Novelicious.com | The Women's Fiction Blog for Readers and Writers

Five Fabulous Photograph Albums

I don't know about you, but since the advent of digital photography I have slipped out of the habit of getting pictures printed and putting them into albums. Most of the time, this is fine: I have far more images that I would ever need (or want) to have in physical form, and can order up a fully-printed album using my digital pictures easily and cheaply. However, there is something undeniably pleasing about a traditional photo album, and about the almost-meditative act of sorting and choosing images to put into one. Not to mention the years of pleasure that a physical album will bring. If you're feeling nostalgic and fancy storing some photographs oldy-timey-style, then check out these beautiful albums.

1. Kirstie Allsopp is truly taking over the world. She now has a stationery range to go with her books and home wares and, as you'd probably expect, it's very pretty indeed. This album has 18 acid-free heavyweight card pages interleaved with vellum so you could use it as a scrapbook as well as a photo album. It costs £20 from Paperie.  

2. This beautiful, handmade embossed leather album is both fairtrade and ecologically sound. The pages are made with khadda paper which is made from recycled cotton left over from the garment industry in India. There are 30 pages, enough to hold 240 photographs, and the album costs £34.95 from Not On The High Street.

Friday Book Giveaway! Since You've Been Gone by Anouska Knight

We've got a copy of Anouska Knight's new book up for grabs in this week's competition.

Winner of Mills & Boon's and ITV Lorraine's search for the next big thing in contemporary women's fiction!

In one tragic moment, Holly Jefferson's life as she knew it changed for ever. Now to the external world, at least she's finally getting back on her feet, running her business, Cake. Then she meets Ciaran Argyll.

Review – About a Girl by Lindsey Kelk

Reviewed by Kirsty Nicole Pole

You’ve lost your job, you're a disappointment to your mother and you’ve just found out that the best friend you’ve secretly been in love with for years has slept with your flatmate (who is also the biggest bitch you’ve ever met). What do you do? Steal someone’s identity and job then fly off to Hawaii for a week. Obviously.

Tess has always been the girl with a plan. Fiercely committed to her job, she spends 80 hours a week at her desk waiting for the promotion she's been promised over and over again. But then Tess is made redundant and realises that her whole life has been centered around her work. When things with Charlie, her childhood best friend and the object of her affections, go wrong too, Tess grasps an immediate opportunity to change her life. That opportunity happens to be a photo shoot in Hawaii. But there’s a catch: the job is actually intended for Tess's flatmate Vanessa. Oh, and another thing, Tess isn’t even a photographer.

Surely life as Vanessa will be better than life as Tess?

Review – The French For Love by Fiona Valpy

Reviewed by Jennifer Joyce

Gina hasn’t had much luck recently. Her father died, followed by the revelation that her boyfriend was leaving her for another woman and then her beloved aunt passed away. The final blow comes when she loses her job and now, with nothing tying her to England, Gina decides to move into the French house her aunt left her, at least until she has sorted her life out. Gina immerses herself in a new course, studying in her new home while getting to know the locals, particularly one handsome Frenchman who has caught her eye.

The French For Love follows Gina as she leaves her old life behind and attempts to begin a fresh life free of complications. But living in France is far from simple when she falls for the wrong man, a man already taken, and stumbles across a family secret that makes her question her relationship with the aunt she adored.

Gina is an expert in French wine and I did think there was too much detail on the process of wine making at times. The writer obviously has good knowledge of the process, but I don’t think the in depth descriptions added to the story. Other than that, I thought the book was a fun, enjoyable read in a beautiful setting.

7/10

Fiona Valpy's Website

Hannah Richell's Top Five Writing Tips

Hannah Richell, author of Secrets of the Tides and her second novel, The Shadow Year (here's our review), gives us her top writing tips.

1. Write for the love of writing, not to get published. Chasing genres and fads won’t work. The market moves too quickly. All you can do is write the story you want to tell – the one you feel most excited by.

2. Take yourself seriously. Set yourself a dedicated writing time and stick to it. Give yourself the best possible chance to produce something you can be proud of.

3. Invest in a good chair – you’re going to be spending A LOT of time sitting in it. (I developed tennis elbow while writing The Shadow Year last year and learned the hard way how important it is to set yourself up right.)

4. Let your ideas lead you and stay open to possibilities. Sometimes the best stories, or the most powerful twists and turns come from an unexpected place.

