Author Interview: Melanie Blake

Today it's my pleasure to welcome author Melanie Blake to the blog as part of The Thunder Girls blog tour to talk about her debut novel which was published last week.

Hi Melanie and welcome to the blog, can you give us a brief introduction to yourself and your writing journey.
My writing journey has been a long time coming because it took 20 years to get my novel The Thunder Girls published. I am an independent woman and a big supporter of female-led stories. I’m also very active in reaching demographics that are often overlooked by mainstream media, such as working class and older women, and I am most interested in mass entertainment, certainly not niche.

If you had to give an elevator pitch for The Thunder Girls, what would it be?
The Thunder Girls is a white-knuckle rollercoaster ride of friendship, betrayal, murder, and revenge. If you only had a chance to read one book this summer, you wouldn’t be disappointed if you chose this.

You've had a very successful and varied career over the years, from working with and managing pop stars, running a talent agency, journalist and playwright; what inspired you to put pen to paper and write The Thunder Girls?
I wrote the first draft of The Thunder Girls originally in 1999, and I got taken on by a major agent. There was a lot of buzz around the project initially until men in power in publishing and broadcasting at that time realized it was a story of women based in their forties and fifties, at which point they declared there was no interest in that demographic. Back in the nineties very few all-female led projects, where the women weren’t young girls, were green lit. I was actually offered a ton of money to change the girls’ ages and even though I was broke and living in a bedsit, I believed in the story and the women that tell it so strongly that I said no. It’s taken 20 years to get The Thunder Girls as it should be, and it was worth the wait.

Emma's Review: The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Escape to the Scottish Highlands where a tiny bookshop perches on the edge of a loch

Zoe is a single mother, sinking beneath the waves trying to cope by herself in London. Hari, her gorgeous little boy is perfect in every way - except for the fact that he just doesn't speak, at all. When her landlord raises the rent on her flat, Zoe doesn't know where to turn.

Then Hari's aunt suggests Zoe could move to Scotland to help run a bookshop. Going from the lonely city to a small village in the Highlands could be the change Zoe and Hari desperately need.

Faced with an unwelcoming boss, a moody, distant bookseller named Ramsay Urquart, and a band of unruly children, Zoe wonders if she's made the right decision. But Hari has found his very first real friend, and no one could resist the beauty of the loch glinting in the summer sun. If only Ramsay would just be a little more approachable...

Dreams start here...

Amazon Affiliate Links: Kindle or Hardcover

Emma's Review: Foxglove Farm by Christie Barlow

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Isla and Drew Allaway appear to have the perfect life – a strong marriage, two beautiful children and their picture-perfect home, Foxglove Farm.

But, new mum Isla is struggling.  She loves her little family but with Drew working all hours on the farm, Isla’s lonely.

When she discovers that Drew has been keeping secrets from her, Isla has to face losing the home they all love.

Can the Love Heart Lane community pull together once more to help save Foxglove Farm?  And can Isla save her home…and her marriage?

Amazon Affiliate Links: Kindle or Paperback

Emma's Review: Scones Away by Cressida McLaughlin (The Cornish Cream Tea Bus, Book 3)

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Charlie’s toughest technical challenge yet…

Now that Charlie’s Cornish Cream Tea bus has taken off, everything should be going swimmingly – the locals love her baking, Marmite adores getting his paws wet in the crystal-clear sea at Porthgolow beach, but Charlie has manged to get on the wrong side of the mercurial owner of The Porthgolow Hotel, Daniel Harper. He wants her to pack up her doillies and pastry cutters and take her bus elsewhere, but can Charlie convince him that they have just got off on the wrong foot and that her bus could be the start of something wonderful for the little village?

Amazon Affiliate Link: Kindle

Extract from The Last Stage by Louise Voss

When I was contacted by Anne Cater from Random Things Tours about taking part in the blog tour for The Last Stage by Louise Voss, a local author to me, I knew I wanted to support Louise as I'd already bought an ecopy of The Last Stage but realistically also knew I wouldn't be in a position timewise to read yet for review.  Instead it's my pleasure to share an extract with you to whet your appetite.

At the peak of her career as lead singer of a legendary 1980s indie band, Meredith Vincent was driven off the international stage by a horrific incident. Now living a quiet existence in a cottage on the grounds of an old stately home, she has put her past behind her and come to terms with her new life.

When a body is found in the manicured gardens of her home, and a series of inexplicable and unsettling events begins to occur, it becomes clear that someone is watching, someone who knows who she is … Someone who wants vengeance.

And this is only the beginning…

4 
Meredith 

It was after the third mug of Jack Daniels that it all went weird. A moment of sheer madness, the sort when you’re thinking, Oh no, what am I doing? I need to stop right now, but are unable to stop, driven by an almost ghoulish compulsion to see it through to the bitter end, despite the background awareness of the potential consequences. 

Ralph was just there, kneeling in front of her in his office. Pissed as a fart, but still a very sexy man – tall and broad and reassuring. More than that, he was sympathetic and – unexpectedly – so flattering and comforting that, in that moment, her body completely disobeyed her brain and conscience, and she was overcome with a great wave of pheromones and whisky-fuelled lust and emotion. 

Ralph, her friend and boss. Worse: Ralph, her friend’s husband.