Blog Tour: Learning To Fly by Jane Lambert – Extract
I am pleased to be welcoming Jane Lambert to the blog today and her tour for her novel, Learning to Fly.
Forty-year-old air stewardess Emily Forsyth has everything a woman could wish for: a glamorous, jet-set lifestyle, a designer wardrobe and a dishy pilot of a husband-in-waiting to match. But when he leaves her to ‘find himself’ (forgetting to mention the bit about ‘… a younger girlfriend’), Emily’s perfect world comes crashing down. Catapulted into a mid-life crisis, she is forced to take stock and make some major changes. She ditches her job and enrols on a drama course in pursuit of her childhood dream, positive that, in no time at all, she’ll be posing in Prada on the red carpet and her ex will rue the day he dumped her. Wrong! Her chosen path proves to be an obstacle course littered with odd jobs and humiliating auditions; from performing Macbeth single-handedly at Scone Palace to chauffeuring the world’s top golfers at St Andrews – and getting hopelessly lost.
If she is to survive, she must learn to be happy with less, and develop a selective memory to cope with more than her fair share of humiliating auditions. She tells herself her big break is just around the corner. But is it too late to be chasing dreams?
Jane has very kindly shared an extract from the novel. Enjoy.
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It is never too late to be what you might have been ̴ George Eliot
Reasons for and against giving up the glitzy, glamorous world of flying:
Pros:
- No more cleaning up other people’s sick.
- No more 2 a.m. wake-up calls, jet lag, swollen feet/ stomach or shrivelled-up skin.
- No more tedious questions like, ‘What’s that lake/ mountain down there?’ and ‘Does the mile high club really exist?’
- No more serving kippers and poached eggs at 4 a.m. to passengers with dog-breath and smelly socks.
- No more risk of dying from deep vein thrombosis, malaria or yellow fever.
- No more battles with passengers who insist that their flat-pack gazebo will fit into the overhead locker.
- No more wearing a permanent smile and a name badge.
- No danger of bumping into ex-boyfriend and his latest ‘I’m-Debbie-come-fly-me’.
Cons:
- No more fake Prada, Louis Vuitton or Gucci.
- No more lazing by the pool in winter.
- No more ten-hour retail therapy sessions in shopping malls the size of a small island — and getting paid for it.
- No more posh hotel freebies (toiletries, slippers, fluffy bathrobes etc.).
- Holidays (if any) now to be taken in Costa del Cheapo, as opposed to Barbados or Bora Bora.
- No more horse riding around the pyramids, imagining I’m a desert queen.
- No more ice skating in Central Park, imagining I’m Ali MacGraw in Love Story.
- Having to swap my riverside apartment for a shoebox, and my Mazda convertible for a pushbike.
‘Cabin crew, ten minutes to landing. Ten minutes, please,’ comes the captain’s olive-oil-smooth voice over the intercom. This is it. No going back. I’m past the point of no return.
The galley curtain swishes open — it’s showtime!
I switch on my full-beam smile and enter upstage left, pushing my trolley for the very last time …
‘Anyheadsetsanyrubbishlandingcard? Anyheadsetsanyrubbishlandingcard? …’
Have I taken leave of my senses? The notion of an actress living in a garret, sacrificing everything for the sake of her art, seemed so romantic when I gaily handed in my notice three months ago, but now I’m not so sure …
Be positive! Just think, a couple of years from now, you could be sipping coffee with Phil and Holly on the This Morning sofa …
Yes, Phil, the rumours are true … I have been asked to appear on Strictly Come Dancing. God only knows how I’ll fit it around my filming commitments though.
Who are you kidding? A couple of years from now, the only place you’ll be appearing is the job centre, playing Woman On Income Support.
This follow-your-dreams stuff is all very well when you’re in your twenties, or thirties even, but I’m a forty-year-old woman with no rich husband (or any husband for that matter) to bail me out if it all goes pear-shaped. Just as everyone around me is having a loft extension or a late baby, I’m downsizing my whole lifestyle to enter a profession that boasts a ninety-two percent unemployment rate.
Why in God’s name, in this wobbly economic climate, am I putting myself through all this angst and upheaval, when I could be pushing my trolley until I’m sixty, then retire comfortably on an ample pension and one free flight a year?
Something happened, out of the blue, that catapulted me from my ordered, happy-go-lucky existence and forced me down a different road …
‘It’s not your fault. It’s me. I’m confused,’ Nigel had said.
by 
Extract: Because of You by Helene Fermont
Because of You by Helene Fermont is released today by Fridhem Publishing.
Because of You spans 36 years in the life of Hannah Stein, a Swedish teenager who arrives in London, at the tail end of the disco era, for a gap year before embarking on a teaching career. The people she meets change the course of her life irrevocably and the novel charts her changing personal and professional fortunes over the next three decades. Because of You is about love, coming of age, friendship, bereavement, stillbirth and rape. Its themes include redemption, acceptance, fidelity and family. Because of You is a story that every woman can relate to.
