Doubting Abbey In Reverse!

Doubting Abbey is the story of a pizza waitress who has to pass herself off as an aristocrat - and a fellow Carina author, the very talented TA Williams - Trevor to you and me - has just seen his latest book published, What Happens In Tuscany, and it is a kind of Doubting Abbey in reverse...Here's the wonderful cover and blurb:

From rainy England…

Katie never imagined her life was perfect. But when she finds herself on a rainy street, soaked to the bone and with only a cheating boyfriend and a dead-end job keeping her in town, she knows something has to change. Which is what leads her to Iddlescombe Manor, to be companion to Victoria Chalker-Pyne – the only 25-year-old Katie’s ever met who hasn’t heard of Twitter, hasn’t used a computer, and desperately needs an education in the 21st century!

 

…to the Tuscan sun!

But it wouldn’t be an education without a summer holiday – and where better than Tuscany? Decamping to Victoria’s family villa, it’s soon clear that this place really does have it all: sun, sea…and some seriously gorgeous neighbours. The only question is: when the weather’s this hot, the wine is this smooth and the men are this irresistible…will Katie ever want to make the journey home?

I thought it might be fun to invite Trevor over and find out a little more about the inspiration behind the book and why he enjoys writing for women...

Hi Trevor - how easily does Victoria take to her lessons about modern life? 

Amazingly easily. You see, for years she’s been cooped up by her crazy, overprotective dad and now, after his death, she realises she has got a lot of catching up to do. She is bright enough to realise that she needs somebody to help her. In fact it’s Victoria herself who comes up with the idea of looking for a guide or mentor. And that’s where Katie comes in. She’s five years older (30) and she is a teacher. She quickly realises that Victoria is a 15 year old in a 25 year old’s body and she does her best to guide her step by step down the road to modernity. Victoria takes to it like a duck to water.

What does she find most difficult? 

Predictably, the area where Victoria has most trouble is with men. She has inherited her father immense wealth and her mother’s good looks, but she has totally missed out on the tentative adolescent first experiences with the opposite sex the rest of us had. Before long, the vultures are circling. Katie sits down with her and has The Talk. Afterwards, she tells Victoria that, even after teaching sex education to teenagers, this was the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. In particular she gives Victoria this valuable piece of advice:

‘Listen Vicky. They say that when God invented man, He gave him enough blood to work his brain or his penis, but not both at the same time.’ 

Who is your favourite character in the book?

Difficult question. I suppose it’s a tie between Katie who is the main character and through whose eyes we see everything and Dante. Dante is reliable, comforting, strong, very handsome and a Labrador. I’ve already had a couple of reviewers telling me they have fallen in love with Dante. There’s something about a sleek, dark-haired Italian with big brown eyes, even if he has four legs and a tail. Katie is my hero. I mean, she is not only the main character, but the one who holds it all together. We see her at the start of the book at a low ebb. She has just dumped her slob of a boyfriend and has jacked in the job she hated. She’s scouring the papers for jobs, terrified that she’ll end up working in a fast food shop, selling burgers to her former students. But she goes for it. She meets adversity along the way, but she fights it. I like Katie a lot.

What was the inspiration for the story - do you like modern life? 

Mmh, interesting question. I suppose there is a part of me that finds modern life a bit daunting. Bear in mind that when I was born, TV was in black and white, Bruce Forsythe was still a teenager and if anybody had said, ‘I’ll have to Google that. I’ll tweet about it when I find the ap,’ they would probably have been frogmarched off to the funny farm. The other reason is linguistic. My previous book, When Alice Met Danny, had sold quite well and has collected some very good reviews. A recurring objection by a few reviewers was that my language was “too old-fashioned”. It occurred to me that I might not be the only person with that sort of problem so I transposed my linguistic anachronisms onto a modern girl. Victoria has been fed a diet of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, and a good part of Katie’s job is to correct her speech. I sympathise

Why do you particularly like writing for women and what do you find easy/challenging about it? 

All my books up till last year have had male main protagonists. I’ve written bloodthirsty thrillers and tales of medieval knights. Men dominated the Middle Ages and so my books reflected that. The fact is, however, that I have worked among women pretty much all my life and I reckon I’ve got a reasonable handle on you lot by now. I spent my life before retiring running a big English language school. Most of the staff and most of the students were female. Add to that the fact that in our family, there was my wife and my daughter on one side of the great divide and Merlin the Labrador and me on the other. Now, heaven forbid that I should even begin to presume that I fully understand women (ask my wife; I’m nowhere near), but I think I do know enough to know that men and women aren’t as different as we think. The same stuff makes us angry or sad, some people are assertive, others submissive (ask EL James). My female characters are always competent, resourceful women. I haven’t met a lot of meek, passive women in my life and that’s reflected in my characters. And the other reason I like writing for women is that you buy the books. Allegedly 66% of books are bought by women, while men rely on football and videogames. Ultimately, as a writer, I have to imagine and invent stuff. I’ve never been a medieval knight and I’ve never been in the SAS. That doesn’t stop me writing about them. However, just as I have to check online to see how an MP5 automatic weapon works, so I have to check with my wife how a front-opening bra works. All it takes is a little research…

Sounds like a fab read - why not treat yourself! 

You can buy it on AmazonUK or Amazon.com !    

 

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

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!