AUTHOR IN THE SPOTLIGHT (and book extract) - Virgina Macgregor - BLOG TOUR

I am delighted that VIRGINIA MACGREGOR is joining me on my blog today for her What Milo Saw Blog Tour. Virginia's book - What Milo Saw - was published by Little Brown on 13 August 2015. After the interview, scroll down to read an extract from What Milo Saw.

So Virginia, what inspired you to become a writer?

I was read to from a young age and grew up in a family that was forever telling stories – creating my own tales and putting them on paper was the natural next step and when I heard that being a writer was a proper job, well, my fate was sealed.  

Where did you get the idea for What Milo Saw?

I’d been wanting to write about the way in which we care (or fail to care) for older people in the UK for a long time but it was only when I created Milo that I knew I had a character who could carry that story with sensitivity, love and humour.

Describe your writing style in 10 words or less?

Funny. Quirky. Warm. Moving. Unexpected. Contemporary.

Do you have any strange writing habits?

I have a few objects on my desk that inspire me: a blank, white photo frame that I look to when I need an idea; a jar of stones which reminds me to prioritise (see my blog post on this); a small candle that I light before I start writing; lots of pictures, for example of the animals in my stories (pigs, dogs, foxes, goats…). I even have a croched Hamlet that an amazing crochet artist made for me! I love to surround myself with things from the world of my novels.

Are you a plotter or a pantser? Do you plot out the whole book before you start or just start writing and see where it leads you?

I know what my opening scene is, that’s very important. I have some idea of the closing scene and then I plan as I go: I do a colourful mindmap for each scene that I’m about to write and more mindmaps of characters, locations etc. So, a bit of both.

What led you to focus on retinitis pigmentosa in What Milo Saw – and how did you research the impact of this condition?

When I created Milo, I knew that, simply by virtue of his character, he would have a very particular view on the world. At the same time, I wanted to explore the issue of how children with disabilities of any kind (physical, emotional, social) have the most amazing capacity to compensate and sometimes achieve incredible things. I’m very short-sighted so I’ve always given a lot of thought to sight and how hard it must be for people who have visual impairments. When I talked to my optician about this she told me about a little boy she cared for who has RP. From that moment, I did all the research I could: I read books, I joined forums, I got in touch with charities like Blind Children UK, the RNIB and RP Fighting Blindness. I was also moved by the news story of six-year-old Molly Bent who created a bucket list of the things she wanted to see before she went blind.

How easy was it to write from the point of view of a child? And has Milo turned out to be even more adorable than you originally planned?

Milo’s voice came very naturally. Writers often say that the child part of them is still very much alive and I think that’s true of me. Being a teacher has also helped as I get to see the world through the eyes of young people. Capturing his voice and so the voice of a child came through the process of writing: the more I wrote in Milo’s voice, the closer I felt to him. Within a few chapters, it felt like he’d jumped off the page and started walking around in the real world. It has given me so much joy to see how readers have fallen in love with Milo in the same way that I have.

Who are your favourite authors?

So, so many (and the list is growing all the time). Here are a few: Anne Tyler, Carol Shield, Jon Mcgregor, Barbara Kingsolver, Jodi Picoult, Charles Dickens, Jonathan Safron-Foer, Richard Ford, Sue Townsend, Michael Ondaatje, Roald Dahl, Nick Hornby.

How has your life changed since becoming a published author?

It has changed hugely. It feels as though I have been given permission to do what matters most to me in the world. There’s no greater gift than that.

If you were writing a book about your life, what would the title be?

‘Dancing in the Rain’. I love the rain and I love the idea of being positive and energetic no matter what the weather (literally and metaphorically). Oh, and my husband makes fun of my dancing – apparently I have no rhythm, so the title is ironic too.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Write every day.

Write what you love to read.

Never give up.

And lastly, why should people read What Milo Saw?

