Interview with fellow Carina author Kristina O'Grady!

Hello Kristina  - and can I just say, first of all, how much I LOVE the cover to your time-travel novel (blurb below)! It's great having you here!



Hi Samantha, thank you so much for having me!  I'm so excited to be here.

 Debutantes Don’t Date looks like a fantastic story. It is similar to Doubting Abbey in that my heroine, Gemma, is thrust into an aristocratic atmosphere and has to adapt quickly – it sounds like Grace has to do the same! I’m assuming the book is comedic? Gemma from DA certainly gets herself into some funny situations, when trying to fit in.

You are right to think that our novels hold a common theme and even although they are set in different times they are both about a heroine trying to fit into a situation she never expected to find herself in.  I wrote Debutantes Don't Date with fun in mind and although I wouldn't consider it to be a comedy per say, there is some comedic moments in it as Grace attempts to 'find her feet' in the 1800's.  

 

What appealed to you about writing within the Regency Period?

The very first romance novel I ever picked up was set in the Regency period and since then I have always had a soft spot for that time.  I love the romantic feel of the era with the elegant dresses and the grand homes.

 

Are you a fan of period dramas?

I am.  I love getting sucked into the past. 

 

I can’t imagine having to live as anything but a modern woman – how do you think you would fit into an aristocratic lifestyle?

 The love the idea of travelling back in time but I think the reality of living in the past would soon loose it's shine.  I am too attached to my modern luxuries like running water and flush toilets. But I imagine I would have the toughest time in winter without proper heating. Brrr. 

 

Describe Grace in three words.

Driven, short, klutz.  

 

How hot is the hero, the Earl of Bingham?!

Super hot!  As all heroes should be. ;) 

 

Tell me a little bit about yourself – how long have you been writing?

Lets see, I was born in Canada, I worked as an Environmental Consultant before meeting my husband and moving down to New Zealand.  We have three youngish children and live on a sheep and beef farm in sunny Hawke's Bay.

I have been writing for a long time, since for as long as I can remember really, but nothing serious until about six years ago.  It was then that a story grabbed me and I decided to give writing a novel a go.  It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be and when I had written myself into several corners I decided to try something fun and romantic instead. That novel turned into Debutantes Don't Date. I must say it was so fun writing romance that now I can't stop!  

 

Is there another book in the pipeline – can readers look forward to a sequel or is everything tied up neatly at the end of this one?

 

Well.....things are tied up neatly at the end of Debutantes Don't Date...or are they?  Let's just say in the next book you might find out something else about Grace and Jasper, but the next book is not about them.

Well best of luck with sales, Kristina!

Thank you again Samantha.  It was great 'chatting' with you.

Find out more about Kristina here.

Buy her book on AmazonUK here.

Here's the blurb!

One minute Grace Lancaster is an overworked event manager organising 2013’s New Year’s Eve ball… The next she’s kissing a rather gorgeous man at the Regency themed party. Everyone’s entitled to an out-of-character New Year’s kiss, right? Except Jasper Mossman, Earl of Bingham, isn’t at a costume party - he’s a real-life gentleman from 1813...

And, it seems, kissing a man in Regency London has consequences!

What Grace considers normal behaviour scandalises Regency society and so far she’s provided the irrepressible gossips of the ton with a season’s worth of conversation! In a scramble to protect her reputation, as well as his own, Jasper insists that they marry for the sake of her honour. Marrying Mr Darcy might be a 21st century girl’s dream – but the reality is far from romantic. Corsets are uncomfortable, no running water is disastrous! Grace had always planned on falling in love before she got married, but when Jasper takes her in his arms she just might believe she’s finally found her very own Prince Charming.

Identity Exchange Interview With... Author Amy Bird

Hello, Amy - your debut novel, Yours is Mine, which was published last July by CarinaUK, features a life-exchange . Two women swap lives for 3 months - a bit like Gemma pretending to be Abbey in Doubting Abbey - but one of your characters has evil intent. Can you give us a brief synopsis, without giving away the plot-ending?

