Festive Edition: The Write Stuff with... Tracy Baines

Today it's my pleasure to welcome author Tracy Baines back to the blog to talk about writing a Christmas themed book in the middle of Summer, over to you Tracy.  

My kids might call me the Grinch from time to time. I do not embrace Christmas – until it’s Christmas. To me that occurs sometime around the 20th December and lasts until Boxing Day. I shudder when I see tins of Quality Street in the supermarket at the end of August, despair when the Christmas jingles are played in November. The reason it all ends on Boxing Day (for me) is because that’s the back to work day for those working in pantomimes. Christmas seemed all the more precious when you knew you had to be on the road again on Boxing Day morning. The theatre would be full of families who were in the very best of moods, full of food and fun. A time filled with joy and excitement – and laughter, lots and lots of laughter.

Christmas with the Variety Girls features a pantomime – because when you are in variety theatre Christmas is panto time. As this is the second book featuring the Variety Girls I already had my cast – I just needed to choose a panto.

Author Interview: Tracy Baines

Today it's my pleasure to welcome author Tracy Baines to the blog to talk about her debut novel The Variety Girls which was published last week.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your writing journey started? 
My grandmother used to tell me stories of her life when she was younger. Her brothers, father, and grandfather were all fishermen sailing out of Grimsby - at that time the largest fishing port in the world. Her older brother was lost when his ship went down off the Orkneys in 1938. In 1941 her husband was killed at Lowestoft Station as he headed back to serve on the minesweepers and she was left with two small children to care for. She was worried that the stories of their lives and hardships would be lost if no one wrote them down. I said I would. It took me a long time to get started. Time but more, a lack of confidence held me back. I started with articles then moved on to short stories, selling regularly to Woman’s Weekly and The People’s Friend as well as many other magazines, here and overseas. The market has changed so much since I started out but there are still opportunities and new things will appear as time goes on. People love stories. It’s as simple and as complicated as that. 

If you had to give an elevator pitch for The Variety Girls, what would it be? 
Jessie Delaney has two loves, Harry, and the variety theatre. She feels sure that if she only loved Harry that little bit more she would have been content to marry him. But the theatre is in her veins and defying her respectable family she sets out to re-establish her singing career and in so doing, rescue her mother and brother from their suffocating life with the in-laws

Even with the country at war, the show must go on...

After the tragic death of her father, aspiring singer Jessie Delaney has been forced to live with her bullying aunt and dreams of getting the break of a lifetime to escape. When she's cast as one of the Variety Girls in a new show at the Empire Theatre, Jessie hopes this is the new beginning she's been longing for. But following her dreams on stage will mean being separated from sweetheart Harry.

As she starts her new job, it's not long before she forms a close-knit friendship with Frances and Dolly, although the girls soon find that life in the theatre isn't always glamorous. And with the country on the brink of war, everyone is facing an uncertain future. Can friendship help Jessie through the challenges ahead?