5. Feed your imagination: read books, go for walks, watch films, study people (surreptitiously), sleep, dream.

Review – The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

Reviewed by Amanda Keats

When a debut author signs a massive six-figure book deal with a publisher, has the film rights bought almost immediately and is likened to JK Rowling, it would be wise to pay attention. Especially when that author is barely in her twenties.

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon is a breathtaking and enthralling debut from the young novelist about a world within our own where clairvoyants are shunned from everyday society. 19-year-old Paige Mahoney is one of the more unique clairvoyants – a dreamwalker who can enter the dreamscapes of others via the æther. Having moved to the relative safety of the criminal underworld, Paige is ripped from the life she knows in London to a whole new world in Oxford. There, an alien race called the Rephaim are in control and have been afforded their own prison colony of sorts. As part of this colony, they have also been given the right to capture clairvoyants and use them as they see fit. In exchange, they protect the population at large from the threat of the Emim – mysterious and beastly creatures who threaten both races.

Novelicious Chats To...Isabel Ashdown

Isabel Ashdown is the author of Summer of ’76, which we'll be reviewing soon; she recently answered a few questions for our Novelicious Readers...

Can you tell us a little about your average writing day?

My writing day starts at 8am, when the rest of the family leaves the house, and I’m left alone in the glorious quiet of morning with Charlie-dog. I’ll spend an hour trying to beat my inbox, updating social networks and sorting out any forthcoming events. Once I feel I’m winning, I’ll have a large iced coffee and a biscuit (or three), before sitting down to write for 2-3 hours. After lunch, I try to get out into the hills to walk with Charlie, and it’s here that I think about the next day’s writing and perhaps solve a few problems. In the afternoon, I usually work on freelance articles and admin, before the kids arrive home and domestic life takes over. And depending on my workload, I’ll be back at my desk for an hour or two in the evening, just to keep on top of it all. Anyone who’s a mother will know… there are just never enough hours in the day.

When you are writing, do you use any celebrities or people you know as inspiration?

My characters are always the starting point in my stories – I’ll get an idea or a feeling about a character – and it’s not until I start to write that they really begin to take life. They’re never based on anyone ‘real’, but curious traits and characteristics that I’ve observed or absorbed from the world at large undoubtedly creep in. I think writers tend to zoom in on the smallest details – my children always tell me I take an age to answer them – usually because my mind is hooked into something else that has captured me.

Review – My Husband Next Door by Catherine Alliott

Reviewed by Kate Appleton

Ella does not have a conventional family life. Swept off her feet and married at nineteen to artist of the hour Sebastian Montclair she was ridiculously happy and looking forward to their future. However, things didn’t go completely as planned and Ella finds herself in a tumbledown farmhouse with her husband shut up in one of the barns, two truculent teenagers lazing around and a whole circus of birds and family members, not to mention contending with a blue-eyed adonis for a gardener. But when Sebastian declares its time to move on Ella’s world is rocked and and secrets are finally revealed.

The main theme through this story is a well-trodden but pertinent one, and that is learning to love someone for who they are without trying to change them... too much. The obvious relationship at logger heads is that of Ella and Sebastian who have swung from the dizzy heights of ‘loves young dream’ to becoming estranged. The reasons for this are intertwined throughout the story with tidbits of Ella’s memories building up to a sad and shocking revelation. There is also a support act in the form of Ella’s perfectionist mother (who reminded me of Hyacinth Bucket) and downtrodden father. The latter of whom makes a late in life rebellion in the form of dog therapist Maureen and Zumba. This relationship brings a smile to your face as Ella finds herself in a role reversal with her parents acting like petulant children.

Novelicious Natters – How do you choose your next read?

A lot of importance has been placed on the perfect cover. After all, it's the first thing we see when we browse books. But is the cover the thing that makes us pick up our next read? Or is it something else?

When a new novel comes out, there's often a lot of publicity around it, describing the plot and the biography of the author. Authors like Dan Brown, JK Rowling, Sophie Kinsella and Jodie Picoult have a reputation which already precedes them so when they release a new novel, a legion of pre-existing fans are likely to go out and buy their latest offering without much persuasion.

Novelicious Chats To...Rebecca Chance

Rebecca Chance is the author of six racy romance novels. Her new bonkbuster, Killer Queens, was released earlier this month.

