Today it’s my great pleasure to introduce you to author Victoria Cooke. She is sharing with us how she fell in love with books and writing and where the inspiration for her stories come from.

  Firstly, I’d like to say a huge thank you to you, for welcoming me onto your blog.

I’ve been daydreaming for as long as I can remember. My year four teacher once suggested that I should write stories when I grew up and since I’ve always (mostly) done as I was told, here we are. As a child, I loved reading. My mum used to take my sister and me to the library, and I couldn’t get enough of that excited feeling of cracking open a new book. I was the child who hid under the covers with a torch and then imagined I was in a story when my mum confiscated it.

Fast forward a significant number of years and not much changed. My passion for writing began when I used to own a small clothing boutique on the outskirts of Halifax. I had the business for just under a year and it was that summer that was incredibly wet (you know, the one that coincided with Rhianna’s Umbrella song?). Anyway, to cut a long story short, I had a shop full of beautiful summer clothes whilst a torrent of water gushed down the street outside for six whole weeks. Needless to say, things were quiet.

I read. A lot. The more I read, the more my own ideas started to grow and manifest until one day I couldn’t fight the urge any longer, so I took my laptop into the shop. Then I sat and typed.

I’d written about half a novel on the day my laptop was stolen. Being quite into IT at the time, I had backed it up but unfortunately for me, the USB stick was in the laptop bag which the thief also took. I’d put so much into that book that I knew I could never replicate what I’d written. All my notes were on the laptop too so I only had my memory to rely upon and I knew it was too great a task. At that point, I gave up.

By the time my children were born, writing was a distant memory. The brain fog, nappies and feeding schedule had me at full capacity for a few years and it wasn’t until my youngest started pre-school I realised I had the time to do something for me. I had the seed of an idea; technology and our reliance upon it. Then I started thinking about how we’d cope if suddenly our devices were taken away. How would we cope? I have sweats just thinking about it! Anyway, I started playing around with ideas and genres before settling on romantic comedy. That’s how ‘The Secret to Falling in Love’ was born.

From there, I’ve used many of my own experiences (usually travel orientated) to write my four other books. I’ve never attempted to re-write the book I lost because in hindsight I don’t know if it had enough mileage in it (certainly not the bits I remember at least). I am however grateful to that book because I think I was a bit naive back then and it probably wouldn’t have got past the slush pile if I’d even fathomed where to send it to. That could have led me to give up. Instead, my takeaway was: ‘I almost wrote a book one and I could do it again with a bit of effort’.

‘They’ do say things happen for a reason.

It Started With A Note

One lost letter. A chance to change her life!

Superhero single mum Cath always puts other people first. But now that she’s seen her son safely off to university (phew!), life seems a little, well…empty.

So when Cath unexpectedly discovers some letters written by her great-grandfather during the First World War, she decides to take herself on an adventure to France to retrace his footsteps.

Cath expects to spend her holiday visiting famous battlefields and testing out her French phrase book. What she doesn’t anticipate is that her tour guide, the handsome Olivier, will be quite so charming! Soon Cath isn’t simply unearthing the stories of the past – she’s writing a brand new one of her own, which might end up taking her in a very unexpected direction…

Purchase Links:

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Started-Note-brand-new-uplifting-adventures-ebook/dp/B07D45VCSL

US –https://www.amazon.com/Started-Note-brand-new-uplifting-adventures-ebook/dp/B07D45VCSL

Kobo – https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/it-started-with-a-note-a-brand-new-uplifting-read-of-love-and-new-adventures-for-2018

Author Bio :

Victoria Cooke grew up in the city of Manchester before crossing the Pennines in pursuit of her career in education. She now lives in Huddersfield with her husband and two young daughters and when she’s not at home writing by the fire with a cup of coffee in her hand, she loves working out in the gym and travelling. Victoria was first published at the tender age of eight by her classroom teacher who saw potential in a six-page story about an invisible man. Since then she’s always had a passion for reading and writing, undertaking several writers’ courses before completing her first romantic comedy novel, ‘The Secret to Falling in Love,’ in 2016.

Cooke’s third novel, Who Needs Men Anyway? became a digital bestseller in 2018.

Social Media Links :

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16345710.Victoria_Cooke

https://www.facebook.com/VictoriaCookeAuthor/

https://twitter.com/VictoriaCooke10

https://www.instagram.com/victoriacookewriter/

Giveaway to Win a Signed copy of It Started With A Note (UK Only)

*Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

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