I am pleased to be welcoming Jessie Wells to Novel Kicks. She’s here with the blog tour for her book, The Good News Gazette.

Because we all need something to smile about!

She may be down but don’t count this determined single mum out just yet…

Nine years ago, Zoe Taylor returned from London to the quiet hamlet of Westholme with her tail between her legs and a bun in the oven. Where once her job as a journalist saw her tearing off to Paris at a moment’s notice after a lead, now the single mum covers the local news desk. At least, she did…until she’s unceremoniously let go.

When Zoe invites her friends over to commiserate, wine and whining soon turns into something more… and before the night is out she’s plotted her next step: The Good News Gazette.

Now, as a developer threatens to force Westholme into the twenty-first century, Zoe’s good news movement finds her leading a covert campaign as a community crusader. She may have started The Good News Gazette as a way to save herself, but she might just be able to save Westholme in the process…

*****

To talk about why ‘writing about what you know’ could be the best advice you’re ever given, it’s over to Jess. 

For the past two decades, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a novel. As a former journalist and avid reader, I’ve always loved words, so wasn’t daunted by the thought of writing lots of them. There was just one problem that kept cropping up; what the topic should be.

‘Write about what you know,’ was the advice that I kept being given, and in theory the adage makes sense. By writing about what they know, a writer can bring so much depth, emption and realism to a subject matter. They can inspire, inform, bring a new perspective to issues and lived experiences which have been under-represented or, worse, misrepresented.

But as a mum of two young children who was lucky enough, in my role as a freelance writer, to work from home, what could I possibly bring to the table? What could I have to say that women all the world over didn’t already know, or hadn’t already experienced, other than my top tips for how to get felt-tip out of fabric couches or how to deal with a rewritten Christmas list on the morning of Christmas Eve?

Plenty, as it turns out.

I can’t remember when, exactly, the idea for The Good News Gazette – a story about a single mum who starts up a good news newspaper to provide an antidote to the constant flow of bad news – came to me. What I do know is that, for some time, I’d had an increasing sense of fatigue about the negative news that, thanks to our 24-hour, multi-media news access, seemed ever-present – and that was before anyone had even heard of Covid.

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