doesn't exist.  So there's no such thing as depression then?  Is that what I'm hearing?
So, to all you Putney mums who feel you know me oh so well, I hope your boring little lives where you have nothing better to do than discuss me at your dinner parties are never blighted by any mental health issues.  Oh the shame!  Enjoy your perfect children as they grow and head off in to the world and hope that you never have to stand by them in the way I stood by my son.  I, meanwhile, will be the one having the last laugh as I know who each and every one of you are in the Misfit books and my son has grown into a confident young man, doing a job that he loves. And, do me favour, if you do have an opinion, say it to my face so that I can educate you.  But then that would take bravery wouldn't it?

Rant over!  As you were.

FUNKY FRIDAY - with reviewer 'The Book Geek Wears Pajamas'

It's FUNKY FRIDAY time again and today I'm in my PJ's and chatting to Natalie McCormack from The Book Geek Wears Pajamas.  Check out her blog here or follow her on Twitter @PajamaBookGirl. 

Here's what we chatted about.

As an avid reader and reviewer what books keep you up all night and what type make you want to chuck them at the wall?

I'm a chick lit, romance, girly reader, but I do dabble in different genres now and again and I love any author who can draw me out of my current life and situations and plummet me into something so very different. The authors who do this with every book they write are on my list of greats. Jane Green being my number one. Very rarely will she have a book with a similar plot and yet as the years are progressing her writing is touching on situations that a lot of people are frightened of. I applaud that greatly. These kind of books are fast becoming my favourites and will stop me sleeping so I can finish them in one sitting.

I hate Fifty Shades of Grey with a passion. I'm no prude mind, I like erotica and some of the erotica books published over the past few years have been fabulous. Fifty Shades to me is nothing but ripped off trash with a bit of stalking thrown in for good measures. It is poorly written and as flat as three day old Pepsi. I've seen a few interviews on TV with James and she always seems stuck up, bored, uncomfortable and not interested in anything asked. Utter disdain for everything, including her fans/readers. Then, I came across a twitter feed from a group of ladies (survivors) who have been on the receiving end of domestic violence who had asked E.L. James why she didn't think about doing more research into BDSM and why she didn't think that some of her scenarios were in fact DV real life cases. She replied by calling them trolls. I was deeply disgusted by this. The disgust I have for that woman and her half arsed fan fiction is on par with my disgust from when I vomit and it comes out through my nose. They are the books I want to throw at walls and any other books written by arrogant egotistical authors who have no time or respect for their readers/fans, their books can go flying too.

Would you ever be tempted to write your own novel?

Noooo. I'm a terrible writer. I write how I speak and I write without thinking, I also get far too carried away with things. The question above is proof of this. I wouldn't know where to start either. Authors have something extremely magical about them. Me, my magic comes from sleeping. I'm superb at that.

How do you review a book you hate? Do you sweeten the pill or say it as it is?

If I'm being totally honest I do both. I sweeten the pill by giving the fairer points to the book and by saying what audience I think the book would be better received by, but I also have my say too. I don't think it necessary to annihilate someone for their hard work. There are ways of getting your point across without being horrible. I guess if a book was utterly vile, I would possibly go harder, but I'm yet to have crossed that bridge.

Can you remember the first book that set you off with the reading bug?

I actually have three.

First being Daz 4 Zoe by Robert Swindells.

Second being Cuban Heels by Emily Barr.

Third being Jemima J by Jane Green. These books each gave me something I didn't know I was missing in life. Each gave me something new. Daz 4 Zoe was given to me to read as punishment when I was 14, I absolutely loved it. I read, but only the usual Roald Dahl, Sue Townsend. This opened me up to dual narration and the wonder of romance and suspense. It was a wonderful place I needed to be in a lot more. I started trying to read books, but never did I find something that allowed me to live through the words like that until I found Jane Green and chick lit. Jemima J was the first book I read that actually took me into real life, you know the books that when you read you forget it's fiction? Well that's what happened. I'd never experienced that before and I fell in love with the whole girly/rom-com/heart warming thrill chick lit brings. When I had my first child I was diagnosed with post natal depression and was very unwell, Cuban Heels gave me a clarity and release to see my life as something else. (Full Cuban heels story is on my website) anyway, it moved me a step closer to recovery and I love it so much I have a copy in my memory box.

Dream time! It's your ideal dinner party - who's there, dead or alive and why?

Tough one, erm... Would have to be…

• Russell Brand.

I am in love with Russell Brand. He is amazingly talented and has such a good heart. He would cause chaos, but at the same time drum up excellent debates.

• Noel Fielding.

Noel Fielding and Russell Brand together is like a bomb going off. A hysterical bomb of gothic magic with unicorns, bubblegum & nonsense. I adore Noel's style and sense of humour.

• Boy George.

Boy George can be our chef/DJ for the night, his raw food diet not only has him looking utterly fabulous it looks amazingly gorgeous too. He is a class A bitch and really funny. I think he would be brilliant for a natter with.

• My best friend Becki.

My gorgeous Becki. I couldn't do it without her. She would also most probably pick the majority of the people I would pick too. I love this girl to death she is honestly such a perfect soul and I'm blessed to have her in my life.

• Jane Green.

Oh come on. This is me remember, as if my chick lit hero would not be there for me to pick her brains.

• Ali McNamara.
The gorgeous Ali because she makes me smile and has such a calming way about her. Recently we've been chatting about life and we've both had a rough ride so we both need cheering up.

I'll stop there before it turns into a full on house party. I seriously could add in about 10 more people :)

You've been asked to become the new face of Loose Women! Do you accept?

Yes. Even though I don't watch it. I could well stir up some trouble and I'd get to promote my favourite books and authors too.

Thanks for having me Amanda, your questions have been wonderful. 

It's been great to chat, Natalie.  Thanks for stopping by.