Can you tell us a little about your average writing day?

Get up, drink cappuccino, eat some eggs and white beans – I’m really trying to start the day with protein for energy. Go on gossip websites, Facebook, Twitter. Answer emails. Read through what I did the day before, try to start writing before 10am and to manage between 2-3k words a day. I watch Judge Judy and go on FB and Twitter and email while writing, to break things up. Then I really try to get out of the house – to go to the gym or do some errands – I can get pretty stir-crazy if I don’t get fresh air. The writing part isn’t glamorous at all – I need to keep my head down, keep disciplined and keep going!

When you are writing, do you use any famous people or people you know as inspiration?

I could tell you but then my editor would kill you! Like “Law and Order”, I like to say my stories are “ripped from the headlines”, but I couldn’t possibly admit to basing my characters on real live people… Princess Belinda, in Killer Queens, is an imagining of what might have happened if Princess Diana hadn’t died but had been forced to fake her own death and escape to the Atlas Mountains with her sexy sheik lover….

Review – Billy and Me by Giovanna Fletcher

Reviewed by Jenny Banks

Quiet, unassuming Sophie May has little idea of how her very ordinary world will be shaken up when film heartthrob Billy Buskin walks into the village teashop where she works. Sophie’s life is far removed from the whirl of showbiz and celebrity and the busy life that Billy leads. But romance has other ideas and Sophie is swept away as Billy’s leading lady. But after living under the shadow of a secret for many years, is she ready for the new and unfamiliar life that awaits with Billy?

The beautiful cover of Giovanna Fletcher’s debut novel shows two figures standing on top of a hill, surrounded by the village below. This perfectly epitomises the essence of the book: Sophie and Billy together, and marks a departure from other novels in the genre where the central protagonists embark on a journey to enter into a relationship. In Billy and Me, their relationship is the journey. From the magical picnic scene to their London home, the reader is able to delve into their life together and it didn’t take long for me to be invested in their story. As much as their new relationship has its high points, they can’t stay untouchable forever and it isn’t long before Billy’s career creates instability in their relationship. I was really rooting for them as a couple, and this adversity brought out real insight into their character.

Anouska Knight’s Top Five Writing Tips

Anouska Knight got a publishing deal with Mills and Boon after winning Racy Reads, a contemporary women's fiction competition on ITV’s Lorraine. Her new novel, Since You’ve Been Gone, is out now!

1. Don’t just think it, do it. If you’re not sure where to start, write the end scene first, or the funny bit in the middle, or the sad bit three chapters in. It doesn’t matter, just write.

2. Go somewhere quiet, hide from the kids and get in the zone. Passionate though you are, you will need to concentrate.

3. Use music. Set yourself up a playlist with a mix of songs to reflect the different scenes of your story. You’ll be amazed what music can bring out of you.

4. READ! Read everything, not just the genre you’re writing in but the other stuff too. Funny/sad, heavy/light, gulp it all down.

5. When you hit a block, check Tips 2 & 3 have been applied. If Tip 3 flounders, try a glass of red. If that doesn’t work, walk away and do something completely different. Go see your homegirls, watch a movie and come back later. And begin again at Tip 1 :¬)

My Writing Room by Tracy Bloom

Given I have two young children my writing space tends to be wherever they aren't. I find doctor’s waiting rooms are excellent as you wait for ages in a peaceful place surrounded usually by a very odd collection of people who can provide fantastic inspiration for future characters! Long car journeys are also useful as I throw plot issues at my husband who often responds with something ridiculous having totally missed the point but which actually helps clarify my thinking. The downside is that I then have to get him to stop banging on about his marvellous idea which is harder than you would expect.

The Secret Dreamworld of an Aspiring Author by Anna Bell – Parachuting into the Action

My editor suggested to me to re-write the first five chapters of Don’t Tell the Groom to move the story along quicker and to have less descriptions. Whilst it seemed like a daunting task  it’s actually made me think a lot about how I write and especially how I open a novel.

I approached the rewrite by printing out the first five chapters and going through with a highlighter, highlighting any piece of text that was a description. I was staggered when I saw the results. Large portions of my chapters were bright purple. I don’t know whether I’d fallen into a trap, that because my novel was written in the first person there were huge chunks of internal monologue. I think I was conscious that I wanted readers to connect with the main character and I’d tried too hard to get the reader into Penny’s head.