Q&A with Sandy Barker

  Welcome to The Comfy Chair blog... Sandy Barker, author of 'The Christmas Swap.' 

About Sandy:

I call myself a hopeful romantic. I’m also a lifelong traveller, self-confessed coffee snob, and devourer of cooking shows, especially The Great British Bakeoff.

For more visit: https://sandybarker.com/

1.      What did you read as a child? 

I was obsessed with reading as a child and at ten or eleven, I precociously devoured Mills & Boon books. By the time I was twelve, I’d move onto Shirley Conran and Jackie Collins. But I also had more ‘age appropriate’ tastes and loved the Sweet Dreams and Sweet Valley High books too.

 

2.      What inspired you to start writing and how long has it taken you to get to this point? 

I started writing a travel biography in 2001 about my year spent as a Contiki Tour Manager. I tried to fictionalise it in 2012-2013. An agent, who liked my pitch, read it and said, ‘It’s not your first novel. Too many characters, multi narratives. You’re not Liane Moriarty (yet). Go away and write a simple, linear story.”

 

And I did. I wrote what became One Summer in Santorini. I self-published that and (what is now) A Sunset in Sydney, and wrote (what is now) That Night in Paris. Before I could self-publish my third book, I heard from Avon Books and they wanted to publish me! That was early 2019 and I have had four books published since then (I’m now with One More Chapter, another imprint of HarperCollins UK).

 

3.      Describe your writing space - neat and ordered or creative chaos? 

I’m a neat freak and I have also been working from home for nine months, so my writing space is dual purpose, and everything is in its place. I do the official ‘switch over’ twice a day. I write in the mornings, then ‘go to work’, then switch back to author mode in the evenings – different laptops, different notebooks…

 

4.      What is the easiest and hardest part of the writing process? 

The easiest part is when I am in the flow of a story and it is pouring out of me. The ideas are coming fast and thick (I only plan a loose outline and character arcs) and I end up writing whole chapters in a single sitting – I love that.

 

Copy edits are the hardest because it is not just about tweaking small sections. You then need to go back through the whole manuscript to make sure you haven’t ‘upset’ the rest of the story – or even its flow – with the edits.

 

5.      Which other authors are you influenced by?

I read widely in my genre, and there are some incredible authors out there writing the most clever/beautiful/hilarious stories. But the author whose career I most aspire to emulate is Lindsey Kelk. She is so brilliantly funny and her characters live and breathe in your mind. She’s also written two series as well as standalones and I am planning to do the same. I’ve already written the next in the Holiday Romance series and I am now writing book 6, a standalone, which may become a series!

 

6.      What does literary success “look” like to you?

When I can stop working in a ‘day job’ and just write fulltime. I have SO MANY stories inside me – most romantic comedies, some darker contemporary fiction, a thriller, a fairy tale. I just want to write fulltime.

 

7.      How do you select the names of your characters?

Maybe this is the hardest part of writing. I have a list of names I like, and I’ll draw from that, or I (lazily) borrow from friends and family. If I am writing the antagonist, I’ll go to my other list – names I don’t like, or I think of people who have irked me. And I use Google! ‘Popular girls’ names from 1990’ – searches of that nature are very helpful. But a name has to fit the character and sometimes, my characters get renamed as I write.

 

8.      Do you hide any secret ‘messages’ in your book that only a few people will understand? 

Not so much messages, but I will give my close friends ‘cameos’ where I’ve named a minor character after them. I also have ‘stolen’ a few travel stories/anecdotes that some people will recognise.

 

9.      If your book was to be made into a film/TV programme, which actors would play which role? 

I typically do an ‘inspiration image search’ when I am writing something new, so I usually know what my characters look like and often their appearance is based on specific actors. For Lucy in The Christmas Swap, I’d love Eleanor Tomlinson – she’d be perfect – and for her love interest, Will, Ansel Elgort.

