Spotlight... Forever Fredless

A new contemporary romance 

by 

Suzy Turner

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Kate Robinson has spent the past two decades yearning to find her soul mate, the boy she found and then lost during a family holiday.

Shortly after her twenty-eighth birthday, however, she inherits a fortune from an old family friend and becomes something of an overnight celebrity. Can her new-found fame lead her to him after all this time?

Bringing the pain of real-life into fiction

Sad. Scary. Tragic. (But Funny!)

by

Francine LaSala

I got a call from an old friend the other day. We'd fallen out of touch over the years, but she reached out when she'd heard I'd been through a significant loss. We spoke for a while, sharing memories and getting caught up.

Then she told me the thing I most needed to hear. "Francine," she said, "I know you're going to come through this. Your sense of humor always pulls you through."

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I thanked her, as you do when people say seemingly absurd things to you at times such as these. And then I thought about what she'd said and why she'd said it.

I have always been in the awkward habit of laughing when I hear terrible news. Not all terrible news, but those things that are so terrible that sorrow somehow doesn't seem appropriate. That giggling (yes, crazy), somehow makes more sense. It's not schadenfreude. Maybe it is schadenfreude. But whatever it is, it's the defense mechanism that gets me through.

I do it in writing, too. All of my books--the two that are published, and the ones that are in progress and will be published next year--have all been born from some pain or loss. For Rita Hayworth's Shoes, it was the heartache of a boyfriend's betrayal. For The Girl, the Gold Tooth & Everything, it was the fear of financial ruin, dread of the dentist--among other things. No one would ever call my books "tragic"; they're all totally screwball and silly! Yet they center on various plights of the human condition. Laced with laughs.

I don't think you need to be sick in the head like me to find the humor in any given situation, and then weave that humor into your own stories. Sometimes you can do it with a situation; sometimes with a kooky character you bring in to the situation to help break the tension. The Girl, the Gold Tooth & Everything is peppered with these characters. There's Char-a'tee Pryce, who continually mocks protagonist Mina Clark for allowing the world to roll over her. There's neighbor Harriet Saunders, who takes all of Mina's "bad mother" anxiety and flips it on its ear. (I wrote a character piece for Louise Wise a few months back that will give you a taste of just how kooky Harriet is.

What I've come to learn is that in any horrible situation, there is the possibility to laugh. To take "Turn that frown upside down" to the extreme in your life and in your books. It feels good to laugh. It pulls you (and your characters) out of the gloom and doom; it helps you take a step back and detach so you can breathe.

Living the Chick-lit life

by 

Haley Hill 

My other life is perfect. The one I lead in my head.

I know it’s there because I’m always accounting for it. The rows of dresses I own, ideal for weddings I don’t go to, sprayed-on jeans and leopard print stilettos for bars and clubs I no longer frequent. A bejewelled evening gown- because you never know- and a gold sequined bikini, in case I find myself ten years younger and sunbathing on a yacht in Puerto Banus.

On a recent shopping trip, I worked myself into frenzy scooping up inappropriate clothing and then barging into changing rooms. At one point, whilst brandishing an armful of white linen trousers, I imagined a scene at a Chateau in the south of France. Standing on tiptoes in front of the mirror, I pondered whether wedges or kitten heels would be more fitting for a holiday I had no plans to book. Of course, in my parallel life I was sipping Rosè on an 18th century terrace overlooking ancient vines. Sunglasses propped up on my head. Skin slightly flushed from the rays, lips glossed. My hair swept up into a chignon. However, in truth, I’m not entirely sure what a chignon is.

It’s not as though a holiday in France is an impossible endeavour. It’s just that my mind has somehow edited out twin toddlers and a disobedient dog. Throw them into the mix and instead of me personifying effortless chic, I’m wearing a deeply harangued expression, brow furrowed, temples pulsing. Instead of organic white cotton, my trousers are industry spec Kaki green. What they lack in elegance they make up for in their ability to camouflage the inevitable ominous brown smudges. My top might be less military standard, but there’s every chance I’ll have a label sticking out or my bra strap showing while attempting to block determined toddlers from nose-diving into the pool. And my hair won’t be swept into anything, more like plastered down with the cohesive aid of Weetabix.

It was only upon recent reflection that I realised it wasn’t simply that my life was less glamorous since I had acquired dependents. Instead, it dawned on me that my virtual reality had never come to fruition, since it had reared its perfectly groomed head twenty years ago when I was preparing for my first ever date. Following the counsel of Just Seventeen, style bible for any aspiring teenager at the time, I had thoroughly prepared for the occasion, and envisaged strolling hand-in-hand up Bromley high street, the birds tweeting, the sun shining. I would wear my Miss Selfridge paisley dress and platform boots. We never got that far though, because in reality, he didn’t turn up. I later discovered it was because he’d substituted me for a girl called Felicity who was in the year above. She had bigger boobs.

Since then, measured against the chick-lit fantasy that plays through my mind, real life has rarely measured up.

The one thing that remains constant though, in both scenarios as they play out simultaneously, is my hand tightly gripping the stem of a wine glass.

Therefore, I invite a toast: ‘To idealism and reality. Never the twain shall meet.’

And if they do, at least I’ve got the wardrobe covered.

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Step Away from the Cat!

by

Monique McDonell

I’m blogging today about a phenomenon that I may be guilty of in my own fiction.  You’ll recognise it when I explain. It’s when a main character uses a pet as a confidant and ally. Let’s loosely call it ‘the animal as a literary device’.