Kate, our protagonist, is persuaded to participate in the ‘experiment’ of swapping identities, thinking it is part of a PhD study, and that it will help get her spark back while her military husband is overseas. The other woman, Anna, who planned it all, has a very different motivation, which unfortunately only becomes clear too late for our heroine. Gaps start appearing in Anna’s cover story, but Kate is too busy enjoying Anna’s life to notice. In particular, she is enjoying flirting with Ben, a fellow student in a drama class that Anna signed up to but hadn’t previously attended. When Kate succumbs utterly to Ben’s charms, despite her marriage, a chain of events unfolds that reveals the real reason behind the ‘experiment’. And that Kate getting her own life back will not be so simple as she thought.

In Doubting Abbey, Gemma has to pass herself off as aristocratic friend Abbey, for two weeks - but is helped by the fact that she knows her friend inside out, looks vaguely like her - plus the people she has to fool haven't seen the real Abbey for years anyone, due to a family estrangement.

How on earth do your two characters pull off the life-exchange?

Anna, the antagonist, has planned it all very well. There is nothing in her life in London that will require Kate to pass herself off as Anna to people who know Anna really well. There are the usual gyms, doctors’ surgeries and dry cleaners to contend with, but the women are both brunette and of a similar build, so detection is avoided. Anna asks Kate to ‘keep warm’ a romance – but it is an on-line one, so again, their secret is safe. Anna works (she says) as a freelance proofreader and is on a research break from her thesis. So again, no interaction. From Kate’s point of view, she is working remotely up in Northumberland, following the death of her father, and is only communicating with her employers through phone and post. The relationship with her own husband is long-distance, and (for reasons that become clear) only by email, so Anna just has to adopt Kate’s epistolary style. Or, indeed, to make it her own. But Anna has researched everything well, so she knows exactly what route to take. So convincing is Anna’s subterfuge that even when she stops trying to mimic Kate, the pretence has become so real that Kate’s life is threatened with destruction.

The main challenge for me was making this plotline credible, although Doubting Abbey is, to a degree, a farce and requires the reader to suspend a bit of belief - what was the main challenge for you as the author?

I agree that encouraging a reader to suspend their disbelief is a big challenge with this sort of story. You either buy the premise, or you don’t. The big thing for the reader to get their head round is that Kate would agree to surrender her identity. She is in a very vulnerable place. She has just nursed her father through terminal cancer, all alone up in isolated Northumberland, and her military husband has gone away overseas. Add to that a degree of naivety, and it becomes possible to imagine her taking up an invitation that seems to allow her a temporary escape from her current existence. She wants it to be genuine. Plus Anna can be very convincing. I think also, in a thriller-meets-chicklit like Yours is Mine, part of the excitement for the reader is knowing that the set-up can’t be genuine, and the tension rises as the protagonist gradually starts to realise it too. As one reviewer very kindly put it, the book has ‘the deliciousness of those horror movies where you find yourself shouting at the screen “don’t go into the darkened basement to investigate the strange noise, you silly woman”’. Whether or not the reader has suspended their disbelief, Kate certainly has, and therein lies the danger.

If you could swap lives with anyone famous, who would it be and why?

Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, seems to be doing quite well, and we would both still get to write thrillers. So I can see that working…

Some of the best comedy books, in my opinion, thrust the main character into an unfamiliar environment - such as a life exchange - what do you think is characteristic of some of the best thrillers?

I think the same can be said for thrillers, but in a different way. If you look at Gone Girl, or Before I Go To Sleep, or even classics like Rebecca or The Ministry of Fear, the protagonist is taken out of their ordinary world and finds themselves in a situation or environment that is unknown to them. They must then survive – or not. What’s doubly scary about Yours is Mine is that Kate’s own life ultimately becomes unfamiliar territory. When she tries to reclaim her existence, she finds it is all altered. She must again battle to survive.

Thanks so much for joining me today, Amy and good luck with your new book,  Three Steps Behind You!

