I've been tagged for 'The Next Big Thing!'

And being tagged has got me blogging again ― Yay!

That ‘yay’ is obviously for my benefit rather than yours. The last few months have been a little challenging but finally I hope to be able to start posting on here regularly.

Believe me when I say you wouldn’t have wanted to be a party to my ramblings during recent events. Honestly, there is bad luck and then there is so much bad luck that you can’t help but think … voodoo! 

But I am positive. I am hopeful. And yes ― I do presently chant those mantras to myself several times a day LOL.

Thank you so very much to my fellow Choc Lit writer and fantastically supportive new friend, Chris Stovell for tagging me and giving me that boot up the backside I so evidently needed to get back on track. Her answers to the questions can be found here. The Amazon link to her next big thing (which I love!) is here.

So, my own responses to the questions posed in ‘The Next Big Thing’:

What is the title of your book?

No such thing as … immortality. It is the first in the No Such Thing paranormal romance trilogy.

Where did the idea come from for the book?
I was on a low following a car accident a few years ago and I started exploring further the idea of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and asking myself ‘what if?’ What if it wasn’t in fact the wrong place, wrong time ― not for me, obviously ― but for some fictional characters who meet as a result of a car crash? What if those characters come with their own distinct set of issues that ensure the ‘side effects’ of their meeting make the accident itself pale into insignificance? Even ― what if the accident itself should have been impossible? The plot was then taken forward by the characters. I couldn’t have begun to conjure up where they took it.

What genre does your book fall under?
Paranormal romance.  I love paranormal, I love romance so it had to be.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a film version?

I haven’t ever thought about this ― and to be honest, even if I had, I wouldn’t want to say. The way I write, I leave a lot of visualisation for the reader. I attempt to write just enough to allow the reader to clearly picture a scene ― or the hero and heroine ― for themselves. I’m probably making little sense here ― but I like to use words that will trigger the reader’s own imagination without me unnecessarily spoon-feeding them. As a result, whilst the hero they picture would most definitely be dark and hot as hell, there would still be some room for their own mind to fully visualise him. If I provided the name of an actor it would ruin that.

I can say though, the heroine could not be played by your typical Hollywood star.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Oh dear. I’ve never been any good at doing the synopsis. It’s an intense paranormal love story with― Actually, I will cheat and provide you with my tongue-in-cheek elevator pitch. ‘Bridget Jones meets Interview with a Vampire and Peter Pan.’ Very tongue-in-cheek.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It is being published by the wonderful award-winning publishers, Choc Lit. I still have to pinch myself about that. It is out on Ebook on 16 November and then paperback on 7 January.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
A few months. But that was the first draft. Subsequent drafts took an age.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I think I will steal Chris’s answer here ― that’s up to the reader. Although Choc Lit is promoting it as their version of Twilight: grown up; British ― and from the hero’s point of view.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

That has to be the car accident I’m afraid.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It is written entirely from the hero’s point of view. I gather this is unusual ― although I considered the story couldn’t be written in any other way. He, by the way, is a very, very hot vampire (Nathaniel Gray or Nate) who, as a result of events, finds himself well and truly outside of his comfort zone.

I’m now passing the baton to the very talented Sue Fortin. Sue's writing is equally as fabulous as she is.