HERE IT IS! The cover for Searching for a Silver Lining!

I have been impatiently waiting to share the cover of my new book, Searching for a Silver Lining, with you... And finally, I can reveal it!

Drumroll, please... Ta-daaah!

I adore it - and I hope you do, too. All the silver grey you see in the picture above will be gorgeous, sparkly silver foil - including the tiny stars. I can't wait to share my eighth novel with you! It will be published on 20th October 2016 and we're planning all kinds of exciting things around the time of the launch, so keep watching my website, twitter and Facebook for all the details.

You can pre-order Searching for a Silver Lining NOW in both paperback and ebook editions. Woo-hoo! xx

2014 is the year to... WRITE FOXY!

Well, we're at the beginning of a new year and all around me people are making resolutions. Personally, I love setting goals for the year ahead and I'm always surprised at the end of the year by how much I've achieved or how much my priorities have changed. For 2014, I have only one resolution - to WRITE FOXY!

Lots of things are about to change in my life this year. Bob and I are going to welcome a new baby into our lives in March (ten weeks and counting - eek!), I have some major decisions to make about my writing career and there are certain things I'm working on that may or may not happen during 2014. It feels like a year of possibility - and, as anyone who reads my books knows, I love the allure of possibility...

After the challenges I faced with my writing last year - and the crisis of confidence that almost made me quit - I have decided to spend this year pursuing one thing: foxiness! By this I mean I want to write stories that thrill me; that I bounce out of bed in the morning to write; that make me happy. I want to be known as a writer who adores what she is doing. A writer who takes risks. A writer who appreciates the importance of fun in everything she does. Even if I'm the only person to read it, I want my words to exude foxiness: to be sassy and brave and unafraid.

I've learned the hard way that achieving a writing dream is just the beginning: the key to continuing to live the dream is to never lose sight of why you started dreaming about it in the first place. If you don't love what you write - and constantly reconnect with that first love - you simply won't survive.

I'm excited to see where my foxy writing resolution will take me and what stories will emerge from it, during this year and beyond. There could be zombies. Or thrills. Or quirky tales that make me smile. There will definitely be new characters who want to welcome you into whole new worlds. It could be crazy and some of it might lead nowhere at all - but it will definitely be one heck of an adventure!

So, there it is: in 2014 I'm starting as I mean to go on. No matter what else happens, I'm going to WRITE FOXY!

Writer Spotlight - Tom Gillespie

On Coffee and Roses I like to bring you news of exciting authors who are either waiting to be published or published and worth checking out.

This week, I'm excited to welcome the very lovely TOM GILLESPIE into the Coffee and Roses Writer Spotlight.

When did you first decide that you wanted to write?
I've always been a bit odd and at odds with the world around me. When I was a child, my mother used to worry (I'm sure she still does) that I didn't socialise enough or engage more with my friends or life outside my head. I was always off on my inward travels, forever plotting out stories, inventing characters and hatching plans… Then, when I was around ten or eleven, I won a local writing competition and my story featured in the town's Civic Week programme. And from that point onwards, I have consciously followed creative pathways throughout my life. In some ways it's ironic that, alongside my writing career, I am also an English Lecturer, where communication and interaction are essential skills!

What interests you as a writer?
People are secretive and strange, and that really intrigues me. I'm interested in the weird obsessive behaviours and habits that have come to dominate and define our lives in the 21st Century. It's as though the more materialistic and comfortable the developed world becomes, the further we retreat into the dark concealed corners of ourselves. And as a result, we seem to be accumulating phobias, fears, ticks and compulsions as some kind of replacement for the absence of happiness, or a more fulfilling life that we once lived. So in my writing, I'm interested in exploring these outward manifestations as a means of revealing hidden and often painful truths buried deep within the psyche. I'm also into slapstick comedy.

Do you have a typical writing day? If not, when is the best time to write for you?
As I work full-time, and I'm a parent, husband, cat owner and principal cook and bottle washer, I have to fit my writing around the needs and demands of all my other loves. However, for me, having a writing routine is very important. So each day I set aside 1-2 hrs of dedicated writing or writing-related time. The slot might move around a little depending on what is going on, but I try to stick to the same pattern as best I can. My favourite time to write, however, is very early in the morning or very late at night… 5am or 1.am, when the house is quiet, all is still and I can let my characters run around without bumping into anyone from the other side.

