THAT'S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR

Today I would like to tell you all about an author friend of mine; she is the one you should thank if you liked my book PUTTING RIGHT THE PAST, but if you didn't like the book she's the one to blame.

AMANDA EGAN

The lady in question is AMANDA EGAN currently author of six books, DIARY OF A MUMMY MISFIT     THE DARKER SIDE OF A MUMMY MISFIT     COMPLETING THE PUZZLE     STILETTOS AND STUBBLE     CHRISTMAS DELIVERANCE  and her brand new one LOTTIE'S LUCK

Amanda was the one person who encouraged me not to give up with my writing; she was the one who received an email from me two minutes after my edited book came back from the publishers. The postman had just delivered the manuscript, it was in my hand I was so excited and couldn't wait to open up the envelope. Talk about being hit in the face and knocked to the ground well that's what happened when I opened the envelope, virtually every line on every single page had red ink corrections.

I was devastated my lovely book which I had spent hours, weeks, months writing was nothing but a paper battle field. I sent my email to Amanda feeling truly deflated, in fact defeated is probably the word. 'That's it Amanda I've given up, no more writing for me I'm back to just reading books, it was just a dream to far, I have well and truly failed'

A lovely email came back telling me to calm down and take my time and get it sorted, too late for that I had thrown it into a cupboard never to see the light of day again. The cupboard is where it stayed for several months, well and truly forgotten but with a lot of encouragement from Amanda it finally came out and eventually did get sorted. I now realise that it was one of the best things that could have happened to my manuscript, the lessons it taught me are invaluable and im so grateful for that.

Back to the lovely Amanda and her books, I have read all six and thoroughly enjoyed all of them.

The MUMMY MISFIT  books were her first and the ones that she is best know for.

The story tells of Libby and Ned Merchant and their struggles putting son Max through private education, not just with the money it costs but also having to deal with the mummy's or should I say 'meemies'. Thankfully the friendship she strikes up with Fenella and Josh is a big help, not forgetting Libby's lovely neighbour Mrs S, I just love her in both of the books, I can't hear a Barry Manalow song now without thinking of her.

The books are so funny and I'm sure we have all come across several of these characters in our everyday lives. Amanda has not said that there will be a misfit 3 but I think at some point in the future there just has to be , all good things come in threes and I can't wait to see what happens to all the characters and where life takes them all.

COMPLETING THE PUZZLE - Is a tale of families, love and mid-life crisis. Middle aged and middle-of-the-road, Fee Crawford has been drifting through life in a passionless marriage and hurtling towards the menopause. With her twin boys grown up and needing her less, why does she still feel incomplete?

STILETTOS AND STUBBLE - Where all you need is to be yourself . All her life Persephone's been branded a 'Big Girl' criticised by her outwardly perfect mother, dearly loved by her father, she's the queen of low self-esteem. Finding herself suddenly immersed in a world of glitz and glamour, where nothing is quite as it seems, will she finally realise it's what's inside that counts? 

CHRISTMAS DELIVERANCE - Because Christmas doesn't always deliver what you want ... but sometimes it might be just what you need.

LOTTIE'S LUCK - What happens when fate pushes you in a new direction?  Lottie Truman's life was simply tickety-boo until a neighbour's prediction seemed to coincide with her luck running out.

Why not check out Amanda's books on Amazon and Lulu Publishing, also you can follow her on her Mummy Misfit blog and not forgetting on twitter @mummy_misfit

ANOTHER FOUR AUTHORS I HAVE MET ON TWITTER

I have met some lovely people on Twitter and Facebook and today I want to tell you about four of them. These ladies are all authors and after chatting with them through Twitter I then went on to read their books.

The first is TALLI ROLAND she is Canadian but now lives in London with her husband and new baby boy. For anyone who doesn't know Talli on Twitter she is the one who tells us when it's ' wine time '.

WATCHING WILLOW WATTS

The first book of hers that I read was the very funny WATCHING WILLOW WATTS; it's the story of how Willow gets catapulted to fame on the internet after impersonating Marilyn Monroe. I loved this book and it's still my favourite of Talli's.

Since reading Willows adventures I have read three more of Talli's books and really enjoyed them, THE HATING GAME,    CONSTRUCT COUPLE and    BUILD A MAN.  On my list to read are POLLYANNA PLAN and   MIRACLE AT MUSEUM OF BROKEN HEARTS.

Talli keeps us up to date with all her news on her website, anything from shopping in Kensington High Street to pushing her little boy around the park. Not forgetting all her news and regular updates on her writing.

The next lady is the lovely SUE FORTIN I first met Sue through The Romaniacs website which is run by Sue and a group of romance writers, they are a lovely bunch of ladies and very funny. I was interviewed by them for their Tuesday Chit-Chats, we ate a lot of cake during the interview.

Sue has been a big supporter of my book PUTTING RIGHT THE PAST and not a week goes by that she doesn't give it a plug for me on Twitter. But not just me she is a huge help for dozens of writers out there. The one book she doesn't push enough in my opinion is her own, it's called UNITED STATE OF LOVE and quite recently it has a brand new cover which is fab. Here is a little desrcription of the book.