Milo is a book that touches our lives on so many levels: there is something for every kind of reader. It explores the complex nature of human relationships from the love of a little boy and his Gran to the struggles of a single mum abandoned by her husband; it tackles some of the biggest social issues of our age: immigration, the crisis in nursing homes, children living with disabilities; it is quirky and funny but also very sad at times. Above all, it tells a gripping story of a remarkable little boy who helps us see the world a little differently.

Here's an extract from What Milo Saw, a gorgeous heartwarming book:

Milo sat at the computer on the landing listening to the shush-shushing of the firemen’s hose on the drive. The firemen had only just let them back into the house.

‘I want a list of nursing homes,’ said Mum.

‘Can’t Gran stay till Christmas?’

Gran was Dad’s gran and Milo’s great-gran but everyone just called her Gran.

Milo turned his head to look at the fairy lights he’d wound round the banisters leading up to Gran’s

room. He’d had the idea when he saw her struggling to find the light switch.

Mum guided Milo’s head back to look at her and said ‘No.’

‘But . . . ’

‘Don’t insist,’ said Mum and then pinched shut her mouth.

Don’t insist was Mum’s favourite phrase of all time.

‘But Mum – the fire was my fault, I should have gone down to check.’

And it was true. Every morning when Gran padded down the stairs from her room under the roof all the way to the kitchen and made her cup of sweet, milky tea, it was Milo's job to make sure she was okay. He'd lie in bed and listen for clues:

1. The clink of Gran’s tartan mug as she pulled it off the mug tree.

2. The suck and pop of the jar with the tea bags.

3. The rattle of the cutlery drawer as she took out her favourite teaspoon, the one made of real silver

with a kink in its handle.

4. The kettle filling up (though usually Milo tried to remember to fill it up the night before because

Gran’s wrists were weak and she struggled to hold the weight of so much water).

5. The click of the switch on the kettle.

6. A pause.

7. And then the water heating, steam pushing at the lid, bubbles rolling over each other like a hot sea, and then another click when it was done.

8. Sometimes, after step 3, Gran forgot they had a kettle and she’d open the saucepan drawer and fill a pan up and light the stove. That was the cue for Milo to swing his legs out of bed and come downstairs.

They had a gas hob and Gran wasn’t allowed to use it.

Milo didn’t know why he missed the sound of the saucepan drawer that day. He must have been

sleepy or maybe Gran was extra quiet, but by the time he felt the flutter in his chest which told him

that Gran needed him, and by the time Hamlet was squealing his head off in the garage because he’d

swallowed too much smoke, it was too late, the kitchen was on fire.

‘It’s not your responsibility to check on your gran,’ said Mum.

She leant in and kissed Milo’s hair. She was always doing that: telling him off and then kissing him.

She smelt of burnt things and sticky perfume and sleep.

‘When all this is over, I’ll let Hamlet stay in the house,’ she said.

Milo leant under the desk and gave Hamlet a rub between his ears. The only reason he was allowed up here now was because the fire had scared him.  Milo hated the fact that Hamlet had to live in the garage all by himself: the garage was cold and damp and didn’t have any windows. No one should live like that. But if Milo had to choose between Hamlet coming out of the garage or Gran getting to stay with them, he’d have to pick Gran. Hamlet would understand.

Mum looked over Milo’s shoulder at the computer screen.

‘We don’t want anywhere fancy, Milo, Gran wouldn’t like that.’

So Milo tried typing not fancy nursing homes into Google but Google didn’t get it and wrote back: did you mean fancy nursing homes?

Once Milo had stationed Gran safely on the drive and once he’d yanked open the main door to the

garage and got Hamlet out of his cage and given him to Gran to look after, he’d come back inside and screamed: Fire! Fire! Mum! There’s a fire!

Mum had come tearing down the stairs and out of the house, her non-make-up face all pale and puffy. When she saw Gran she didn’t ask how she was and she didn’t say she was relieved that Hamlet was safely out of the garage and she didn’t tell Milo well done for having saved everyone. She just yelled the same words over and over:

This is the last straw. This is the last bloody straw.

