Thanks to Cathy and the lovely people at Orion, we had THREE copies of It Started With Paris to give away.
Well done to: Tracy Shephard, Aisling Quinn and Leila Benhamida. You’ve all won a copy of the book.
About It Started With Paris.
It all started with Paris. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, a young man proposes to his girlfriend, cheered on by delighted tourists. In that second, everything changes, not just for the happy couple, but for the family and friends awaiting their return in Bridgeport, Ireland…
Leila’s been nursing a badly broken heart since her love-rat husband just upped and left her one morning, but she’s determined to put on a brave face for the bride.
byThanks to Cathy and those lovely people at Orion, we have THREE copies of It Started With Paris to give away.
About the book:
It all started with Paris. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, a young man proposes to his girlfriend, cheered on by delighted tourists. In that second, everything changes, not just for the happy couple, but for the family and friends awaiting their return in Bridgeport, Ireland…
Leila’s been nursing a badly broken heart since her love-rat husband just upped and left her one morning, but she’s determined to put on a brave face for the bride.
Vonnie, a widow and exceptional cake-maker, is just daring to let love back into her life, although someone seems determined to stop it.
And Grace, a divorced head teacher, finds the impending wedding of her son means that she’s spending more time with her ex-husband. After all those years apart, is it possible she’s made a mistake?
HOW TO ENTER:
byIt all started with Paris. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, a young man proposes to his girlfriend, cheered on by delighted tourists. In that second, everything changes, not just for the happy couple, but for the family and friends awaiting their return in Bridgeport, Ireland…
Leila’s been nursing a badly broken heart since her love-rat husband just upped and left her one morning, but she’s determined to put on a brave face for the bride.
Vonnie, a widow and exceptional cake-maker, is just daring to let love back into her life, although someone seems determined to stop it.
And Grace, a divorced head teacher, finds the impending wedding of her son means that she’s spending more time with her ex-husband. After all those years apart, is it possible she’s made a mistake?
With her warmth and insight, Cathy Kelly weaves a delightful tale spinning out from a once-in-a-lifetime moment, drawing together a terrific cast of characters who feel like old friends.
(Published by Orion on 9th October 2014.)
It Started With Paris begins with a couple, Michael and Katy getting engaged at the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It then looks at how their engagement affects the people around them – focusing on three women in particular; Grace (a head teacher and Michael’s mother.) Grace is still great friends with her ex, Stephen.
Leila is a twenty-nine year old who is divorced and whose mother is in hospital following a car accident and finally Vonnie, who has come to Ireland following the death of her husband.
byWe are so happy to be welcoming Cathy Kelly to our blog today and her blog tour for her new novel, It Started With Paris (released by Orion on 9th October.)
Hello Cathy. Thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell us a little about your new book, It Started with Paris and how the idea originated?
Hello! I begin to think about one book when I’m half-way through another one and during the writing of The Honey Queen, I began to think the classic writer thing of ‘what if…?’ In this case, it was what if I wrote about women who had gone through divorce or were alone through widowhood and looked at how their lives had changed and how they found love again. So then I came up with lovely 29-year-old Leila, who has a glam job in the film industry and was married to love rat Tynan, who got up one morning and walked out – for someone with legs up to her armpits. Nightmare, right? Then there’s Grace, in her fifties, who is divorced and has a really civilized relationship with her ex, so that they spend a lot of time together when their son gets engaged and Grace looks at her ex (who is happily with another woman now) and wonders: ‘Did we split up without trying hard enough?”
And finally, there’s American mum-of-one, Vonnie, who lost her husband tragically, came to Ireland so she’d be able to live without expecting to see him all the time, and she falls in love with a man who was married – and whose ex-wife is not so happy with it all. Basically, the book is about how life is never black and white, how relationships are wonderful and sometimes difficult, and hopefully, there’s plenty of humour and hope.
Do you have any writing rituals?
A very strong cup of coffee with a decreasing amount of sugar. I am trying so hard to give it up because it’s so bad for you – wrinkles, inflammation, the list goes on – but I LOVE it. I bring my sons to school, come home, stick on the washing, do my emails, then make a decent cup of coffee and write.
byNovel Kicks is a blog for story tellers and book lovers.