Novel Kicks

About Novel Kicks/Laura... Novel Kicks was founded in 2009 and is run by Laura who is currently living in Hampshire, and lives with husband, Chris and her cat, Buddy. She would love to be a writer. She’s trying to write the novel she thinks so much about. She’s loved reading and writing since ‘Creative Writing’ classes in primary school. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything she can get her hands on, she loves reading, dancing like a loon, and watching Project Runway and Ugly Betty (her two TV guilty pleasures.) She also has an obsession with chocolate and Jammie Dodgers.

Blog Tour: I’ll Take New York by Miranda Dickinson – Review

Published December 15, 2014 | By Novel Kicks

Have you ever given up on love?

When her boyfriend lets her down for the last time, Brooklyn bookshop owner Bea James makes a decision – no more. No more men, no more heartbreak, and no more pain.

Psychiatrist Jake Steinmann is making a new start too, leaving his broken marriage behind in San Francisco. From now on there’ll just be one love in his life: New York.

At a party where they seem to be the only two singletons, Bea and Jake meet, and decide there’s just one thing for it. They will make a pact: no more relationships.

But the city has other plans . . .

Bea James and Jake Steinmann have both found themselves coming out of serious relationships. Bea has ended it with her boyfriend, Otis when he lets her down too many times and Jake has most recently moved back to New York after his wife unexpectedly files for divorce. After meeting at a party, Bea and Jake decide to make a pact against relationships.

The characters in this book are wonderful. I fell in love with Bea and Jake and immediately wanted them to be a couple. Bea is a lovely character and like Jake, she is lost after the end of her relationship and is trying to find a way to stop herself getting hurt. I found Bea a very relatable character and I love the sound of her bookshop. Some of my favourite parts of the book (apart from her developing relationship with Jake,) were the e-mail/letter exchanges she had with her grandmother. I think these really added another element to the novel.

Jake is also a warm, likeable character and I did feel so sorry for him. I liked Bea and him together and so wanted to keep reading to find out whether it would be a happy ending for them and what would happen before they got there.

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Blog Tour: Red Rose, White Rose by Joanna Hickson

Published December 9, 2014 | By Novel Kicks

We are delighted to welcome Joanna to our blog today. Her new novel, Red Rose, White Rose focuses on Cicely Neville and her half-brother, Cuthbert. It was released by Harper on 4th December 2014. Joanna talks to us today about what inspired her to write Red Rose, White Rose.

Red Rose, White Rose: It only takes one little fact to set off a chain reaction…

When people ask what inspired me to write a novel about Cicely Neville they are surprised when I say it was the discovery that she was the youngest child in her family. Nothing very unusual about that you may think but when I add that the family consisted of no less than twenty-two children perhaps you might begin to understand why my curiosity was piqued? Then consider the following additional facts; that fifteenth century England was about to plunge into the Wars of the Roses, that the Nevilles were staunch Lancastrians (Red Rose) and that Cicely married the Duke of York (White Rose) and I think you might appreciate that this struck me as the framework for some fascinating historical fiction.

Cicely’s father was the Earl of Westmorland, which used to be a county in north-west England but has now been subsumed by the county of Cumbria and no longer officially exists, except in the name of a local newspaper and a motorway service station on the M6! However, in the fifteenth century it was the heartland of one of the kingdom’s most powerful families, the Nevilles. Ralph Neville was granted the Earldom of Westmorland by King Richard II towards the end of the fourteenth century but when Henry of Lancaster usurped Richard’s throne in 1399, Ralph had recently taken Henry’s half-sister Joan Beaufort as his second wife and therefore felt obliged to support his new brother-in-law. It turned out to be a good move because the new king heaped honours and wealth on those lords who had backed his seizure of the crown.

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Blog Tour: Red Rose, White Rose by Joanna Hickson – Review

Published December 9, 2014 | By Novel Kicks

Harper, December 2014

In fifteenth century England the Neville family rules the north with an iron fist. Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland, a giant of a man and a staunch Lancastrian, cunningly consolidates power by negotiating brilliant marriages for his children. The last betrothal he arranges before he dies is between his youngest daughter, nine-year-old Cicely, and his ward Richard, the thirteen-year-old Duke of York, England’s richest heir.
Told through the eyes of Cicely and her half-brother Cuthbert, Red Rose, White Rose is the story of one of the most powerful women in England during one of its most turbulent periods. Born of Lancaster and married to York, the willowy and wayward Cicely treads a hazardous path through love, loss and imprisonment and between the violent factions of Lancaster and York, as the Wars of the Roses tear England’s ruling families apart.

Red Rose, While Rose is told from two points of view – Cicely who ends up married to The Duke of York, Richard (who is not the easiest man to live with,) and Cuthbert, her illegitimate half-brother. I liked the fact that there were two points of view as it gave me an insight into both sides. Cicely on her own would only have been able to take the story so far and so Cuthbert gives us an insight into the time on the battlefields – information Cicely would have no knowledge of as her story is from the domestic side.

I love it when fiction is mixed in with fact. Cuthbert is fictional but I found that I really liked his character and I connected with him in a way that I didn’t quite with other characters. He felt very real in my mind and the author has done such a great job giving him a voice. I found his situation interesting. He is seen to be accepted into Cicely’s immediate family but has to fight for his legitimacy as far as everyone else is concerned.

The two points of view also gave a very interesting account of how different it was for men and woman but in my opinion, it also shows how much importance the women’s behaviour had on their husbands and how they were forced to make difficult choices once married.

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Quick Spotlight: Map My Heart by Dom & Ink

Published December 8, 2014 | By Novel Kicks

It’s so near to Christmas now. I can’t believe we are only two weeks away. I am forever on the look out for great christmas presents for the writers in my life and I think this would make a great gift.

It’s called Map My Heart. I am loving this book. It is a relationship journal, similar to The Art of Getting Started. I am getting a slight obsession with these interactive books.. can you tell?

It’s from Huck & Pucker and it’s currently only £5 inc post and packing so it’s a bargain (until 12th December 2014.)

This book is about relationships. It’s about how people meet, fall in love, break up, wallow, and then pull themselves together again for round number two. It’s about dating and rejection and all the joy and the crap that goes with it. It will make you laugh and think, pour out your innermost thoughts and doodle away your angst. It will be your best friend and your counsellor; you can’t drink cheap wine with it but you can scrawl swear words on it and rip it up, should you feel the urge. In short, this book will make you feel better when your heart is being battered and bashed on the rollercoaster of love.

Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Christmas Lunch

Published December 5, 2014 | By Novel Kicks

Friday 5th December 2014: Christmas Lunch.

Fiction Friday is our weekly prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.

Today’s prompt: You have a mix of people coming to dinner. Whether some if all of them know one another is up to you but write about the meal. What happens?

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