Milo and Gran both knew what the last bloody straw meant: it meant that Gran was going to a nursing home.

Mum jabbed a chipped pink nail at the computer screen.

‘Those rooms are far too big,’ she said. ‘Gran will feel lost.’

So Milo did a search for nursing homes with small rooms. But then he thought about all the stuff

Gran had upstairs, like Great-Gramps’s bagpipes and his uniform and the boxes of letters he’d written her and her map of Inverary and the picture of her fishing boat and her small radio and how she’d want to take it all with her.

‘It’s not coming up with anything.’ If Milo made Mum feel it was a hassle, maybe she’d back down.

‘Oh, for goodness sake, Milo.’ Mum looked up the stairs to Gran’s room and scratched a red bit on

her throat. Then she leant in and whispered, ‘Just find somewhere cheap.’

Mum wrote the word CHEAP on the back of an envelope and placed it right in front of Milo so it

wasn’t lost in the fuzzy bit of his vision. He ran his fingers over the word; she’d pressed so hard on

the pencil that the letters felt bumpy.

‘I’ve got to make the firemen some tea.’

Still in her nightie (the frilly one that looked like the kitchen curtains, or how they looked before they

caught fire and turned into black moths on the linoleum floor), Mum rushed back downstairs. Milo

heard the cupboard door open and the rustle of the Hobnobs packet. The plastic kettle had melted, so Milo didn't know how Mum was going to boil water for the tea.

Milo wasn’t going to let Mum stick Gran in a nursing home. He’d pretend to go along with it and

then Mum would calm down and realise that Gran belonged right here in the small room Dad had

converted for her under the roof, and that Milo was the best person to look after her. Then they’d have a proper Christmas, the four of them: Milo, Gran, Hamlet and Mum.

Milo scanned down the list of homes on the screen. They all had garden centre names like Acorn Cottage and Birdgrove and Beechcroft Hill and Bird Poo View. He made up the last one.

Milo typed: not cheap nursing homes into Google and waited for a new page to load.

‘Found anything yet?’ Mum called up the stairs.

The burnt smell had crept into the carpet and curtains and walls and was making the back of Milo’s throat tickle.

He coughed and called back: ‘Nearly!’

‘Well, when you have, give me the phone numbers and I’ll organise some visits.’

Milo didn’t answer.

Above him, the floorboards creaked and then water juddered through the pipes. He hoped Gran would remember to turn off the tap. As soon as he’d finished making this stupid list, he’d go up and tell Gran that there was no way he was going to let Mum kick her out. He’d work out a plan that guaranteed she could stay, and not just for Christmas.

About Virginia Macgregor

Virginia Macgregor had a nomadic early childhood, moving between Germany, America, Corsica and Oxford, where she finally settled at the age of four. It was here that she wrote her first words and fell in love with the English language.  After graduating with First Class honours from Oxford, she did a PGCE and went on to teach English and to work as a housemistress. Virginia now writes full time and lives in Berkshire with her husband and baby daughter.

Find Virgina Macgregor on Facebook here and find Virginia on Twitter - @virginiawrites

What Milo Saw

By Virginia Macgregor

Published by Little Brown (13 August 2015)

Publisher's description
Nine-year-old Milo Moon has retinitis pigmentosa: his eyes are slowly failing and he will eventually go blind. But for now he sees the world through the pin hole and notices things other people don't. When Milo's beloved gran succumbs to dementia and moves into a nursing home, Milo soon realises there's something very wrong at the home. The grown-ups won't listen to him so with just Tripi, the nursing home's cook, and Hamlet, his pet pig, to help, Milo sets out on a mission to expose the nursing home and the sinister Nurse Thornhill.

Click here to read my review.

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AUTHOR IN THE SPOTLIGHT - Sarah Vaughan - BLOG TOUR

I am delighted that SARAH VAUGHAN is joining me on my blog today as part of her Blog Tour. Sarah's book - The Art of Baking Blind - was published in paperback on 13 August 2015. 

What inspired you to write a novel?