 

10.  What do you hope your readers take away from your book?

That you can choose your family – those lifelong friends we have – they are our family as much as our parents, siblings, cousins, etc. Family is love, acceptance, honesty, generosity, and support.

 

 

Lastly, Jenn (The Comfy Chair) likes to enjoy a good read snuggled up with a cup of tea and piece of cake... what cake or sweet treat would you suggest to accompany your book? 

 

Christmas cake (drowning in sherry), hot chocolate, bubbly – anything that you associate with Christmas.

The Christmas Swap

Ebook is out now on all platforms, and the print book will be available from the end of November.

Christmas is coming and best friends Chloe, Jules, and Lucy are needing change… so swapping homes for the holidays could be the perfect present for all of them! Join them in snowy Colorado, sunny Melbourne and cosy Oxfordshire for love, laughter, friendship and romance.

Amazon:

AU https://amzn.to/3kx7xEO
US https://amzn.to/2PBrtbH
UK https://amzn.to/2RrbmhP
CA https://amzn.to/2HzrUCk

Apple: https://apple.co/3cCVRgy

GooglePlay: https://bit.ly/3cAJhhI

 

Sandy Barker's Social media:

https://twitter.com/sandybarker

https://www.facebook.com/sandybarkerauthor

https://sandybarker.com/

https://www.instagram.com/sandybarkerauthor/

Q&A with Liz Hinds

  Welcome to The Comfy Chair blog... Liz Hinds, author of upcoming release, 'This Year Maybe.' 

My name’s Liz Hinds, I live in Wales, on the edge of the beautiful Gower Peninsula – the first Area of Outstanding Natural beauty to be designated as such in Britain – with Husband and George. You’ll hear plenty about them – and it won’t necessarily be complimentary – if you read my blog! (http://lizhinds.online/)

I love reading, writing, walking with George, fun socks, and ice cream, but not as much as I adore my grandchildren

1.  What was your favourite childhood book/author? 

Little Women was my absolute favourite but before that I have fond memories of a book about Pookie. I can’t even remember if Pookie was a bear or a creature, or what he got up to, but I just have this little spot in my heart labelled, ‘Pookie’.

As for Little Women, of course I wanted to be Jo, even though I didn’t think seriously about that for a long time. Still haven’t forgiven her for not marrying Laurie though.

2.   What inspired you to start writing and how long has it taken you to get to this point? 

Although I was good at writing essays, through school and university I took the science route. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that the church I was part of set up a local newspaper and I got involved with that, and, as they say, it just went on from there.

3.  Describe your writing space - neat and ordered or creative chaos? 

No question, creative chaos. I have the habit of jotting things I think are important or want to remember down on scraps of paper, which then litter themselves – nothing to do with me – across my desk. I am trying to be more organised and write everything in a notebook but, well. My desk is also home to stones painted by grandchildren, and another notebook of Welsh – I started learning online during lockdown. At the moment there’s also a t-towel that I brought in to mop up the water I spilled.

4.   What is the easiest and hardest part of the writing process? 

Having ideas is easy. Facing the fear when it comes to putting them on paper terrified that they’ll not live up to the promise in my head is hard. Letting the characters write their own stories is easy. Writing it for them and making it fill enough pages – I am by nature a short writer, if you understand me – is hard. But nothing is as hard as marketing and promoting. Although I’m now on my third published novel I’m only just beginning to realise that books don’t sell themselves. (Just look at my sales figures …) So I’m doing courses, watching videos, learning new things, going from excited enthusiasm to mind-boggled misery in the course of a few hours each day.

5.  Which other authors are you influenced by?

Katie Fforde is my favourite of that genre (whatever that would be) and I love Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels. And I adore the style of Fredrik Backman though I have yet to emulate him.

6.   What does literary success “look” like to you?

Lots of people reading and loving your books.

7.  How do you select the names of your characters?

Do you know I don’t have a clue? I’ve tried to think before about why I decided to call this person Alison and that person Trisha, for example, but it must be a magical process that just happens.