The blurb for Yours is Mine:

How far would you go to get your life back?

Kate Dixon is miserable. So when an email arrives from psychology student Anna, offering her a no-strings-attached, three month long life-exchange, she jumps at the chance. After all: what has she got to lose?

But she doesn’t bank on how much Anna has invested in the swap. How long she’s been watching, putting her immaculate plan together as she waits to enter Kate’s life. And as more comes to light about Anna’s past, Kate finds herself in a desperate race to protect all she holds dear.

Leaving your life in someone else’s hands is a dangerous game; Kate’s about to find out just how seriously her opponent is playing.

About Amy Bird...

Yours is Mine is Amy Bird’s debut novel, part of a three-book deal with CarinaUK. It became a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic, reaching the coveted No. 1 spot in the Amazon.com Women’s Crime chart. Amy has an M.A. in Creative Writing from Birkbeck and is an alumna of Faber Academy. Born in Hampstead, but raised in the North East of England, Amy has now returned North London, where she lives with her husband, dividing her energies between writing and working part-time as a lawyer. Her second book, psychological thriller Three Steps Behind You, the tale of a crime writer who believes he has to experience everything in order to write about it, is out now.

Why not buy Yours is Mine here in UK or here in US?!

Find Amy on Twitter here

Amy's website

Aspiring Novelists - Learn From My Mistakes

Not a pretty sight, is it? Or some, might say, it's impressive. Either way, that pile represents the work I've put in, over the years, in trying to get published.

I'd written, ahem, let's just say a few novels before getting a publishing deal for my debut romantic comedy, Doubting Abbey. A bit like kissing lots of frogs to find your prince, quite a number of submissions went out, over the years, before I found Harlequin's Carina UK.

So what mistakes did I make along the way? Here's the benefit of my knowledge for you.


1 - Don't set yourself a New Year's Resolution of "to get published" like I did, as this is an unrealistic goal. Set yourself small achievable (and therefore ego-boosting) steps such as "this year I will complete my novel" or " this year I will take the plunge and send my book out to agents".

2 - Don't write novels for years, without writing short stories as well. The short form will help you in so many ways and really focus your eye on chapter structure and padding in your work which needs to be cut out.
Also, if you make a short story sale, this will be a real boost and form of validation, if your novel rejections are  piling up.

3 -  Don't nudge about submissions too early. I am the most impatient person on earth and in retrospect some of my early nudges probably resulted in a straightforward rejection. Having said  that don't wait forever either - you deserve the courtesy of a reply within a few months. 


4 - Get feedback on your work. I didn't do this with my first novel until I'd written the whole thing. Join an online forum like WriteWords where you can join groups and get critques. Or, if you can afford it, get an editorial report done on one of your manuscripts, from agencies like Cornerstones and BubbleCow (both of which I have used to my satisfaction.)

5 - To save unnecessary tears, try to accept, early on, that your journey might be a long one. When I started out, in my late thirties, writing novels, I was convinced I'd be published by the age of forty. That was very naive looking back. I had a lot to learn about my craft.

6 - Don't mentally hinge all your self-worth on becoming a published author. I did this for a long time and it's not good for the soul. Remind yourself of all the other things you are great at - being a parent or partner or in your full-time job... Writing may be your vocation but if your journey to publication is a rocky one, you must try to distance yourself from the criticism, disappointments and rejection you will meet. Yet another " no" from an agent does not mean you are a failure - it means you are forging your way forward, getting your work out there.

7 - And finally, my journey to publication has been a rollercoaster of emotions and dress sizes... Try not to get into the habit of eating chocolate over the keyboard!

Doubting Abbey Prizes!

Over the coming weeks I shall run various competitions, in places such as Twitter and Facebook, for the launch of my debut romantic comedy novel, Doubting Abbey - out 10th November from CarinaUK Harlequin! 

Amongst the prizes are Downton Abbey drinks coasters, Highclere Castle bookmarks and chocolate, plus fudge, a favourite recipe of Doubting Abbey's Scottish cook, Kathleen!