Gillian Harvey. Top Author OfThe Week.

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I’m excited to showcase the work of Gillian Harvey today. She writes books full of laughter and strong women, which I love.

About Gillian:

I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember, and although I worked several different jobs over the years, I always had a book or short story on the go! I started my career as a legal secretary, then quit my job to go to Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, where I studied English Literature. In 2001, I started work as a teacher, and taught ages 9-18 in two different schools in the noughties. Then in 2009, my husband and I made a life-changing move to France, as well as starting our family. We now have five children, aged 5-10.

I finished my first novel in 2004, but it was many years before I managed to land myself an agent. Over those years, I wrote several books, trying different genres and honing my skills. I experienced my fair share of near-misses and frustrations, but never quite landed on the right desk at the right moment!

In 2012, I started approaching magazines with article ideas, and by 2014 was working full-time as a freelance writer. Writing for different audiences gave me a greater understanding of how to consider my reader and there was a marked change in my novel writing. I also got to grips with proper editing – something I’ll admit I never really did enough of beforehand.

Finally, in 2018 I started writing Everything is Fine. In 2019, Ger Nichol of the Book Bureau (the first agent I approached with this novel) offered me a contract, and shortly after I signed a book deal with Orion.

My work is humorous, but I like to think there’s a serious message under the lols. My heroines don’t need rescuing by men, are pretty successful and – while they get in a mess – show how strong women can be.

I have asked Gillian to send me photos as answers for my interview today.

Post a photo of you that we won’t have seen everywhere else.

 

The unseen photo is one of me helping out at my son’s school carnival. It was the cutest thing!

Where do you write?

I USED to write in a downstairs study in our house, but since lockdown have been relegated to the attic. We wanted to give our children more space, so moved one of my sons into the ‘better’ room. I do have BIG plans for painting… eventually.

Use three photos or images to describe your personality.

The three images that describe my personality… I am always trying to do things for and with the kids, but it’s often motivated by ‘mum guilt.’ And sometimes (as the photo on the grass will testify) I simply have to give up!

Share a photo of your favourite holiday destination. 

We don’t get to go on holiday much. As we live in France, our holidays are often spent in Bedfordshire UK visiting family! I suppose we live in a holiday(ish) destination here in Limousin (the lake district of France). But we did manage a French escape a couple of years go – we visited Biscarrosse on the French coast and it was blissful.

Post a photo of something that you baked, learnt or made during lockdown.

During lockdown, I made 4 birthday cakes – one each for my twins, one for my youngest boy, Robbie. My best one (at least best-looking) was the unicorn cake I made for Evie (7). My cakes always taste good, but I’m rubbish at the presentation. This time I nearly killed myself and created a passable unicorn…

Link to Everything is Fine: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=everything+is+fine

Blurb: When a celebrity retweets one of her gym pictures, blogger Jessica Bradley is thrust into the limelight. She’d only set out to blog about her weight loss, but with her new-found followers turning to her for #fitspo, she feels she’s got to keep up with the Kardashians!

As a result, she’s stuck in a role she didn’t choose – and forced to continue to hone her abs, even though she’d rather reach for a Dime bar than a dumbbell.

When her photogenic boyfriend Dave decides to dump her unexpectedly, she’s left trying to maintain a happy exterior amongst the chaos.

Everything is Fine focuses on the hilarious disconnect between Jessica’s real and online lives, but has a serious message too: can we find ‘real’ happiness in a fake world?



Lorraine Turnbull. Top Author Of The Week.

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This week’s Top Author, is Lorraine Turnbull. Lorraine wanted to be a farmer since she was five years old.  After running a successful gardening business in Glasgow she uprooted herself and her family and moved to a run-down agriculturally tied bungalow in Cornwall.  She retrained as a teacher and taught horticulture at both adult & further education level, whilst running a one acre smallholding.  After working as a Skills Co-ordinator for The Rural Business School, she began started Spotty Dog Cider in 2010.

In 2014 she was recognised for her contribution to sustainable living by winning the Cornwall Sustainability Awards Best Individual category.

After successfully removing the Agricultural Occupancy Condition on her home she relocated to France; where unsurprisingly, she continues to run a smallholding and make cider.

