Alison May, author of Midsummer Dreams
This is an almost impossible choice. I could pick my top twenty fairly easily I think, and probably even squeeze that down to a top ten or five, but just one book? Really? On different days it could be anything by Terry Pratchett or Marian Keyes, or Margaret Attwood’s The Blind Assassin or The Handmaid’s Tale, or The House at Pooh Corner, because The House at Pooh Corner is awesome.
Today though I’m going to go for Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. It’s one of the most beautifully atmospheric and emotional books I’ve ever read. Wonderfully romantic, and at the same time horribly sad. The first time you read it you spend the whole book wondering exactly what’s going on. The second time you read it, you know what’s happening and somehow that makes the emotional connection with the characters stronger. It’s an absolutely incredible book.
Laura Delve from Laura's Little Book Blog
It’s always so hard for me to talk about my favourite book without me mentioning one of the Harry Potter ones, so to save from repeating what myself and I’m sure many other Harry Potter fans might say, I’m going to talk about my favourite book so far this year.
Today I welcome back to the blog Choc Lit author Alison May with an entertaining guest post and a look ahead to her new book Midsummer Dreams which is being published next month.
Do you remember the good old days? Of course you don’t. Nobody does. The good old days are a never fully specified period that existed from sometime around when your grandparents were born up until when you were small children. And they never really existed at all. There never was a golden period where everything was better. Maybe life was simpler before smartphones and being able to get the internet through your telly, but, on the other hand, nobody had smartphones or the internet, or a telly, so, at best, it’s a mixed bag of a comparison.
‘But what has this got to do with writing romance?’ you ask me. Of course you might not have asked me. Clearly that whole sentence was merely a little authorial flourish to make you, the reader, feel involved in the whole blog process, but I shall now continue as if you have asked. With that in mind, if you haven’t asked and would like to, please do so now.
Excellent. Well a lot of those modern contrivances, like smartphones and the interwebs, that make life so much more joined up and interconnected, make life really stinky for the poor novelist, toiling away at their keyboard. Firstly they make things tricky within the story. There used to be a whole load of ways you could get a heroine or hero lost and stranded, just primed to run into the paramour of their dreams. These days they would just whip out their phone, use Google maps to work out where they were and then text a friend to come and pick them up. They’d probably have time to take and post a selfie with the caption, ‘Lost on the moors again. LOL’ while they were waiting. What they probably wouldn’t need would be a swarthy gentleman in riding breeches to rock up and manfully loosen their stays.
Can you expect a perfect Christmas after the year from hell?
Cora and Liam have both experienced horrible years that have led them to the same unlikely place – spending December working in the Grotto at Golding’s department store.
Under the cover of a Father Christmas fat suit and an extremely unflattering reindeer costume, they find comfort in sharing their tales of woe during their bleak staffroom lunch breaks.
But is their new-found friendship just for Christmas? Or have they created something deeper, something that could carry them through to a hopeful new year?
The festive challenge from Shaz was to cast some of your own characters in a panto. So these are the characters in my brand new festive story, Cora’s Christmas Kiss. Here goes…
Cora Strachan is Dick Whittington. Yes. I know Dick Whittington was a boy, but we’re living in different times now, and it’s sort of traditional to have pantomime boys played by girls in tights, so I think it’ll be fine.
Cora came to London to make her fortune. She’s had some good times, and some really hard ones, but she’s still here, and somehow a part of her still believes that the streets might really turn out to be paved with gold.
Mrs Atkins is the pantomime dame. Fulsome of bosom and not to be messed with, Mrs Atkins in the story rules over all things festive at Golding’s Department store with a rod of iron. She keeps errant elves, and misbehaving children in check, and I have no doubt that she’d be just as happy giving a misbehaving pantomime prince a clip around the ear if she needed to.
Today I have something a little different for you, an entertaining guest post from Choc Lit author Alison May talking about her top 5 Smart Girl Romantic Heroines...
I set out writing this post as a post in praise of geek heroes. It was going to be all about the charms of a clever boy, over a muscle-bound hunk. I was going to mention Richard from Pointless, Doctor Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap, Hugh Laurie, Tony Stark, Professor Brian Cox and Doctor Who. All of which would have a) demonstrated that I struggle with the difference between real men and fictional characters, and b) been very lovely indeed.
But then, part way through typing up those very lovely thoughts, I became distracted. That’s not surprising. I become distracted a lot. One minute I’m walking into the supermarket all calm and happy and totally aware of what I’m there for. The next I’m standing in the car park with an unexpected aubergine. I don’t even like aubergine.
This is an almost impossible choice. I could pick my top twenty fairly easily I think, and probably even squeeze that down to a top ten or five, but just one book? Really? On different days it could be anything by Terry Pratchett or Marian Keyes, or Margaret Attwood’s The Blind Assassin or The Handmaid’s Tale, or The House at Pooh Corner, because The House at Pooh Corner is awesome. 
