A Moment With… Olivia Lockhart
I’m so pleased to be welcoming Olivia Lockhart to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, Private Devotions.
Destiny promised Hanna Bailey her soulmate, but delivered a divorce instead. So, when the career opportunity of a lifetime comes calling, she’s ready to answer. Alone.
Joining the tour of rising rock band His Locked Heart is her chance to start again. Sold-out shows, endless miles, and the freedom to leave her past behind
But fate has a habit of rewriting the lyrics.
Behind the spotlight, the band’s brooding songwriter, Nathaniel Cole, is about to become the one person Hanna never expected. As friendships deepen and long-buried truths surface, Hanna finds herself torn between the life she built and a love that could burn the whole thing down.
Some songs are written in secret.
Some loves refuse to stay hidden.
And sometimes you get the chance to rewrite your own story.
With a special letter to women like Hanna, it’s over to you, Olivia.
Private Devotions has some painful and real memories in it, some my own, some heard from other women. Living through my forties has taught me a lot, and I wish I could go back and tell my younger self … but I don’t know if she’d believe me or understand. She’d probably scoff at the middle-aged woman who seems so dull and lifeless.
There’s a little bit of all of us in Hanna, and I hope you’ll read and identify with her. But in the meantime, a letter to all the women like me …
Dear friend,
There is something I wish you had known from the beginning.
You were never the problem.
by 
Book Extract: You Too by Katharine Light
Please join me in welcoming Katharine Light to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, You Too.
Anna has finally got what she longed for.
After years of focusing on her career—ignoring the quiet, insistent need for a child—a chance encounter with Rob led to an arrangement that changed everything.
Now she’s pregnant.
But nothing about what comes next is simple. This was never meant to be a relationship. As her pregnancy becomes more difficult, Anna retreats, unwilling to face Rob, or the feelings she can no longer ignore.
Because wanting a baby was one thing. Letting someone in is something else entirely.
Rob always knew their arrangement had limits. He didn’t expect Anna would quickly become the one person he can’t walk away from.
Now, both must decide what they’re willing to fight for. Can they overcome the complications of their own backgrounds and truly build a family together?
Or was their connection never meant to last?
Kathatine has kindly shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
beginning of extract
The first time they meet in this book, once Anna is pregnant and suffering with severe morning sickness.
What was Rob doing now, she wondered, for the nth time that day.
She had fielded his texts with brief replies, forcing him to shrink his enquiries accordingly. ‘Plans for the weekend?’ he’d asked. ‘Sleep!’ she’d replied.
Her biggest problem was her absolute inability to open the fridge without the inevitable retching and vomiting. She couldn’t face food. Couldn’t look at it. Couldn’t plan, shop or cook. Anything she tried turned to dry lumps on her tongue. The most she’d held down were some morsels of dry toast. Her sense of smell seemed to have magnified alarmingly, and the slightest odour sent her rushing to the loo, slicked with sweat, saliva flooding her mouth.
by Book Review: The Earl’s Bride by Fenella J. Miller
Please join me in welcoming Fenella J. Miller to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, The Earl’s Bride.
Bath, 1810.
Lord James Brotherton, the charismatic Earl of Avon, is wealthy, intelligent—and marked for death. His own cousin believes him an imposter and has enlisted corrupt lawyers and treacherous servants to remove him permanently.
Enter Sofia Brotherton.
Unconventional, outspoken, and entirely irresistible, Sofia turns James’s ordered world upside down. He falls for her instantly. She follows a week later.
As danger closes in, their growing attraction becomes both a refuge and a risk. With enemies plotting murder and passions running high, James and Sofia must fight for love—and survival.
A witty, action-packed Regency romance filled with intrigue, danger, and deliciously sensuous tension.
*****
Sofia Brotherton is determined to move onward and upward after the death of her father. When she and her sisters face potential ruin, she secures herself a job in Bath. However, when the Earl of Avon arrives, the plans change and it’s not long before he and Sofia clash. Will they survive their new life at Avon Court or will something else blossom?
I do love a good regency novel and so when the chance came up to join the blog tour for The Earl’s Bride, the first book in a new series by Fenella J Miller, I jumped at the chance. I can’t actually believe that this was the first book I’ve read by this author. It won’t be the last.
by Book Extract: The Songs That Find Us by Andrea Darby
I am so pleased to be welcoming Andrea Darby to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, The Songs That Find Us.
Lizzie thinks the difficult years are behind her.
She has a happy marriage, a career she loves, and a daughter beginning to find her place in the world. But when her husband Ed receives a devastating diagnosis, long-buried secrets surface – shattering everything Lizzie believes about their life together.
Now Ed is desperate to set things right before his memories slip away.
Meanwhile, their adopted daughter Beck is searching for answers of her own that could change the family forever.
After rediscovering her love of singing, Lizzie brings together a community where friendship, kindness and music forge unexpected connections — and perhaps a way back to one another.
Andrea has kindly shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
beginning of extract
This is from an early part of the novel featuring one of its three narrators, Lizzie. The other two narrators are her husband Ed and their 24-year-old adopted daughter Beck – so the reader gets three different perspectives as the story unfolds. This scene follows Beck’s shock announcement that she wants to move away to London.
Lizzie
In the living room, Ed is equally shocked by Beck’s bombshell. He’s still bent over his guitar, wearing his birthday jumper, the tags on the table next to him.
‘London?’ He shakes his head as if dismissing it. ‘How will she afford to live there?’
‘Probably expecting our help, as always.’
He blows out his cheeks, releases the air noisily.
by Book Extract: Ancestral Virgins by Fiona J. Mackintosh
Please join me in welcoming Fiona J. Mackintosh to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, Ancestral Virgins.
In early 20th century Britain, society was changing rapidly, but not much was changing for women.
From different ends of the social spectrum, Celia Mapperley and May Hallam wrestle with rules and circumstances beyond their control and must navigate love, sex, war, and the thin line between conformity and scandal.
As they each bear the shame of a devastating family secret, their stories come together in ways that neither could have imagined.
Fiona has kindly shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy it.
beginning of extract
My historical novel Ancestral Virgins is set in early 20th century Britain, when society was changing rapidly, but not much was changing for women despite the efforts of the Suffragettes. Lady Celia Mapperley is a young aristocrat who is being dragged around the marriage circuit but feels out of place and unwanted and is searching for a way to feel whole. Meanwhile, May Hallam is the youngest child of a waggoner who works on Celia’s father’s estate in Nottinghamshire. Both young women have to wrestle with rules and circumstances beyond their control and must navigate love, sex, war, and the thin line between conformity and scandal. As they each bear the shame of a devastating family secret, their stories come together in ways that neither could have imagined.
This extract is from the point of view of May Hallam as a child. Although the youngest of six siblings, she’s always been expected to take care of her brother Davey who is 16 months older and has what we now call Down’s Syndrome. In this piece, May and Davey are about 8 and 9 and have been sent out to pick up fallen branches to fuel the kitchen range, but May has become distracted.
February 1915
May noticed the light was fading. It would still be light outside the wood, but she and Davey should hurry and find some kindling before it was too dark to see. She heard the rustling of footsteps and, suddenly afraid, she called out, “Davey!” A startled pigeon burst out of the hedgerow, and then there was a crumpling sound. May jumped to her feet. Nothing moved in the treetops and the air was very still, and then all at once it was pierced by a long, high-pitched howl.
by Book Club
