NK Chats To… Shari Low
Hi Shari, thank you so much for joining me today. Can you tell me a little about your new novel, Because Mummy Said So and what inspired it?
Delighted to be here! Because Mummy Said So is a collection of columns and features I’ve written about the mayhem, chaos and hilarious bits of family life and imperfect parenting. It’s packed with embarrassing moments, mortifying disasters, amusing antics and there are a couple of tear jerking stories too. Don’t mention my oldest leaving home at 16 last year – it still makes me weep pathetically. Hopefully everyone from expectant and new mums to empty nesters will find something in there that makes them laugh or brings up a favourite memory of their own.
What is your writing process like from concept to editing?
This book was a little different from my usual novels, as it involved searching back though 15 years of writing about raising children and selecting all the stories I thought people would enjoy most. It was like reliving the big motherhood moments all over again and I loved every minute of it.
What’s the best thing about being an author and writing a book? What’s the most challenging?
The best thing is undoubtedly the moment it gets released. I’ve written 22 novels now and I still get every bit as excited as I did when my first book hit the shelves. The most challenging is the actual writing! My process tends to go along the lines of panic, type, eat a biscuit, panic, type, eat a biscuit, panic, type… until I finally write “The End”.
What’s your favourite word and why?
Most of them are rude, so I’ll stick with “mum”– because cheesy as it sounds (sorry!) it’s my very favourite thing to be. Continue reading
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Book Review: The Winter That Made Us by Kate Field
When Tess finds herself unexpectedly alone and back in Ribblemill, the childhood village she thought she’d escaped, she’s sure she can survive a temporary stay. She’s spent a lifetime making the best of things, hasn’t she?
Determined to throw herself into village life, Tess starts a choir and gathers a team of volunteers to restore the walled garden at Ramblings, the local stately home. Everything could be perfect, if she weren’t sharing a cottage and a cat with a man whose manner is more prickly than the nettles she’s removing…
As winter approaches, Tess finds herself putting down her own roots as fast as she’s pulling them up in the garden. But the ghosts of the past hover close by, and Tess must face them if she’s to discover whether home is where her heart has been all along.
The Winter That Made Us is told from the point of view of Tess. She has returned to Ribblemill; the village she grew in for the first time in years. It’s the place she couldn’t wait to leave.
She tries to make the most of the situation by throwing herself into village life. She starts a choir as well as gathering a team to restore the walled gardens at the nearby stately home.
Rather than stay with her parents (her relationship with her mother is a little strained,) Tess takes the offer to rent a cottage. She ends up sharing the cottage with Noah, a man who makes it clear he wants to be left alone. They are also soon joined by a kitten named Morag.
As winter approaches, things from both Tess and Noah’s pasts catch up with them to the point where they can’t be avoided. Can she and Noah find themselves again?
by Book Review: One Day in December by Josie Silver
Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn’t exist. After all, life isn’t a scene from the movies, is it? But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there’s a moment of pure magic…and then her bus drives away.
Laurie thinks she’ll never see the boy from the bus again. But at their Christmas party a year later, her best friend Sarah introduces her to the new love of her life. Who is, of course, the boy from the bus.
Determined to let him go, Laurie gets on with her life. But what if fate has other plans?
One evening, just before Christmas, Laurie is on the top deck of a London bus. When it stops, she sees a guy sat at the bus stop and they have a moment.
Before he can get on the bus/before Laurie can get off, the bus leaves the stop and Laurie misses her chance.
Despite looking for him for a year, Laurie is convinced that she will never find ‘bus boy.’ That is until her best friend introduces her new boyfriend.
One Day in December is not a typical boy meets girl story and this is one of the things I liked most about it (not that I am not a fan of the more conventional love stories.)
Told from the point of view of Laurie and Jack, I liked how I could get to know them and see the different thoughts, feelings and opinions.
The plot is compelling. The story builds at a good pace – it’s very much about the characters. All the twist and turns revolve around their story and behaviours.
by Book Review: The Memory Collector by Fiona Harper
Heather Lucas lives her life through other people’s memories.
Heather doesn’t want to remember her childhood, not when her mother’s extreme hoarding cast her family life into disarray.
For Heather’s mother, every possession was intimately connected to a memory, so when Heather uncovers a secret about her past that could reveal why her mother never let anything go, she knows there’s only one place she’ll find answers – behind the locked door of her spare room, where the remains of her mother’s hoard lie hidden.
As Heather uncovers both objects and memories, will the truth set her free? Or will she discover she’s more like her mother than she ever thought possible?
Heather had a difficult childhood mainly down to her mother and the hoarding habit. The only normal memories she has are when she went on holiday with her Auntie. Now as an adult, she is still experiencing the ripple effect that started when she was little and it’s beginning to control her as much as it did her mother.
Heather is quite a complicated character. All she remembers from her childhood are the piles of things her mother had filled their house with; it all invisible to anyone beyond the front door.
She is dealing with a lot of emotions. She, like her mother has the makings of a hoarder. She has a room full of things including some that she has obtained through shoplifting.
She knows that she should clear out the spare room and her mother’s belongings before it gets worse, but whenever she tries, she finds reasons not to.
Any mental health condition is hard to put across in fiction and Fiona does this with much sensitivity. I felt so much empathy for Heather. I found her very relatable and what she goes through in the book broke my heart. I’ll hold my hand up…. I did cry.
by Cover Reveal: The Foyles Bookshop Girls at War by Elaine Roberts
The Foyles Bookshop Girls at War by Elaine Roberts is the second book in the Foyles Girls series.
I am excited to be part of the cover reveal for The Foyles Bookshop Girls at War. Here is a bit about it…
Swapping books for the bomb factory takes courage – and could be dangerous.
Working at the Foyles bookshop was Molly Cooper’s dream job. But with the country at war she’s determined to do her bit. So Molly gathers her courage, and sets off for the East End and her first day working at Silvertown munitions factory…
It’s hard manual labour, and Molly must face the trials and tribulations of being the ‘new girl’ at the munitions factory, as well as the relentless physical work. The happy-ever-afters Molly read about in the pages of her beloved books have been lost to the war. And yet the munitions girls unite through their sense of duty and friendships that blossom in the most unlikely of settings…
So, here is the cover. Ready?
by Book Club