What inspires you as a writer?
I love writers who surprise, shock, reveal and then change the way we look at the world. I love writing that conveys multiple layers of meaning through the use of elegant, terse and precise language. I'm drawn to stories that have sudden or unexpected shifts in reality. And above all, I love ambiguity. I want the reader to speculate, and draw their own conclusions about what might be going on.

What are the best things about being a writer?
The best thing for me is that I can filter and express my oddities through words on a page, and that I am free to travel wherever and (mostly) whenever I please without a passport or visa. (but with lots of baggage... ha ha!)

And the worst?
There's nothing bad about writing. It can drive you wild with rage and frustration at times but that's partly what's brilliant about it, when you emerge from the struggle feeling victorious. But all of the fluff and hot air that precedes and follows - promotion, networking, blogging and so on - can become a little stressful… (not this interview, I hasten to add!!), especially when my time is so precious to me and to the ones who have to put up with my obsession.

Tell me about Painting by Numbers.

Painting by Numbers began life as a one page flash fiction story. It was inspired by an incident I witnessed in El Prado museum, Madrid, involving a middle-aged man, a reel of thread and two over-assertive security guards. The story lay in a drawer for a couple of years, but there was something about it that kept telling me it needed to be longer.

It was a difficult book to write for a number of reasons. As I plotted it out, it began to develop into a complex psychological thriller that revolved around mathematics, art history, forgery and conspiracy. I soon realised that in order to make it work, I would have to do quite a bit of research. It was also challenging because Jacob, the central protagonist, is an anti-hero. On the surface, he's a difficult guy to like. He's selfish and egocentric. He's a heavy drinker, a misogynist and an obsessive. At times it was like putting up with a damaged and dysfunctional family member. You want to walk away but the bonds of love keep pulling you back for more. What I like about him though, is that somewhere beneath all the flaws and cracks in his character, he has a heart and a conscience. There's a vulnerability there that I hope will reach out to the reader.

The structure is a little unusual too in that, on the whole, the story revolves around one character rather than three or four, so it was fairly intense to write. In some ways, Jacob's painful odyssey of self discovery parallels my own journey to complete the book. As writers, we are all locked into our own set of dreams, desires and compulsions.

What would be your top three tips for aspiring writers?
Oh dear... that's an impossible question... I don't feel qualified to offer any tips... But if you insist, then, for what it's worth, here's what I would advise:
1. Consider the advice of others, then follow your own
2. Listen to your inner voice
3. Always aspire to be an aspiring writer

Do you have a dream project you'd love to write?
A strange and surreal fictionalised account of the life of Scottish literary genius Alasdair Gray (with the film directed by Terry Gilliam!)

Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Thank you for allowing me to ramble on... and if you happen to bump into my mother, please reassure her that I'm doing fine.

Thanks to Tom for his great answers! Painting by Numbers is published by Crooked Cat Publishing and I will be posting a review of the book next week (I'm in the middle of reading it now and I'm loving it!. You can follow Tom on Facebook, on Twitter @tom_gillespie and visit his website.

Would you like to take part in a forthcoming Writer Spotlight? Email me at: coffeeandroses@gmail.com for consideration.

Writer Spotlight: Jessica Ruston

On Coffee and Roses I like to bring you news of exciting authors who are either waiting to be published or published and worth checking out.

This week, I'm thrilled to welcome the wonderful JESSICA RUSTON into the Coffee and Roses Writer Spotlight.

Her new novel, The Darker Side of Love is released on 16th February and should definitely be on your wish-list! I managed to grab five minutes with Jessica to ask about her life as a writer.

When did you first decide that you wanted to write?

I grew up in a family of writers - my mother's a novelist and my father's a Shakespeare scholar, so I was always surrounded by words. I started off writing screenplays in my early twenties, then moved on to non-fiction and journalism, and finally realised I couldn't put off the inevitable any longer and published my first novel when I was 31.

What interests you as a writer?

