A Moment With… Karen Storey

Please join me in welcoming Karen Storey to Novel Kicks as we say Happy Birthday to her book, The Approval of Sheep.

Gordon Slee fears he was never meant to be born. Anxious since childhood after hearing he was an accident, the forty-two-year-old is still struggling to escape the shadow of his high-achieving family.

But a glimmer of hope is on the horizon – a huge promotion within his hotel group is up for grabs, and he is sure that his time has come to make a mark on the world.

However, within his own department, redundancies are afoot. He may lose his job before he gets the chance. Until he learns of a historic covenant that preserves the right for sheep to run through the company’s top London hotel. Could he convince his boss that he’s the man to save the hotel from catastrophe?

Up in Bryn Nefyn, North Wales, live the descendants of the covenant owner. The elderly sheep farmer and his aging hippy brother could use the money the hotel might offer. But along with their strong-willed American shepherdess, they laugh at Gordon’s attempts to negotiate a deal. Surely, they couldn’t use a covenant that’s been forgotten about for over a hundred years.

Or could they?

For lovers of upmarket commercial fiction with a touch of romance and comedy, The Approval of Sheep is an uplifting story about family and love, overcoming adversity and discovering our reason for our place in this world.

To talk about the inspiration behind The Approval of Sheep, it’s over to Karen. Welcome.

The crazy inspiration behind my quirky, uplifting debut novel, The Approval of Sheep

When I tell people about the premise behind my debut novel, The Approval of Sheep, they’re often surprised to hear that the story was inspired by a real sheep covenant. When the idea for this book first came to me, I had been focusing on creating darker fiction tales, both with my short stories and a women’s fiction novel I had been working on. But then, one day, my husband came home from work and told me about this crazy policy he had to sort out.

Well, I always thought my husband had the most boring job in the world. He was a corporate insurance broker at the time (now a consultant) and used to come back in the evenings and tell me stories about devising policies for factories and financial institutions. Not very exciting stuff in my mind. So, I would smile and nod while not really listening. Until that evening he came into my writing room after work and told me about this posh London hotel where they found this old covenant that would allow sheep to run through the hotel’s premises. I was like, ‘What? You had to sort out an insurance policy about sheep? What would the policy actually protect the hotel from? And what if they didn’t take it out?’

My husband told me that of course they took out the policy because it insured the hotel for tens of millions in case the covenant ever got used and the hotel got declared unfit for purpose. He explained that although it was highly unlikely the policy ever would be used, the whole idea of insurance is to protect the client from any eventuality.

So, I said to him, ‘ Okay, there’s a hotel in London with an employee about to lose his job. He finds out about the covenant attached to his hotel. Except his boss didn’t purchase the expensive insurance policy. The hotel directors figured it’s nonsense because no one is ever going to use this sheep Right. But then the employee about to lose his job sets out to find the covenant’s descendants in Wales because maybe he can negotiate a deal with them and look like a hero to his boss…’

By this time, my husband is saying to me, ‘Employee? Wales? What are you talking about?’ And I’m like, ‘Shhh, this is a story. One with eccentric Welsh farmers, and maybe an American shepherdess who all might have other ideas about what to do with this covenant.’

My husband looked at me and said, ‘Okay. But please at least change the name of the hotel.’

Which I did. The Remblents Hotel in my book is a completely fictional name. I phoned my agent and told him about my idea for this crazy story, and luckily, when he heard about the covenant and the settings of London and North Wales, he said to me, ‘I love it. Write it.’

The only problem was that I wanted to write a story that took my protagonist to a sheep farm in Wales, yet I knew nothing about sheep! So, I got on the phone and my computer and started contacting sheep farms around the country. I finally got hold of this shepherdess, the fabulous Becky Bowles of Farmcraft Experiences, who invited me to come for a visit. She took me up to one of her fields, showed me some basics of sheep herding, then after giving me a large crook, allowed me to have a go at getting about half a dozen sheep across the field and into a gated area. It was an amazing experience and the most fun book research I had ever done!

The Approval of Sheep came out in October 2025 and it was published by Burton Mayers Books. Now that it’s one year on from publication, I’m proud to say that a prestigious screenwriter in London has picked up the story and is adapting it for film. I know the film industry can be precarious, but when the screenplay eventually gets to its filming stage, I hope the actors have as much fun herding sheep on set as I did that day on Becky’s Farm. As for my husband, the corporate insurance consultant, I’m sure he’s hoping that the film studio has a good policy in place!

About Karen Storey –

Karen Storey is an award-winning fiction writer, featured on the acclaimed book podcast The Bestseller Experiment. Her short stories have been placed in several international competitions, and her memoir pieces published within The New York Times bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Originally from New York, Karen lives in Warwickshire and has written articles for American in Britain magazine. She lives with her husband, whose surname Storey was the perfect wedding gift. They share their home with a snarky cat who writes Karen’s monthly author newsletters and a crazy dog who barks at the wind.

The Approval of Sheep, a quirky uplifting book club read, is her first novel. 

Say hi to Karen via her website,  X, Facebook, Bluesky and Instagram. You can also connect on Linktree. 

The Approval of Sheep was released by Burton Mayers Books on 10th October 2025. Click to buy on Amazon UK, Amazon US, Barnes & Noble and Waterstones. 

Win a signed copy of The Approval of Sheep with bookmark (Open INT)

Would you like to win a signed copy of The Approval of Sheep along with a bookmark?

Well, this is your chance. For all details on how to enter, click on this Gleam link.

This competition is open internationally.

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Laura

I'm Laura. I started Novel Kicks back in 2009 as I wanted a place to discuss books and writing - two loves of my life. As someone who has anxiety, these two things give me, and I am sure countless others, a much needed escape.
There is a monthly book club, writing exercises, prompts, reviews, author interviews, competitions and guest posts. I cover many genres and I hope there is something for everyone.
I grew up by the sea in Dorset and currently live in Poole with my husband, Chris and three cats. I love writing and have a BA (Hons) in Creative Writing from Falmouth University. I am writing my first book. If only I could stop pressing delete. Chris has threatened to stop it from working. Haha.
I have always loved creative writing since I was in first school and would very much like to meet my teacher, Miss Sayers, to say thank you for all the encouragement she gave me then.
When not writing, I love reading, cats, Disney, singing (I can't sing but this doesn't stop me,) and falling into a good TV show or film. If I could step into any fictional world, it would be amongst the characters in ABC's Once Upon a Time.
I love reading many genres and discovering new authors.