8.  Do you hide any secret ‘messages’ in your book that only a few people will understand? 

So deep are they buried that no-one has ever found one. Or maybe I’ve not even thought about a secret message. Hm, now, what would I want to impart to those in the know?

9.  If your book was to be made into a film/TV programme, which actors would play which role? 
When I wrote my first novel – many years ago – I cast the now late Alan Rickman as the male lead. He was the only one I’ve ever seen so clearly and that was mainly a case of heard, as in the male character, David, has a sexy voice. I shall have to think about casting for my new novel.

10. What do you hope your readers take away from your book?

A smile, a warm feeling – or from my first and newly-released novels, that ‘At least I’m not as dopey as Alison.’

 

Lastly, Jenn (The Comfy Chair) likes to enjoy a good read snuggled up with a cup of tea and piece of cake... what cake or sweet treat would you suggest to accompany your book? 

A Welshcake or three.

This Year Maybe (sequel to This Time Next Year)

Release date: 25^th November 2020

Alison and David have been engaged for so long that even Alison’s mother has given up asking when, but it’s second time around for both of them and they’re not in any particular hurry. That said, Alison is beginning to wonder if living with her has put David off the idea of marriage so when he suggests they set a date she is delighted. But that date is six months’ away and a lot can happen in six months – especially if you’re Alison!

‘My son’s been arrested, Great-aunt Millie's fallen in love, my best friend suspects her husband of having an affair, and I still need to lose weight. How on earth can I think about getting married?’

Available to pre-order HERE

Follow me on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/LizHindsAuthor
Twitter https://twitter.com/LizHindsAuthor
Liz Hinds Website http://lizhinds.online/

SIGN UP to Liz's occasional newsletter about books, writing and reading, life, and a bit of Welsh learning. If you sign up now you can get a free copy of my first novel, This Time Next Year, the prequel to This Year Maybe.

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Q&A with Shirley Mann

 Welcome to The Comfy Chair blog... Shirley Mann, author of recent release, 'Bobby's War.' 

I am a journalist who worked for the BBC for most of my career,  for programmes such as Woman’s Hour and Countryfile. I then started up my own media company producing films for organisation such as Natural England and the National Heritage Lottery Fund. I was thinking of retiring when I thought it would be a really good idea to ‘just’ see whether I could write a novel. I have just been signed for two further novels so bang goes retirement. I live in the glorious hills of Derbyshire and have two daughters and a ‘granddog’ ( I know, say nothing!)  

 

1.     What was your favourite childhood book/author?
I absorbed all books but The Faraway Tree and The Water Babies have a special place in my heart.

2.    What inspired you to start writing and how long has it taken you to get to this point? 
I have always needed to write from when I would write stories for my sister and I – as the heroines, obviously- and I became a journalist for that reason but novel writing?-- Well, that only took me until I was 60 until I thought I’d give it a go.

3.     Describe your writing space - neat and ordered or creative chaos?
One day I will be neat and ordered but, at the moment, I move around the house taking my piles of rubbish with me. Sometimes, it’s on the sofa with a cushion on my knees under my laptop, sometimes at the dining room table but for some reason, hardly ever in the little office we have- that’s too much like a proper writer. Strangely the best place I have ever written was in the café at Ikea. No idea why but it worked really well and I love writing on trains. I often think all I have to do to finish a novel is to set off from Land’s End and go up to John O’Groats. That would do it.

4.     What is the easiest and hardest part of the writing process? 
Easiest is writing the words ‘The End’, the hardest is the bit beforehand.

5.    Which other authors are you influenced by?
All of them, I get something out of every writer’s style. Many of them make me feel completely inadequate, others make me feel I can do better- especially with endings. I hate it when they think it’s clever to keep you hanging.  I think I am aiming to create heroines like Georgette Heyer did- all with very different but distinctive personalities. I wanted to write novels that were an easy read but an intelligent read and oh, did I ever want to make sure they were page-turners? I read so much and so many different types of books but often it’s a chore to pick them up. I want to be taken away to another world but it has to be a well-written, well-researched world.