So much. Creating new characters, creating worlds. Parallel narratives, unreliable narrators, characters that hide things from the reader as well as from other characters/themselves. Multiple viewpoints, shifting backwards and forwards in time... It's endless, really. There's always a new challenge, something new to try and make work.

Do you have a typical writing day? If not, when is the best time to write for you?

Ish. When I'm working on a new book I tend to write first thing in the morning – I set an alarm (a really gentle one called Sleep Cycle on my iphone – I highly recommend if you have to get up early as it wakes you when you're in a period of light sleep so you don't feel awful) really early, sometimes as early as 5.30, and do a few hours then when it's quiet and dark and before everyone's woken up. I find that when I'm writing that first draft, getting the words down first thing, before the day intrudes and emails and phone calls get into my head, is the best way. Depending on what state of deadline panic I'm in I'll try and get between 2-3,000 words then each day. Sometimes more - when I'm nearing the end of a book I tend to go quicker, like running down a big hill. Then I'll get up, answer emails, play with my website, mess about on twitter, do general jobs. Then I might go to the gym or whatever else I have to do that day, and then use the afternoon to do other work - journalism, or research, or working on new ideas, or marking assignments for the courses I teach, for instance. Sometimes I'll come back to the book in the evening. There's a quote about writing working best at the edges of the day, and I think it's true for me.

What inspires you as a writer?

Oh, it changes constantly. I pick up inspiration from anywhere and everywhere, like a magpie. Other writers, people I meet, songs. Relationships, family dynamics. I'm constantly trying to unpick relationships in my writing, and burrow under the surface of people. Fragments of memories, photographs, images. I'm quite visual. As pretentious as it sounds, the book I'm working on at the moment was inspired by a line from a Louis MacNiece poem, Autumn Journal.

What are the best things about being a writer?

Getting paid to do what I really love. Being able to read novels and watch TV and call it important research and therefore work. Being able to work from my bed.

And the worst?

There's nothing properly awful about it. I mean, I'm not a big fan of working through my copy edits and having my embarrassing errors pointed out to me, but it's not much of a hardship really.

Tell me about what you're working on now.

My fourth novel. I won't say the title yet as I'm not sure whether it'll get changed (though I hope not!) but it's about a woman trying to discover the truth about her family, in particular her mother, as a result of a key that she receives in the post... Lots of secrets and family dynamics and the past coming back to haunt... As I said earlier, it's also the first time that I've written a significant chunk of words in the first person, so I hope I pull that off!

What would be your top three tips for aspiring writers?

1. Read, of course, but 'just' reading isn't enough - you need to read widely and thoughtfully.
2. Be curious.
3. Keep going.

Do you have a dream project you'd love to write?

There's a play that I've wanted to write a film adaptation of for years. I still haven't found quite the right angle on it, but I'm getting closer... I'll get there!

Anything else you’d like to say?

Thanks very much for having me! I really hope you enjoy The Darker Side of Love if you get to read it. Here's some more info about it:

Lies: we all tell them.

To protect those we love, to disguise failure, to hide disappointment. To mask betrayal, or deceit. But what happens when those lies start to catch up with us? When our lives begin to be shaped by the lies of others?

The late 'noughties'. A global recession looms. A group of old friends, all leading outwardly successful, interesting lives. All in apparently loving, secure relationships. Yet all, in some way, lying to those closest to them, concealing secret worries, jealousies, desires. This group of friends is about to discover that the truth won't stay buried for ever...

Welcome to the darker side of love.

Thanks so much to Jessica for stepping into the Coffee and Roses Writer Spotlight!

I can't wait to read The Darker Side of Love - I loved both of her other novels.

You can find out more about Jessica on her website, read about her writing courses, book to join a course here and follow her on twitter @JessRuston

Writer Spotlight: Lucy Diamond

On Coffee and Roses I like to bring you news of exciting authors who are either waiting to be published or published and worth checking out.

This week, I'm really excited to welcome the wonderful LUCY DIAMOND aka SUE MONGREDIEN into the Coffee and Roses Writer Spotlight.

Author Photo by Alexander James

Sue's new book as Lucy Diamond, The Beach Café is published today and I can't wait for my copy to arrive in the post (it's my post-editing reward!). So, without further ado, it's over to Sue!