                                                          UNITED STATE OF LOVE

Since splitting up from her husband Anna is enjoying her new found freedom and independence. Now she can concentrate on looking after her teenage son and building up her career. However she didn't bank on working with Tex Garcia.

This is a really good summer read and I would highly recommend it, you will all want to go and find your own Tex, or will you?


LIZZIE LAMB is the next author I want to tell you about, it's Lizzie you can blame for getting me to go on Facebook, after she had nagged me on Twitter for months. She was right obviously I'm glad I did , by the way if you don't follow her I suggest that you do as there doesn't seem to be a day go by where she is not posting photos of books, authors, meals out with friends and not forgetting her famous parrot. Lizzie's book is called TALL DARK AND KILTED.

TALL DARK AND KILTED

Notting Hill meets Monarch of the Glen, Fliss longs to get away from London and when she loses her job she gets the opportunity to move to Scotland and run a therapy centre. She is hoping the highlands are full of hunky men in kilts. Then she comes up against Ruairi Urquhart and he has other plans for Fliss and her therapy centre.

This is another lovely read and if rumours are to be believed I think there could be another book from Lizzie on the way.


The last of my Twitter authors for today is the lovely CAROL HEDGES. If you do not follow Carol on Twitter or Facebook I will warn you she is a stickler for punctuation and grammar, I have learnt to my cost ( I am only joking ). Carol does a weekly blog every Saturday without fail, some weeks it might be about a book, author or her 'adventures' out and about with her husband, these are very funny and I can't wait for them to all turn up in one of her books. Also Carol tells us about the action group she is involved with thats trying to save an urban green space from development.

Back to Carol's books she has written eleven and they are written for young adults. I hear you say what is this fifty year old man doing reading them; well I have only read one so far JIGSAW PIECES. I enjoyed the book so much I completely forgot what market it was aimed at.

JIGSAW PIECES

Annie has been searching for her identity since moving from her native Norway. With a spikey personality winning her no friends and family members torn from her life, she is left seeking comfort from a growing intrigue into stories of fallen war heroes. A boy from her school commits suicide and Annie is confused by this and starts looking into his death.What she uncovers will bring her to a dark and dangerous place.

A few of the other books Carol has written are her famous SPY GIRL BOOKS -   DEAD MAN TALKING,    THE DARK SIDE OF MIDNIGHT,    OUT OF THE SHADOWS and   ONCE UPON A CRIME.

Well that's just four of the authors I have discovered on twitter and I hope to tell you about some others in the next few weeks. I hope you will take a look at their work I'm sure you will enjoy their books. All of these books are available on Amazon so why not take a look,  you can also follow them on their blogs and through Facebook and Twitter.

SHOULD I HAVE PUBLISHED MY BOOK ?

Well that is the big question should I have published PUTTING RIGHT THE PAST ?

My book has now been on the market for three months and that's the question I've been asking myself during this last week. I'm not going to bore you again with why I wrote it, but just in case you don't know the reason behind the book you can go back and read February and March's blogs.

So back to the question should I have published it? One things for certain I am so glad I've written it, that was a very exciting experience and something I have wanted to do for over thirty years. To sit at the laptop and create all those characters not really knowing where they were going to end up was such a buzz and something I want to carry on doing forever.

Writing it was one thing but getting the story of Carole and all her friends published was another matter. Would I have changed anything ? Of course I would but I'm not going to harp on about that now. So should I have done it? The amazing thing is people have actually bought my book and I think this is the time for me to say thank you.



My first thank you goes to everyone who has bought, read and enjoyed PUTTING RIGHT THE PAST, your comments and reviews have made me so happy. One of the biggest kicks I've had, is when a lovely lady in Australia tweeted to say she had ordered my book in paperback, waited six weeks for it to be delivered, then tweeted to say she had really enjoyed reading it. My little book all the way to the other side of the world, to me that was so amazing.

The second thank you has to go to everyone on Twitter, Facebook and all those people who have told their friends, you really have helped promote and sell it for me. The lovely tweeters who RT and tweet day after day, week after week I cannot thank everyone enough. Not forgetting all the blogs that myself and PUTTING RIGHT THE PAST have been featured in.

A big thanks to Julie a friend who lives in Tenerife even shows holidaymakers the book on her Ipad telling them, ' You need to download this one as it's set here in Tenerife' 

Finally I would like to thank all the people who read it and did not enjoy it for one reason or another, you could have given a bad review but you didn't and I really thank you from the bottom of my heart for that. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea and that brings me back to the big question should it have been published?

Perhaps the answer should be no, I don't have an agent and I self-published without any experience whatsoever. I would have loved to have been able to sit down with someone who had years of experience, to advise me if certain characters worked or not, or to tell me to rewrite chapters, or maybe change the ending, but I didn't have that opportunity.

So after weeks of mulling this over I really don't know whether I have done the right thing or not, the only conclusion I have come to is PUTTING RIGHT THE PAST hasn't hurt anyone or anything, but it has brought a little pleasure to some people , Especially me!