6.     What does literary success “look” like to you?
 People. I had a comment from a reader yesterday that said she stayed up until 1.30am reading my first book and couldn’t put it down. I get a huge kick out of people’s enthusiasm and when a 26 year old says she got through Lockdown with ‘Lily’s War’ because it made her realise what young people went through in the war, it makes me feel very humbled. I also want desperately to do justice to my parents, whose wartime romance started me off on this journey, and to the wonderful former WAAFs, ATA pilots and Land Army girls I interviewed- they helped me recreate their very personal war and told me wonderful details that aren’t in the history books. If I do justice to their legacy, I will feel I really have achieved something.

7.    How do you select the names of your characters?
Sometimes, they just come to me  because they seem to suggest themselves to me but graveyards are good!

8.    Do you hide any secret ‘messages’ in your book that only a few people will understand? 
I was about to say no, but the first one was based on my parents and for the family, I think there will be memories that I have that would have been lost. Certainly, in ‘Lily’s War’ my heroine’s parents are my grandparents and their house and life has now been immortalised in that book and I hope will allow future generations to understand what their ancestors were like.

9.     If your book was to be made into a film/TV programme, which actors would play which role? 
Someone asked me this question the other day and I thought maybe Lily James could be Lily ( and yes, it would be handy she has the same name) and I did think Andy Burnham could be Danny! Maybe a younger version might be necessary but he has all the attributes and certainly the twinkling eyes!

10.  What do you hope your readers take away from your book?
An escape from Covid and maybe an appreciation that at least, we’re not being bombed from the air for six years. But I really would like people to look again at old people and, a bit like the film ‘The Notebook’, realise that they were once young.

 

Lastly, Jenn (The Comfy Chair) likes to enjoy a good read snuggled up with a cup of tea and piece of cake... what cake or sweet treat would you suggest to accompany your book? 

 

Oh, I think a chocolate brownie but actually a chocolate brownie goes well with any book. It helps you get through some of the award winners that are sheer hard work but it also feels gloriously indulgent when you’re gobbling up the pages of a real winner. I hope people think my books are like chocolate brownies- delicious, fun but full of goodness.

Bobby's War
Release date: E book 29^th Oct and paperback 19^th March, 2021.

Red-haired Roberta, Bobby for short, is an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot. She has a frantic schedule delivering planes all over the country and flies everything from a Spitfire to a Wellington bomber. She navigates the country but when it comes to the secrets of her dysfunctional family, she finds that controlling a huge, four-engined bomber might just be easier than controlling her own life.

Available to purchase - HERE

Follow Shirley on Twitter - @shirleymann07
For more information - https://shirleymannauthor.home.blog/

Author Q&A with Olivia Beirne -'The Accidental Love Letter'

What would you do if you received a love letter that wasn't meant for you?

Bea used to feel confident, outgoing and fun, but she's not sure where that person went.

Over the last few months, she's found herself becoming reclusive and withdrawn. And despite living with her two best friends, she's never felt lonelier.

To make things worse, she's become so dependent on her daily routine, she's started to slip out of everyone else's.

But when a mysterious battered envelope covered in stars lands on her doormat, Bea wonders if she could find the courage to open it.
It isn't addressed to her, but it could be... if you squinted... 


Thank you to Olivia for taking the time to answer the following questions for The Comfy Chair blog...

1.    What was your favourite childhood book/author?

I had so many, but I loved everything by Roald Dahl. I especially loved Enid Blyton, and was obsessed with the idea of going to boarding school, which was only heightened when Harry Potter arrived in my early teens. I loved any books about magic, and the Saturday morning treat in my house was to go to the library and choose a new book (after my Mum had spent a far more stressful morning trying to find the pile of books me and my siblings had left around the house, to return to the library).
2.    What inspired you to start writing and how long has it taken you to get to this point?