I’ve always wanted to write. I read English at Oxford but it never really occurred to me that I could write fiction, or at least not the sort I’d been studying. (The most modern was Virginia Woolf’s and TS Eliot’s; the majority written by dead white men.) I thought I could write, though, and so trained to become a journalist. I joined the Press Association as a news trainee and was poached by The Guardian where I worked as a news reporter, health correspondent and political correspondent for eleven varied, interesting years.

Like many hacks, I itched to write a novel but I didn’t have the confidence to get started: I didn’t feel I had anything sufficiently interesting to say. That changed with motherhood. I took voluntary redundancy after my second child to freelance, and as I did creative things with my children – including baking – I found my voice. There was plenty I could write about: nurture; motherhood; the demands women place on themselves and the gulf between their needs and roles as wives and mothers; the disparity between appearance and reality; the impossibility of perfection. Once I had a hook, all these preoccupations could be articulated.

What gave you the idea for The Art of Baking Blind?
The idea for The Art of Baking Blind came as I baked with my children and watched other mothers – and it was always mothers – bake for school cake sales. I realised I was over-investing my baking with emotion: if I baked with my kids it meant I was a good mother; I was nurturing them and showing how much they were loved. At the same time, I caught the final episode of a series called The Great British Bake Off. It was autumn 2011 and the finalist who would win, Jo Wheatley, explained she had entered “because I wanted to do something for myself.” It then transpired that her husband was in prison for his part in a £60m fraud. I’ve always been fascinated by people’s “back stories” – the events that make us who we are - and here was an incredible one! But why else would people push themselves to compete in a baking competition? I thought of the bakers I’d known since childhood and three characters – Vicki, Karen and Jenny – quickly emerged.

Do your personal experiences influence your writing? If so, how?
I don’t think it’s possible to avoid that, particularly with a first novel although I was very concerned that I didn’t exploit other members of my family. Many of the characters have elements of my personality in them. For instance, I’m a bit of a perfectionist like Vicki, and my children mean everything to me like Jenny. I’ve never had Karen’s complex relationship with food but from the one time I’ve dieted – before my wedding – I could see how easily one could become fixated with calorie counting and slimming. Similarly, although I’ve never experienced Kathleen’s problem, I did have huge trouble conceiving my first baby and know what it’s like to become obsessed with having a child and with fearing that it will never be a possibility.

Describe your writing style in 10 words or less?
I hate talking about myself – yes really – so I’m going to quote my editor, who likens it to a lemon drizzle cake: “rich yet moreish with just the right amount of bite”. She also describes mine as: “Warm, compassionate, inventive writing; sophisticated yet accessible; with unflinching emotional honesty.”

Do you have any strange writing habits?
I have to drink caffeine before I start writing. An Earl Grey to ease me in, then a double shot Lavazza coffee. Since I work when my kids are at school I tend to have walked a brisk mile and a half taking them there, ideally more. I’m afraid I don’t do anything unconventional. If I’m struggling with something I’ll go to a different setting – the library or garden – and write in longhand. But most of the time it’s just me, clattering away at my desk.

Do you plot out the whole book before you start or just start writing and see where it leads you?
Am I a plotter or a pantster? More of the former though my characters take on a life of their own and I’m constantly re-plotting.

I’ve written two novels now and with both I’ve thought a lot about the plot before the start: I’ve known the crucial scenes and how it will end. But both, particularly the second, have required a lot of redrafting and rearranging or cutting of chapters, and have changed vastly in the writing.

With The Art of Baking Blind, I knew from the start that it would be structured around six stages of a baking competition that would provide natural peaks and, I hoped, some compulsion to continue reading. (Although, who wins the competition doesn’t really matter; like all novels it’s about the characters’ process of self-realisation.)

