New Blog Post

So … just a quick blog post to talk about the launch of my new book, Life Happens. This in my fifth book, which I can’t really believe. I only set out to write one book when I started on this journey. I did an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and my aim was to complete one book but somehow I just carried on!

Life Happens is set in Cyprus, like the Aphrodite Trilogy. I feel I have a real connection to the island; we lived here for three years in the nineties and now have a house here. In fact, I’m in Cyprus while I write this blog. The sun is shining, as always, there’s a strong wind, the sky is cloudless and soon I’ll be heading off to a taverna by a beach!

It’s always an anxious time when you launch a book. You have to ‘let it go’ into the world. There may well be the odd typo – you can read it a million times and still miss something minor. I’m reading a book at the moment that is in the bestsellers list and I noticed a typo in that, so I don’t feel so bad. You just have to stop editing, changing, reading and release it into the ether. Some people will love it, some will hate it and some people will feel indifferent towards it. It used to worry me when I got a horrible review but now I think – you can’t please everyone and at least I’m being creative and putting it ‘out there’.

I wanted to write a story about friendship. The idea came out of the blue. I remember hearing a musician say he reaches up and grabs a passing song and that’s how it seemed to happen with me and this story. I just imagined three lifelong friends having a holiday in Cyprus and the story told itself. I used to think it strange when authors talked about characters writing their own stories, but I believe it now.

Grace, Jen and Rachel are not based on anyone I know. I tried to make them easy to recognise as a reader at the beginning but then they developed their own personalities. I find it annoying when you have to keep wondering who exactly a character is in a novel so I wanted to make them very different and easy to distinguish.

The setting of the book, the beautiful stone villa with sky blue shutters is also from my imagination. We have a modern house but you can often see old stone houses in villages. We visited one once and I built on that and added the magical courtyard with the pool and fountain. It’s like my dream house – but it doesn’t really exist. Or maybe it does somewhere?

The girls’ husbands, again, developed themselves. Mike, Zach and Leo are so different. They all have their problems, their foibles and their secrets, as do the girls.

The six come together for a wonderful two weeks’ holiday but things don’t go according to plan. Their individual stories are complicated and by going back into the past, we learn how they’ve got to where they are in the present. They all find things out about themselves and each other and their lives will never be the same again.

Why did I set it in Cyprus? They could have got together anywhere, I know. But I love writing about Cyprus; I know it so well and somehow, the heat, the lifestyle, the culture and the history all lend themselves to people shedding their outer layers, relaxing and confiding in each other. Remembering their own pasts, reflecting on their present lives and facing up to realities.

It’s going to be published on 26th May. I self-publish, so it involves a lot of work marketing it myself. Fortunately I enjoy that side of it and I’m learning all the time. You have to be quite tech-savvy and enjoy anything to do with computers and social media so it’s not right for a lot of people but I like the process and find it a challenge.

Do comment on this blog if you want to. All feedback gratefully received.