Take a lonely single girl who sits around talking to her cat (or dog or hamster) lamenting her situation because nobody else understands her. Sure she might be a ditz and she might be a bit flaky, but dammit if she isn’t home every night to feed Fido or Whiskers and to lament her miserable life!

There’s a reason you see this in books and that’s because when it’s done well, it works. Here are some very successful examples that may spring to mind:

Janet Evanovich uses it in a lot of her traditional romances, and in the Stephanie Plum series it seems Rex the Hamster is almost the only thing Stephanie can keep track of (how one hamster has survived so many explosions in one apartment with just a cage to protect him is quite the mystery, but Stephanie needs Rex and so he has bravely powered on through nineteen books so far! Don’t let my cynicism throw you off, I’ve read all nineteen of those books!).

A great example of this done well in the chick lit genre is Must Love dogs by Claire Cook. I loved this book back in the day because at that time it was a fresh angle….eight years later, hmm I’m not sure.

Meg Cabot did it in The Princess Diaries (cat) and in The Boy Next Door (dog). If you can add pet-sitting into the story line you get double points. Well, not that there are points but you get the dog as the confidant and the fish out of water scenario as well. (In my first novel Mr Right and Other Mongrels the main character has the opposite issue – a crippling dog phobia – not much sitting around talking to the dogs in that one).

So what is my point you ask? People do have pets and they do talk to them. People really will race home to feed their cat rather than have a night of crazy sex with a new love interest – either because the cat really does need to eat or because it’s a nice way out when you’re scared you like him too much or you don’t like him enough –  but either way it does happen. People do walk their dogs and meet new friends at the dog park, absolutely. It’s real life and that makes it realistic, sure.

I guess my point is that done well it is just fine to have animals as confidants in books but done badly it’s just another cliché. It’s another “here we go” moment for a reader and neither the author nor the reader wants that.

That’s why I say “Step Away from the Cat” unless he brings some unique energy or purpose that will have the readers caring about that animal, not just as a literary device, but as a real life character that they too would give up a wonderful romantic evening for.

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Introducing...

Mr Right and Other Mongrels

Blissfully happy in her own universe Allegra (Ally) Johnson is the sweet best friend everyone wants to have. Quietly and independently wealthy she runs a charming second-hand bookshop in beachside Manly. Heck, sometimes she even goes downstairs from her flat to run the shop in her Chinese silk pyjamas. It sounds like bliss. But is it enough? 

When dog-phobic Allegra is rescued from an exuberant canine by the chivalrous Teddy Green, Australia’s hottest TV celebrity and garden make-over guru, her life begins to change. Dramatically!

Unaware of Teddy’s fame Allegra finds herself falling for him, despite her best attempts to resist his charm. Supported by her eccentric family and her fabulous gay friend Justin, Allegra embarks on an on-again off-again romance with Teddy, complicated by his jealous ex-girlfriend, fashionista Louisa and her own narcissistic hippy mother Moonbeam.

Will Ally be able to overcome her insecurities and find happiness with this possible Mr Right or will Teddy’s celebrity lifestyle prove to be too much?

Mr Right and Other Mongrels is a light-hearted story about how one chance encounter can change your life.

About author Monique McDonell is an Australian author who writes contemporary women's fiction including chick lit and romance. She lives on Sydney's Northern Beaches with husband and daughter, and despite her dog phobia, a dog called Skip.

At University she studied Creative Writing as part of of her Communication degree. Afterwards, she was busy working in public relations and didn't write for pleasure for quite a few years although she wrote many media releases, brochures and newsletters - and still does in her day-job.

When she began to write again she noticed that writing dark unhappy stories made her unhappy, so she made a decision to write a novel with a happy ending, and has been writing happy stories ever since. 

Is chick lit intellectual enough for you?

by

Laura Barnard 

Often, when I tell people I’ve written a book their face lights up.  

‘What kind of book is it?’ they ask, surprised that I could write more than a post-it note.

‘Chick-lit.’ 

Then their faces drop.

It grates on me that the minute they hear 'chick-lit' they dismiss it as if I’ve written nothing more than a diary entry. I’m proud to be a writer of chick-lit and also proud that I'm an avid reader of it.

It’s considered to not be intellectual enough for some people.  Unless you’re reading something that is ridiculously confusing and makes your head hurt you’re not smart enough to be considered a book-worm.

Author Laura Barnard

I couldn’t disagree more.  Any book, regardless of genre, is good as long as people enjoy it.  

Why do I read chick lit?  Like most people I have a busy life, and at the end of the day I enjoy a cup of tea and to indulged in someone else’s life. I don’t want to read a horror and be scared someone is out there waiting to kill me, neither do I want to read a thriller (after a long day I can barely remember my name let alone keep track of a government agent double crossing another agent!).  

What I want is to read about a group of friends having fun. I want to hear about other women getting into tricky, hilarious situations. Most of all I want to fall in love with a gorgeous man who I can dream about without the guilt of them being a real person. I’ve been known to utter a fictional character's name in my sleep much to the horror of my husband. I can reassure him he’s not a real person.

What I’ve decided instead is that these people who judge are pretentious idiots with nothing better to do with their lives. But each to their own. I personally judge a book on how it makes me feel by the end. If I loved it and can’t get it out of my head it’s a winner.
  

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