At 28,000 words I plotted each chapter and although there were extraneous characters that were later cut, and a couple of extra plot lines that came in, this helped me weave them all together. I then slotted in the Kathleen flashbacks – which are discrete from the present-day plot – at strategic points. At one point, after the first draft, I drew up a huge grid, with the chapters along the top and the characters, including Kathleen, down the left hand side. I then pinpointed what each character was doing in each chapter so that I could get a sense of whether their stories were balanced in importance, and to check that they weren’t vying for attention all the time.

What do you consider to be the hardest part of your writing?
My second novel, That Summer at Skylark Farm, which I’m just finishing, has involved some major redrafting. It’s a hugely improved novel but I did feel a pang having to cut quite so many thousands of words. There’s also the sense of isolation, having come from a buzzing newspaper office, particularly when I worked in the lobby. And the self-doubt.

Do you think that your journalistic background has benefited you as a fiction author?
Undoubtedly. When I first wrote to my agent, Lizzy Kremer, I played up being a journalist. I could meet deadlines and write to length, I said, and had written every day of my career. The implication was that of course I could write a novel. And yet writing a 600-800 word news story based on research, and with the safety net of other people’s knowledge and quotations to back you up is very different to concocting 100,000 words, and creating such a psychologically-plausible, immersive, compelling world that you manage not only to capture but retain your reader’s attention.

Having said that, having spent my entire adult life as a journalist I know how to meet deadlines; to write to a daily word count; to cut the waffle (I hope); and to spot a good hook or twist. I find fiction harder, because of the need to retain the reader’s attention for quite so long, but far more challenging and exciting.

How has your life changed since getting your publishing deal?
Well it’s been better financially. But it’s also been fantastic for my sense of self-belief. I found it difficult taking redundancy from the Guardian, which I did because we’d moved and I’d had a problematic second pregnancy. But I hadn’t realised how much of my identity was bound up in being published and with writing constantly. The Art of Baking Blind puts paid to all of that. It’s been the most wonderful experience and I still can’t believe how lucky I’ve been to secure this deal and to actually have my novel in bookshops! I’ve even started calling myself an author (albeit with an apologetic, disbelieving smile.)

I have to ask – are you good at baking? And what’s your favourite type of cake?
I think I am good at baking. Many of my favourite cakes didn’t make it into the novel as they weren’t sufficiently complex or metaphorically rich. These include my very favourite, Devil’s Food Cake, which is the cake my mum used to make for our birthdays and I now make for my kids. It’s so delicious that I shared it on the Waterstone’s blog: https://www.waterstones.com/blog/recipe-devils-food-cake

If you were writing a book about your life, what would the title be?
That’s an impossible question. I tend to be quite self-deprecating but I could hardly publish an autobiography entitled: I’m really sorry. It’s a cheat but maybe 'A Room of My Own'? At the moment, I work alongside my son’s Lego and my daughter’s piano and I’ve been thinking a lot about Woolf’s suggestion. Though I think I’m quite sociable, writing is a solitary business and quite a selfish one.  To write well, I need that space.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Read, widely and critically, then plant your seat on a chair and get started. Take your writing seriously because if you don’t nobody will. Be disciplined: develop that splinter of ice in the heart that Graham Greene said all writers should have and don’t allow yourself to be distracted. Persist. Push yourself to get better. Cling on to your self-belief.

And lastly, why should people read The Art of Baking Blind?

The Art of Baking Blind is a novel about why we bake but it’s also about motherhood, nurture, the importance of being loved, the pressures women put on themselves and the impossibility of perfection. It’s about a baking competition inspired by a 1960s recipe book by an early domestic goddess, Kathleen Eaden. Her strictures imply that you can have the perfect family life if you bake exquisite cakes, biscuits and bread. But as the novel progresses, we see the contestants’ lives unravel and we realise, through a series of flashbacks, that Kathleen’s life was, inevitably, not perfect. I hope it will appeal not just to bakers, or to people who enjoy sensuous food writing, but readers who relate to engaging, complex characters and who want a little darkness, as well as warmth, in a read.

About Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan read English at Oxford and went on to become a journalist. After 11 years at the Guardian as a news reporter, health correspondent and political correspondent, she started freelancing. The Art of Baking Blind is her first novel and she is now working on her second. Sarah lives near Cambridge with her husband and two small children.

