Please join me in welcoming Ruth Gresty to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, Paper Over It.

Jennifer Jones is in control.

Jen is confident she has complete control over the things that are trying to control her. Until she isn’t. Until she hasn’t. Until she realises she has never been in control at all. She’s been papering over it for years.

It’s the start of the year 2000. A new millennium has arrived. For Jen and her three friends, university life in Manchester is full of possibility and endless fun. Sassiness, spontaneity, marvellous mayhem and youthful optimism reign in the Manchester rain.

But beneath the sometimes brash bravado sometimes even the most resilient, carefree, fun-loving characters who, on the surface look like they are living their best lives, are perilously close to falling apart. Over the course of one unforgettable year, the young women confront their own realities and truths. Some make foolish mistakes and others life changing choices.

Sometimes heartwarming and other times heartbreaking, but always brutally honest. This is a story of friendship, mistakes, self-discovery and acceptance; identity, love and the messy reality of becoming an adult. It’s about the masks we wear, the mistakes and choices we make, and the courage it takes to stop papering over it and face ourselves when everything feels like it’s falling apart.

It’s real, raw, raunchy, sometimes random and frankly rude at times. Just like Jen and her friends.

Ruth has shared an extract from Paper Over It with us all today. Make that drink, find those biscuits, head to that comfortable chair and enjoy. 

(Warning: mild language). 

*****beginning of extract*****

I have chosen this extract as it hopefully sums up how twenty-one-year-old single mum Jen (the main protagonist of four key characters) is feeling and why she knows she has to somehow evolve and enhance her life. She doesn’t fit into her old one (or her friends) on a day-to-day basis. She is lonely, however much she loves her baby boy. She is also being dragged back into her un-named eating disorder just to try and feel a little control over something.

She has hit a crossroad, on a road in her much-loved Manchester, and knows she needs to make some changes. She just doesn’t really know how yet.

This extract is towards the end of the book and only features one of the four main characters, and I appreciate it gives away the spoiler of Jen having a baby, but hopefully it makes sense why I have chosen this.

End of Chapter 49 – ‘Show me the meaning of feeling lonely’

Joseph is fast asleep, only taking a single suck of his dummy occasionally. She suddenly feels sightly uneasy in her beloved city. Detached in a weird way. She drives south, out of it.

As she crosses the inner ring road and onto the Princess Parkway, a strange cloud descends over her.

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