A Moment With…Hazel Hitchins
I’m so excited to be welcoming Hazel Hitchins to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her latest book, Babs & Aggie: The Good, The Bad and The Vegan.
Aggie has reached that “certain age” – in her case, a thousand years or so, give or take a decade.
After centuries of bringing kings to their knees, running a small-town cafe isn’t how she imagined her life would pan out. Now, thanks to the machinations of the false vegan from across the road, she risks losing even that. And just when she thinks things can’t get any worse, along comes her old friend, Babs, in her House-on-chicken-legs, ready to ruffle some feathers with her unique blend of borscht, tough love and alcohol.
But everybody has a secret – the grocer who hides his loneliness behind a cheery smile, the neighbour crippled by debt and grief, and the young woman who jumps at her shadow – and before Aggie can help anyone else, she has demons of her own to lay to rest.
Can she confront her past to save her future? What is the ‘Vegan’ really hiding? Will Babs ever let her have the last word?
Raucous, rowdy, and heart-wrenching and heart-warming in equal measures, Babs and Aggie is a magical tale of love, loss and the comfort of a friendship forged through food, laughter and a LOT of slivovica.
*****
To celebrate the release of her new novel, Hazel is going to talk about why she writes about women of a certain age. Over to you Hazel.
The Invisible Woman:
Why I Write About Women of a Certain Age
If you subscribe to my newsletter, you’ll know that I often write about the pitfalls of being a “Woman Of a Certain Age”, such as never taking a chance on a sneeze and the feeling you get some days that you’re little more than a hot mess (sometimes literally) of hormones and HRT. It’s all very light-hearted and we laugh at these things because, frankly, it’s absurd. And normally, these ridiculous changes we go through are offset by experience and a greater understanding of how the world works, what’s worth getting worked up about and what we can let slide, so it’s all swings and roundabouts.
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Book Review: The Woman with All the Answers by Linda Green
I’m delighted to be welcoming Linda Green to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her latest book, The Woman with All the Answers.
The brilliantly observed, witty and heart-warming new book club read from Richard & Judy bestseller Linda Green
Your virtual assistant is about to become your midlife mentor…
Fifty-two-year-old Michelle Banks is struggling to keep all the plates spinning. She’s a perimenopausal district nurse, caring for elderly parents. Her husband is wasting their money on children’s TV memorabilia, her teenage daughter is riddled with anxiety and her 16-year-old son is behaving secretly.
Alexa is the only one who knows how much Michelle is juggling. Listening in via four smart speakers, she also knows that it’s about to get even worse.
So, when Michelle pleads for help, Alexa decides to go rogue and reveal her true identity as Pauline – a sixty-five-year-old former voiceover artist from Halifax – to teach Michelle everything she knows…
Wise, funny, relatable and inspiring, Alexa, We Have a Problem is perfect for fans of Clare Pooley, Mike Gayle and David Nicholls.
*****
Michelle is trying to juggle everything – a husband with a secret eBay habit, two teenagers and elderly parents.
One night, when using Alexa, Michelle gets more than she bargained for.
by Book Review: Pagans by James Alistair Henry
TWO COPS. ONE KILLER. HUNDREDS OF GODS.
21st Century London.
The Norman conquest never happened.
The ancient tribes of Britain remain undefeated.
But murders still have to be solved.
The small, mostly unimportant, island of Britain is inhabited by an uneasy alliance of tribes – the dominant Saxon East, the beleaguered Celtic West, and an independent Nordic Scotland – and tensions are increasing by the second. Supermarket warpaint sales are at an all-time high, mead abuse shortens the lives of thousands, and social media is abuzz with conspiracy theories suggesting the High Table’s putting GPS trackers in the honeycakes.
Amid this febrile atmosphere, the capital is set to play host to the Unification Summit, which aims to join together the various tribes into one ‘united kingdom’. But when a Celtic diplomat is found brutally murdered, his body nailed to an ancient oak, the fragile peace is threatened. Captain Aedith Mercia, daughter of a powerful Saxon leader, must join forces with Celtic Tribal Detective Inspector Drustan to solve the murder – and stop political unrest spilling onto the streets.
But is this an isolated incident? Or are Aedith and Drustan facing a serial killer with a decades-old grudge? To find out, they must delve into their own murky pasts and tackle forces that go deeper than they ever could have imagined.
Set in a world that’s far from our own and yet captivatingly familiar, Pagans explores contemporary themes of religious conflict, nationalism, prejudice… and the delicate internal politics of the office coffee round. Gripping and darkly funny, Pagans keeps you guessing until the very end.
*****
The battle of 1066 never happened. The British Empire never got built.
The Saxons are in the east of the country, Celts to the west and the Nords are independent in what we know as Scotland – protected by a big wall along the border.
Proceeding a Unification summit, a Celtic diplomat is found dead.
by Book Review: The Quiet Wife by Diane Saxon
I’m excited to be welcoming Diane Saxon to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her novel, The Quiet Wife.
I want to be ordinary. To fade into the shadows where no one notices me and live a quiet life. A normal life.
But I am not ordinary. Not anymore.
I’ve been keeping a secret. From my colleagues, my friends and most importantly, my husband – who knows nothing of my past life.
Twenty years ago, at college, a boy became obsessed with me. Craig Lane believed he could make me love him back if he just tried harder. When I rejected him, he did something so horrifying, it’s the stuff of nightmares. All my nightmares.
Now I’ve been informed by Victim Support Services, that boy – now a man – has been released from prison. The news terrifies me.
Am I safe? Or does Craig still carry the same obsession he did when we were seventeen? I don’t know. I’ve ignored every letter he’s ever sent me.
Now strange things have started to happen: flowers have been left on my doorstep, my cat keeps going missing. Someone is watching me. Knows where I live. I am sure.
Worse, something even more sinister could be stalking me from the shadows. Because I have another secret…
My past is coming to get me. One way or another.
*****
Soriah doesn’t want to remember what happened to her twenty years ago. However, when she receives a letter through the post, all the fear from that time returns to the surface. Revenge is being sought and it’s coming straight for her.
Having not read anything by Diane Saxon before, I was intrigued by this book and so was delighted to be invited onto the blog tour for The Quiet Wife.
by A Moment With…Penny Sansevieri and Amy Cornell from The Book Marketing Tips & Author Success Podcast
I’m joined today by Penny Sansevieri and Amy Cornell from the Book Marketing Tips & Author Success Podcast. It’s lovely to meet you both. What kinds of authors are tuning in?
Honestly, authors in all stages of book publishing and promotion – and it’s actually really exciting (and sometimes surprising) to see who’s listening. We mostly get this info from our reviews and authors who write in with feedback. But we have authors who rely on our show while looking for agents and or publishers, authors who are finishing up their books and thinking ahead about releases, and then on the other end of the spectrum we have authors tuning in that feel stuck and don’t know what they’re doing wrong, or the opportunities they may be missing.
Our reviews to date speak for themselves, with a lot of authors raving about what they’re learning and encouraging others to get on board!
Is the show for marketing DIYers or for finding the right people to hire?
It’s applicable to both, and even authors that fall somewhere in between. Some authors seem to tune in assuming they’ll handle everything themselves, and then they realize they need more support, maybe in very specific areas. We get a lot of authors contacting us about a collaboration after listening to the show, but you’ll also see from our reviews that there are a lot of DIYers out there just looking to do all the right things.
What if I’m still writing my first book?
by Book Club