Find Sarah Vaughan on Twitter - @SVaughanAuthor


The Art of Baking Blind
Published by Hodder (Paperback - 13 August 2015)

Synopsis: 
There are many reasons to bake: to feed; to create; to impress; to nourish; to define ourselves; and, sometimes, it has to be said, to perfect. But often we bake to fill a hunger that would be better filled by a simple gesture from a dear one. We bake to love and be loved.
In 1966, Kathleen Eaden, cookery writer and wife of a supermarket magnate, published The Art of Baking, her guide to nurturing a family by creating the most exquisite pastries, biscuits and cakes.
Now, five amateur bakers are competing to become the New Mrs Eaden. There's Jenny, facing an empty nest now her family has flown; Claire, who has sacrificed her dreams for her daughter; Mike, trying to parent his two kids after his wife's death; Vicki, who has dropped everything to be at home with her baby boy; and Karen, perfect Karen, who knows what it's like to have nothing and is determined her façade shouldn't slip.
As unlikely alliances are forged and secrets rise to the surface, making the choicest choux bun seems the least of the contestants' problems. For they will learn - as Mrs Eaden did before them - that while perfection is possible in the kitchen, it's very much harder in life.

Read my review here.

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The Art of Baking Blind by Sarah Vaughan

The Art of Baking Blind

By Sarah Vaughan

Published by Hodder (13 August 2015)

IBSN: 978-1444792256

Publisher's description
There are many reasons to bake: to feed; to create; to impress; to nourish; to define ourselves; and, sometimes, it has to be said, to perfect. But often we bake to fill a hunger that would be better filled by a simple gesture from a dear one. We bake to love and be loved.
In 1966, Kathleen Eaden, cookery writer and wife of a supermarket magnate, published The Art of Baking, her guide to nurturing a family by creating the most exquisite pastries, biscuits and cakes.
Now, five amateur bakers are competing to become the New Mrs Eaden. There's Jenny, facing an empty nest now her family has flown; Claire, who has sacrificed her dreams for her daughter; Mike, trying to parent his two kids after his wife's death; Vicki, who has dropped everything to be at home with her baby boy; and Karen, perfect Karen, who knows what it's like to have nothing and is determined her façade shouldn't slip.
As unlikely alliances are forged and secrets rise to the surface, making the choicest choux bun seems the least of the contestants' problems. For they will learn - as Mrs Eaden did before them - that while perfection is possible in the kitchen, it's very much harder in life.

My verdict

I loved The Art of Baking Blind from the prologue. Its gorgeous description of a gingerbread house tackled all of my senses. I could not only picture the gingerbread house, but I could feel it, smell it and taste it too.

This book is a fictional version of the Great British Bake Off with all the same excitement, sob stories and heartache behind the scenes. The characters are well-developed, each with their own reason for entering the competition to find the new Mrs Eaden. I had no idea who was going to win, as each character (except maybe one) was a worthy contender.

The story also follows the original Mrs Eaden, Kathleen, a cookery writer who appeared to live the perfect life. But as the book unravels, it's clear that not everything was so perfect behind the scenes.

While reading The Art of Baking Blind, I could savour the taste and aromas of the baking. This is a deliciously sweet book to be savoured, enjoying each and every word, reading slowly rather than in fast chunks.

I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

AUTHOR IN THE SPOTLIGHT - Mary Kubica - BLOG TOUR

I am delighted that Mary Kubica is joining me on my blog today for her Blog Tour. Mary's latest book - Pretty Baby - was published by Mira Books on 13 August 2015. 

What inspired you to become a writer?

When I was about eight or nine years old, a cousin of mine shared with me a story she had written and I was completely enchanted by it, both her story itself and this creative outlet that opened up for me at the time.  Though I’d always loved to read, this was really an eye-opening moment for me where I became aware of the author behind the book, and I knew right away this was something I wanted to do.

