The Next Big Thing

Thanks a bunch to the lovely Pauline Wiles for tagging me to take part in The Next Big Thing. This involves me yacking on about myself and my books while also spreading love to other authors that I admire!

Like me Pauline is a British ex-pat, and when she left the UK eight years ago she was not quite sure how she was going to survive without afternoon tea, historic homes, the local pub and oodles of rain but is now living in California with her British husband and getting her head around the constant sunshine and cheerful people! She calls herself a “trailing spouse” so that's what I will think of myself as herewith.

I beg of you please take a peek at Pauline’s engaging debut novel, Saving Saffron Sweeting. It is about Grace, an English woman living in USA with her husband and living a charmed life until she finds out he's doing the dirty on her. Unable to stomach the betrayal Grace flees back to her homeland, and somehow lands in the clutches of the quaint village of Saffron Sweeting....

Buy the book and find out what happens next and be aware that the book will leave you yearning for English treats like sticky toffee pudding. So do yourself a favor and get stuck in!

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Now, onto my Q&A section:

What is the working title of your book?

Cocktails at Naptime - A Woefully Inadequate Guide to Early Motherhood.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Once upon a time...two mums who really should have been doing housework wrote a book together....they called it "Cocktails at Naptime" and some nice Australian publishers called Finch Publishing laughed out loud when they read it on the train home and thought their readers would laugh out loud too on their trains home, possibly startling some fellow passengers along the way (read more here)

What genre does your book fall under?

Pregnancy and Childbirth Humor.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

That the book will become a movie is something of a given - two bloggers meet over the blogosphere and write a book. The plotline is marvellous. Once Hollywood comes a-calling the question will be who will play Gillian and who will play Emma?

Emma (me)

I am a kind of bossy no nonsense English type but frankly Emma Thompson's getting a bit long in the tooth to play someone as stunning and vivacious as me so I'm going to have to put my thinking cap on here. I am also one of those clumsy types with no sense of direction so I am thinking maybe Tamsin Greig?

Gillian Martin

Gillian is a plain speaking Scott so maybe Michelle Gomez who played that Scottish woman who was bonkers in Green Wing? (although Gillian is not really bonkers)



Sue White (Michelle Gomez) and Dr Caroline Todd (Tamsin Grieg) in Green Wing


But here are some other options:

Kath and Kim

Rennee Zellwegger and Julia Roberts

Meryl Streep and Judi Dench

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

There are secrets that no baby book will tell you, and stories that no parenting magazine will touch with a set of forceps. Thats a shame because out of postnatal nastiness and the struggle with sleep-deprivation, couch stainage and perineum bruising, comes forth humour lots of it!


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

The book was first published by Finch Publishing in Australia but we would be over the moon if a British or American publisher wanted to publish it too. You can purchase it on Amazon here.


How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

A few months of emailing eachother, gallons of Chardonnay and a very messy house (as the housework didn't get done)!

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

The book was written by two authors who met via the internet. Gillian lives in Aberdeen, Scotland and I live in Baltimore, USA and we have never met! We are both successful bloggers who wrote the book in cyberspace and have been promoting it all over the internet ever since.

Cocktails at Naptime tackles the first year after birth for first time mums in a way that will have you in stitches. Go here for chapter headings and extracts.

The book is also like stand up comedy on a page and includes off-beat stuff about how Mothers of History (including Queen Victoria and Marie Antoinette) dealt with getting their figure back as well as an essential guide to transforming your partner into a sex symbol using only household bleach and a pair of rubber gloves.

If you want to know how Marie Antoinette got her figure back post birth read Cocktails at Naptime.



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Now to continue this series of author-self-interviews, I would like to tag:

Jill Smokler aka Scary Mommy who lives somewhere in Baltimore although I have yet to meet her. Her latest book is the side-splitting Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) Check out her amazingly popular confessional on where you can let it all hang out and not feel judged.

Joanne Clancy is a fabulous writer from County Cork, Ireland. She is an avid reader, self-confessed Kindle addict, and tea fiend. Joanne was a quarter finalist at the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards 2013, with The Secrets and Lies Trilogy. She has also written The Wedding Day; Unforgettable Embrace; My Love, and Watched.

Nikki Kneppler is the author of Moms Who Drink and Swear: True Tales of Loving My Kids While Losing My Mind. Blurb: Attention all potty-mouthed, cheap-wine-drinking mothers: Prepare to meet your match. Any bad thought you’ve had about your kids, Nicole Knepper has had worse. Much worse. It’s not that she doesn’t love her kids. It’s that she understands what a mind-f*?% it can be to try to civilize those wild little beasts.

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Other books you can buy written by me (and make me very happy) are Seductive Viennese Whirl and Her Ten Year Itch. You can also connect with me on Facebook and Twitter.