Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Viral
It’s Friday which means it’s time to start writing some fiction.
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing 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: Viral
Think about a typical day for you.
One event from this day gets recorded by a stranger and goes viral on social media, eventually making its way onto national news.
Continue the story using the first person point of view.
by 
Book Review: The Wedding Planner by Eve Devon
It’s summer, the wedding bells are ringing and I am saying hi to Eve Devon and the blog tour for her latest book, The Wedding Planner.
Wedding bells are ringing and gossip is spiralling in Whispers Wood…
Single mum Gloria Pavey has a bad habit of saying exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. Determined to make a positive change she can’t say no when her best friend, Emma, asks her to take on the role of her wedding planner.
The only problem? Gloria’s co-planner – best man Seth Knightley.
Gloria is on a self-imposed man ban but pulling together the most beautiful wedding Whispers Wood has ever seen alongside gorgeous Seth is pushing her to her limits.
As every interaction increases the tension between them Gloria finds herself wondering…could the happy ever after she never thought she’d have be in her future after all?
The Wedding Planner, the third novel in the Whispers Wood series focuses on Gloria.
After finding out her husband had fallen in love with someone else, she’s no longer buying into the happy ever after. In-fact, she’s even finding it hard to be nice to people.
Determined to change her ways though, even just a little bit, she is pulled into the world of weddings when her colleague, Emma, finally makes a decision about her wedding to Jake.
Not only has Gloria got to be a bridesmaid, she’s now working with Jake’s younger and handsome brother, Seth. Can she resist him like she’s managed to resist everything else?
This took me a couple of chapters to get into and then I couldn’t stop reading.
The relaxed and chatty writing style made it a wonderful book to read. I felt as though I was witnessing all this rather than reading it, if that makes sense.
Gloria is a wonderfully complex character. She’s been hurt in love and in life so she has self-preservation in spades. Even when the gorgeous Seth makes it clear he’s flirting with her, she tries to resist him. I shouted to the page on more than one occasion for her to stop being so silly.
The characters around Gloria are equally as wonderful and I don’t think there was one I didn’t like.
Although there is the old chapter told from various point of views, this is Gloria’s story.
This book is a real journey for Gloria. She has closed herself off to everything.
It’s about her relationship with Seth and I loved this but it was also interesting to see how her friendships develop with the other women in the story, Juliet, Emma and Kate. It was a close run thing with Seth (the perfect Jane Austen type hero,) but the friendship between the four women is my favourite part.
by My Writing Ramblings: June Favourites
July is here and wow, the weather has been amazing. I am keeping everything crossed that it lasts. As June is now finished, I wanted to look at some of my favourite things from last month.
My favourite book from last month was Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay by Ali McNamara. I am a huge fan of Ali’s novels so it was no real surprise that I adored this novel.
Her writing style is so effortless and she creates wonderful characters. The plot for this book was great; a woman inherits a castle and meets a handsome stranger. Also, this cover is just so beautiful.
Here’s the blurb for the novel.
Amelia is a single mother, doing her very best to look after her young son, Charlie – but money is tight and times are tough. When she first hears that she is the last descendent of the Chesterford family and that she has inherited a Real-Life Castle by the sea, Amelia can’t quite believe her ears. But it’s true!
She soon finds that owning a castle isn’t quite the ticket to sorting out her money problems that she’d first hoped: she can’t sell, because the terms of the ancient bequest state that any Chesterford who inherits the castle, must live there and work towards the upkeep and maintenance of the family home. So ever-practical Amelia decides to uproot her little family and move to this magnificent castle by the sea.
Living in a castle on the beautiful Northumberland coast is fun at first, but organising the day-to-day running is a lot more complicated than Amelia first imagined. Luckily she has help from the small band of eccentric and unconventional staff that are already employed there – and a mysterious unseen hand that often gives her a push in the right direction just when she needs it most. It’s only when she meets Tom, a furniture restorer who comes to the castle to help repair some antique furniture, that Amelia realises she might get the fairy-tale ending that she and Charlie truly deserve…
There are so many great TV shows being released right now. The one I enjoyed most in June was definitely Black Mirror. I do think that Charlie Brooker is a genius. It’s sad he’s not doing his end of year show but if it’s because he has been writing Black Mirror, that is fine with me.
by A Moment With… Sue Moorcroft & A Modern Literary Hero.
The fantastic Sue Moorcroft has popped into Novel Kicks today.
Now summer is here, I’m very pleased to announce that one of our favourite books of the summer, ‘A Summer to Remember’, by The Sunday Times Best Selling author Sue Moorcroft is available to read and to make things even better, it is now only 99p on eBook.
As a special treat, Sue as written the description below of what a hero is to her. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did. Over to you, Sue.
My hero!
What do I look for in a hero of one of my books? Decent but no pushover – in fact, a man with a bit of edge. He’s loyal to those who deserve it, probably a leader in his way, a man with admirable qualities including, you’ll be unsurprised to learn, good looks! He’ll invoke emotions in my heroine, whether that’s making her laugh, cry or steam with rage. And I like something a little less-usual about him, if possible.
Aaron de Silva’s a landscape gardener, creating or regenerating beautiful gardens in stately homes. He also hand-makes guitars. He’s one of the few people in Nelson’s Bar to be able to get satellite broadband and is constantly changing the password or finding half the village in his garden ‘borrowing’ his internet access. His own garden looks out directly over the cliffs to the sea far below and whether he’s sitting on the bench alone playing his guitar or hosting an outdoor party, his garden is Aaron’s happy place.
Aaron has lived all his life in the seaside village of Nelson’s Bar, Norfolk. His family are around him, including a lively younger cousin, Harry, who causes Aaron a few hair-raising moments, and his much-loved brother, Lee, who Aaron spends much of the book looking out for. Lee’s emotionally fragile after being jilted six years earlier and he returns to Nelson’s Bar to live just as heroine Clancy Moss comes to the village too. And it’s Clancy’s cousin Alice who jilted Lee. That Aaron was wildly attracted to Clancy at the wedding-that-never-was only feeds his emotional maelstrom when he’s constantly forced into her company.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Combinations
Welcome back to the Novel Kicks Writing Room. Today, it’s about combinations.
Pick a character from either something you’ve written or from the book you are currently reading. This is your main character.
Now randomly choose three more, each from different stories and as varied as you can make them.
Your main character is speed dating. One at a time, this character has a brief conversation with your other three choices before the bell goes off and they have to move on.
Write only using dialogue.
For each one, write for five minutes each time.
You could then always do other combinations within these characters. How would it work if your main character was suddenly the one who had to impress the others?
by Book Club