Do your personal experiences influence your writing? If so, how?

Yes and no.  My novels are fictional and my characters are completely make-believe.  But this doesn’t mean I don’t add certain small elements of my own life into the novel.  In the case of Pretty Baby, for example, Heidi rescues orphaned kittens and ventures to turn her family into vegetarians.  I, myself, am a vegetarian and work in an animal shelter.  I foster orphaned kittens.  But these are the small details; the basic premise of my novels and their quintessence are imaginary.

Describe your writing style in 10 words or less?

Uncomplicated, terse, plaintive, gritty, honest – or at least that’s what I aim for it to be.

Do you have any strange writing habits?

I don’t.  I just sit down and write.

Are you a plotter or a pantser? Do you plot out the whole book before you start or just start writing and see where it leads you?

I am a pantser.  I don’t like to outline my books before I begin, or even think through them too much; I find that overthinking the novel takes away from the natural flow.  Instead, I dive right in and develop my characters and see where they lead me.

What do you consider to be the hardest part of your writing?

Getting started.  Even though I may have an idea I’m excited about, the characters are brand new to me and I don’t know them yet.  It takes time to develop that relationship between author and character before I have a sense of who they are and what their motivations may be.  Once I’ve had a chance to develop the characters the writing becomes more free flowing and less forced.

In your latest novel, Pretty Baby, the story is narrated by Heidi, her husband Chris and a girl called Willow. How easy is to write a novel with multiple points of view?

I personally find that it’s easier to write a novel from multiple points of view rather than just one.  Though it takes time to develop each of their distinct voices, there are many stories that can be told through the use of multiple narrators, and the reader is left with a well-rounded image of the tale rather than just one narrator’s perspective. 

Who are your favourite authors?

Ann Hood, Heather Gudenkauf, Anita Shreve, Jodi Picoult, Pam Jenoff

How has your life changed since becoming a published author?

Writing has become a career rather than a hobby, and it’s something I get to devote time everyday to doing, rather that simply when I have the time.  That’s the biggest change.  I love that this is a career I can do from home, and so I get to spend nearly as much time with my kids as I always have.  I am much busier, of course, between writing the books, some travel, and publicity, but I enjoy it immensely. 

If you were writing a book about your life, what would the title be?

‘Take Two’

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Never give up!  I’m sure most everyone has heard the story now of how it took me two years to find an agent and so I don’t want to rehash it again, but my offer of representation came at a time when I’d all but forgotten about The Good Girl completely, and if it wasn’t for one optimistic agent, my first novel never would have been published.  Write everyday, and keep sending your manuscripts out to agents until you find the one who’s as passionate about it as you!

And lastly, why should people read Pretty Baby?

Pretty Baby is a suspense tale, and yet it’s more than that, too.  The novel takes a look at societal issues such as homelessness and the foster care system, as well as family dynamics and marital discord.  It’s one that will hopefully have readers on the edge of their seat, and yet tug at their heartstrings, too. 

About Mary Kubica

Mary Kubica holds a Bachelor or Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children and enjoys photography, gardening and caring for the animals at a local shelter. Her debut novel, The Good Girl, was an international bestseller.

Find Mary Kubica at www.marykubica.com, on her Facebook page and on Twitter - @MaryKubica


Pretty Baby
Published by Mira Books (13 August 2015)
ISBN: 978-1848453968

Synopsis: 

A chance encounter

She sees the teenage girl on the train platform, standing in the pouring rain, clutching an infant in her arms. She boards a train and is whisked away. But she can't get the girl out of her head…

An act of kindness

Heidi has always been charitable but her family are horrified when she returns home with a young woman named Willow and her baby in tow. Dishevelled and homeless, this girl could be a criminal - or worse. But despite the family's objections, Heidi offers them refuge.

A tangled web of lies

As Willow begins to get back on her feet, disturbing clues into her past starts to emerge. Now Heidi must question if her motives for helping the stranger are unselfish or rooted in her own failures.

Read my review here.

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