When did you first decide that you wanted to write? (Was it a Damascus-esque flash or a slow-burn?)
It was a long, slow burn for me (ouch, that sounds painful – it wasn’t!). I have always written – lots of poems and stories as a child (including my prize-winning poem Aston Villa We Love You when I was six), diaries, letters etc. Then, after graduating, I managed to wangle my way into publishing, starting in the children’s editorial department in Random House. Part of my job was reading the slush pile which, depressingly, was largely atrocious. After rejecting the thousandth variation on Betty Bunny Has a Tedious Adventure I decided I could do better, and began writing my own teenage novel. (Plus, being rather shallow, I was lured by how attractive an author’s life appeared from the outside – we were always sending them flowers and new covers to approve and reprints etc. I thought, I’ll have a bit of that, please!)

What interests you as a writer?
Oh, all sorts of things. I am extremely nosy. Relationship dynamics, family dramas, falling in and out of love, betrayal, secrets – and I’m a sucker for heroics. I found the stories from the recent 7/7 inquest so moving, for example, the real-life heroism and humanity that was shown by so many people that day – awe-inspiring.

Do you have a typical writing day? If not, when is the best time to write for you?
I have to write within school hours, so between 9am and 3pm, usually. It’s a short day and can be frustrating if I have to stop work right in the middle of a juicy scene to hurry back to school, but I find that having such time constraints is a good motivator to actually get stuff done. I try to write about 2,500 words in that time but it depends enormously on what else is happening.

What made you decide to write The Beach Café?
I remember as a little girl being on a seaside holiday in Cornwall and deciding that when I was a grown-up I would definitely live there and run the café. (The thought of ice cream all day every day played a big part in this ambition, but still… ) Sadly I have failed on both these counts, but it was great fun to revisit that dream and have my main character inherit a beach café in a gorgeous Cornish setting. It was even more fun being forced to research all those Cornish pasties and cakes…

What are the best things about being a writer?
The satisfaction of writing ‘The End’ on a first draft is pretty hard to beat, as is holding finished copies of a new book for the first time. Lovely emails and letters from readers are brilliant too – they make all the torturous parts of the process worthwhile.

And the worst?
The self-doubt that creeps in now and then that the book I’m writing is rubbish and no-one will want to read it. One-star Amazon reviews make me want to cry. And I sometimes miss all the banter and camaraderie from working in an office. Thank goodness for Twitter!

Tell me about what you're working on now.
I’ve just finished my sixth novel, which will be out next year. It’s about two very different sisters being forced to live together again – lots of arguing, jealousy and bitching – those scenes were a joy to write! I also write children’s books too, under my real name, Sue Mongredien, so by complete contrast, I am also working on a new adventure story featuring an evil witch, smelly trolls and lots of magic.

You've written books for both children and adults and have been short-listed for this year's Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance for your book Sweet Temptation. What would be your top three tips for aspiring writers?

a) Read your work out loud – I always say this, but it’s the best advice I can give. By reading your story aloud, you get a much better feel for the rhythm of the prose, you can hear whether or not the dialogue works, and any mistakes, repetition or boring bits will leap out at you.
b) Raise the stakes. Make things really difficult for your characters – don’t give them an easy ride. Every time they think the worst is over, ratchet the angst up a notch. It’ll make the novel a much more interesting read.
c) Stick to the story. Keep asking yourself – is this scene relevant to the main plot? You may have written the most brilliant or hilarious dialogue exchange in the world but if it doesn’t move the plot along in any way then sometimes it’s best to cut it out. Harsh, but ultimately for the best…

Do you have a dream project you'd love to write?
I’d love to write for television – it must be so exciting seeing actors speak your lines on the screen. Sadly I think writing for film and TV is probably even more competitive than book publishing so right now, it will have to remain a dream. But maybe one day…

The Beach Café by Lucy Diamond is published by Pan Macmillan on June 3rd. For more information on Lucy Diamond’s books, visit her website. I can’t wait to read The Beach Café - it's going to be a perfect summer read and I can't wait to get started on it! Why not treat yourself, too?