She has published three books, The Sustainable Smallholders’ Handbook (2019), How to live the Good Life in France (2020) and Living off the Land: My Cornish Smallholding Dream (2020).

Hi Lorraine. Thank you for joining us today! Post a photo of you that we won’t have seen everywhere else. (What a brilliant photo, Lorraine!)

Where do you write?

Use three photos or images to describe your personality.

Share a photo of your favourite holiday destination.

Post a photo of something that you baked, learnt or made during lockdown. (Great work! I can’t sew or knit, so I find this mightily impressive.)

You can purchase Lorraine’s book here: Amazon book page.



Audrey Davis. Top Author Of The Week.

Today’s top author is Audrey Davis. Audrey is an active member of my writer and reader group on Facebook, Lizzie’s Book Group, and her books are wonderful reads!

Audrey is a Scottish-born former journalist, now resident in Switzerland. Her newspaper career saw her cover events in Northern Ireland and the Falkland Islands, as well as working for a London-based movie magazine writing reviews and carrying out interviews.

She self-published her debut romantic comedy novel A Clean Sweep in June 2017, following an online Open University course in Writing Fiction.

Audrey followed up with a short, darker prequel A Clean Break before beginning work on a rom-com novella trilogy with a ghostly twist – The Haunting of Hattie Hastings. Again, reviews across the board were excellent, and it was combined into a standalone novel in November 2018.

A Wish For Jinnie is her third standalone novel.

Apart from writing, Audrey enjoys travel and spends a lot of time in Edinburgh. She is an avid cook, watcher of scary movies and reluctant gym-goer.

Post a photo of you that we won’t have seen everywhere else. (Me as a young journalist in the Falklands interviewing a Scottish soldier).

Where do you write? (My favourite writing spot, out on our terrace).

Use three photos or images to describe your personality. (Loving a scary ride at Europa Park in Germany. Ubiquitous glass in hand at son’s graduation ceremony. Huffing and puffing up a hill during a very long hike in Switzerland).

Share a photo of your favourite holiday destination. (A typical Japanese procession in Tokyo last October).

Post a photo of something that you baked, learnt or made during lockdown. (Seared scallops cooked during lockdown).

You can buy a copy of Audrey’s fantastic new book here:

 

 

 

Emily Royal. Top Author Of The Week.

This week’s top author is Emily Royal

Emily lives in rural Scotland with her husband and two teenage daughters, together with their menagerie of pets including hamsters, chickens and 12 snakes. Despite popular opinion, her snakes are all friendly and include Twinkle, an attention-seeking boa constrictor and Burma, an unimaginatively-named Burmese Python, who loves to come out for cuddles. She is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, currently serving on the committee, and graduated from their New Writers’ Scheme.

Emily’s debut novel The Sins of the Sire, was published by Tirgearr on 13 March 2019 and is a gritty, dark and sexy historical romance set in the Highlands of Scotland – a tale of vengeance and atonement set during William Wallace’s rebellion against Edward I. It’s the first in her Dark Highland Passions series and she’s currently writing the next book in the series. The Sins of the Sire is available as an e-book and is free on Kindle Unlimited.

Her second published book will be a standalone Medieval Romance, published later in the year by Wild Rose Press. Another dark and sexy historical, the book has themes of Outlander, Game of Thrones and The Handmaid’s Tale.

 

Emily currently works as an actuary after having indulged in a brief dream of becoming an airline pilot almost 30 years ago when she left university. Her job enables her to travel, so she accumulates air miles as a passenger and uses her time waiting around at airports for drafting. She also has the opportunity to be creative with her job which has enabled her to teach and present lectures at various companies and institutions around the world, including a university in Beijing where the students were very interested to learn about romantic fiction, as well as actuarial science!

Emily is a sucker for a dark story, particularly if it contains a tortured hero, and she cites Gollum as her all-time favourite literary character.

Emily can be found at:

Twitter: @eroyalauthor

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eroyalauthor/

Website: http://www.emroyal.com/

Links for The Sins of the Sire:

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07N974NW5/

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N974NW5/