I know every writer says this, but I really have written all my life. When I was little I told my younger brother stories, and made my sister watch me act out plays with my dolls (and tell her off when she didn’t clap at the right time. Lucky her ey?) I toyed with the idea of being a writer as a teenager, but had absolutely no idea how to do it, so skipped off to University to study Drama instead. In reality, I spent three years making up plays with my friends and writing scripts, and wrote a play as my final assignment. Something in me was addicted to creating stories.

I started writing my first novel the day after I handed in my dissertation. It took me four years and three books to get signed by my Agent (the third book being my debut novel, The List That Changed My Life). I must have been rejected about one hundred times over the year, but something in me knew I had to keep going. I felt like it was the only thing I could do!
  
3.    Describe your writing space - neat and ordered or creative chaos?

Absolute creative chaos! One of the reasons I find starting a book so hard is because, to begin with, everything is so neat. The notebooks are empty, and there are no charts around my desk. I am a planner, and I have to be able to visualise my book before I start writing. I write my books on my laptop, but all of the planning has to be done by hand. My brain won’t work any other way.

4.    What is the easiest and hardest part of the writing process?

Hmmm. I guess the easiest part is when I get to write a scene I’ve had planned for months, whether that be a comic or serious, I get such satisfaction writing them. I can feel the fire ignite in my stomach. The hardest part is getting there, at the beginning I imagine these huge scenes… but know that they won’t sit until 40,000 words in. I write chronologically, so even if that scene is bursting out of my fingers, I know I need to write that 40k first. That can be very hard.
5.    Which other authors are you influenced by? 

That is quite a hard question, as I read such a variety of books and I take something away from every book I read which seeps into my own writing process. For example, I’ve just finished My Sister The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite which was absolutely brilliant, and had an incredible sense
of pace which is firmly sat in my mind as I plan my next novel. 

6.    What does literary success look like to you?

Someone enjoying my book. Obviously seeing my books in bookshops is 

super exciting, but any comments from somebody who has read my book 

and enjoyed them means the world to me. To me, that’s me doing my job well. It also blows my mind.
7.    How do you select the names of your characters?

With great, great difficulty. I am terrible at choosing names. Sometimes I choose names I adore (for example, there is a character in The Accidental Love Letter called Joy, which is one of my favourite names), and sometimes I pinch names from TV programmes and people I meet

8.    Do you hide any secret ‘messages’ in your book that only a few people will understand?

Yes! There is a moment between Gus and Sylvia which is a nod to my Grandparents and how they met. I’m not sure they’ll even notice, but it made me smile!

9.    What three words describe your book?

Trust. Love. Unity.

10.  If it was to be made into a film/TV programme, what actors would play which role? 

Maggie Smith would make a mean Sylvia!

11.  What do you hope your readers take away from this book?

That they’re not alone, and chances are the people around you who seem to have it all together are feeling the same way as you. It’s okay to ask for help. Most importantly, it’s okay to make repeated jokes about beavers (that’s mainly for my parents/grandparents before they disown me at the sheer amount of beaver jokes crammed in this book).

Lastly, Jenn and The Comfy Chair likes to enjoy a good read snuggled up with a cup of tea and piece of cake... what cake or sweet treat would you suggest accompany your book?

Jenn that’s exactly how I’d like my books to be enjoyed! I love cake, and I think I’d say a fat slice of victoria sponge. Or carrot cake. Or chocolate. Or all three with a small bit of battenburg?

The Accidental Love Letter - Available Here

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  

Olivia Beirne is the bestselling author of The List That Changed My Life and lives in Buckinghamshire. She has worked as a waitress, a pottery painter and a casting assistant, but being a writer is definitely her favourite job yet.

You can keep in touch with Olivia through her website oliviabeirne.co.uk, or via Olivia_Beirne on Twitter, olivia.beirne on Instagram and /Olivia-Beirne on Facebook.