Thanks to Hélene, Fridhem and Palamedes PR, we have an exclusive extract to share with you. Enjoy.
As soon as Easter and Passover were over, Hannah organised a meeting between her grandmother and friends. “I booked a table at Cosmo,” she told the girls. “Ella and Granny’s old friends Katja and Tanya will be joining us.” May was approaching and with it, sunny hot weather. The ladies made the effort to look their best.
Opting to wear a light blue dress, her hair in a soft shade of red perfectly matching her lips, Zipporah admired Tanya and Katja’s bright kaftans, the latter wearing a turban to conceal her loss of hair due to old age. Meanwhile, Hannah assisted dressing Ella, choosing a lavender dress with matching jacket. Rosie and Sanna also made the effort to dress up.
Seated at the large table in the buzzing restaurant overlooking the crowd around them, Rosie kept thinking everyone looked wonderful. “You look years younger than your actual age!” she blurted out, referring to each by surname.
“Please don’t! Unless you refer to us by first name, we’ll feel ancient,” Zipporah whispered in her ear.
It was difficult choosing from the extensive menu. “I’m postponing my diet,” said Sanna. This place’s worth it.”
Nodding her agreement, Katja replied, “You’re a girl close to my own heart. Women are wrong assuming being thin as a stick’s attractive – men prefer a fuller, feminine figure!” Her Russian accent matched that of her friends’. Beaming, Sanna wholeheartedly agreed.
“I’d never contemplate cutting down on my food, neither would Tanya,” Katja added, winking at the larger woman seated next to her.
by Blog Tour: Escape To The Riviera by Jules Wake – Extract and Review
It’s lovely to welcome Jules Wake to the blog today and her blog tour for her latest novel, Escape To The Riviera which was released by Avon on 30th June 2016.
Carrie Hayes has a job she enjoys and a perfectly nice boyfriend. She’s sorted. Isn’t she?
But Carrie’s life wasn’t always like this. As a young, wild drama student, she married fellow actor, Richard Maddox, after a whirlwind romance. Life back then was full of possibilities, but when Hollywood beckoned Richard, Carrie was left behind.
Now an A-list superstar, Richard’s life couldn’t be more different to Carrie’s, so when their paths cross in glamorous
St Tropez, she can’t help but wonder what might have been.
But with lovely, sensible Alan in tow, Carrie knows she needs to do the right thing. The only problem is, Carrie and Richard never quite got round to getting a divorce…
My review on the book is below but first, Jules has very kindly shared an extract from Escape To The Riviera with us. Enjoy.
‘Jade!’
‘I’ll catch you up.’
Carrie decided this was a lost battle and it would be better if she left – and quickly, before Richard turned around and linked the two of them together. Would he remember Jade from all those years ago?
She hurried down the street, fighting the temptation to take one last look back. A few streets later, a piercing stitch stabbing into her side forced her to stop. Her whole body hurt but it had nothing to do with the stitch. Her face crumpled and she bent double trying to ease the pain.
by Blog Tour: Little Girl Gone by Alexandra Burt
I’d really like to welcome Alexandra Burt and her blog tour to Novel Kicks today. Her latest novel, Little Girl Gone was released by Avon on 24th September 2015. To celebrate, we have an extract from Little Girl Gone. Enjoy….
A baby goes missing. But does her mother want her back?
When Estelle Paradise’s baby daughter is taken from her crib, she doesn’t report her missing. A week later, Estelle is found in a wrecked car miles from home, with a gunshot wound to the head and no memory. The only thing she can remember is the blood…so much blood.
She knows she holds the key to what happened that night – but what she doesn’t know is whether she was responsible.
The blood lingers. There’s flashes of crimson exploding like lightning in the sky, one moment they’re illuminating everything around me, the next they are gone, bathing my world in darkness. Then the bloody images fade and vanish, leaving a black jittering line on the screen.
Squeaking rubber soles on linoleum circle me and I feel a pat on my shoulder.
This isn’t real. A random vision, just a vision. It doesn’t mean anything.
A nurse gently squeezes my shoulder and I open my eyes.
‘Mrs Paradise,’ the nurse’s voice is soft, almost apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, but I have orders to wake you every couple of hours.’
‘Blood,’ I say, and squint my eyes, attempting to force the image to return to me. ‘I don’t understand where all this blood’s coming from.’ Was that my voice? It can’t be mine, it sounds nothing like me.
‘Blood? What blood?’ The nurse looks at my immaculately taped central line. ‘Are you bleeding?’
I turn towards the window. It’s dark outside. The entire room appears in the window’s reflection, like an imprint, a not-quite true copy of reality.
by Book Club
