Archive for June, 2009

Polly Williams’ fourth novel which was supposed to be released in May under the title The World’s Worst Wife has now been postponed until the 4th March 2010 and will instead be released under the title How To Be Married. The synopsis reads:

Domestic goddess? Yummy mummy? Having it all? It’s impossible. It’s hard to be a woman. It’s even harder to be a wife…

Sadie Drew thinks she must be the world’s worst wife. She only needs to walk into a room to make it untidy. She wears flannel pyjamas in bed. She can’t cook. Furry things live in her fridge. But she’s a busy, working mother not a wifebot, and her husband Tom loves her as she is. Until he gets a new, high-pressure job and things start to change.

There are his colleagues’ terrifying uber-wives to entertain. Tom works later and later. Then there are the endless rows, and the smell of another woman’s perfume on his suit. Sadie has a choice: risk losing everything or transform herself into the perfect wife.

What is a perfect wife anyway?

Only two Little Black Dress releases this month; Dorothy Howell’s Purses and Poisons and Janet Mullany’s A Most Lamentable Comedy.

DOROTHY HOWELL - PURSES AND POISONS - 9TH JULY 2009

The shopaholic sleuth returns with the second book in this hilarious series, following HANDBAGS AND HOMICIDE

Nobody wants to be an accessory to murder… including Haley Randolph. Her ideal murderous encounter is buying a pair of killer heels. But then the ex-girlfriend of her sort-of boyfriend Ty Cameron – the drop-dead gorgeous Claudia Gray – literally drops down dead. Even worse, Haley’s mother is prime suspect: Claudia was poisoned with food from her company. Haley’s heard of death by chocolate, but death by edible fruit bouquet? When the eye of suspicion also falls on Haley, she pursues the murderer (and a divine Judith Leiber evening bag) all over LA to clear the family name. Will she catch the killer? And will her relationship with Ty end up dead in the water?

JANET MULLANY - A MOST LAMENTABLE COMEDY - 23RD JULY 2009

High jinks, misunderstandings and conflicted passions – Regency rocks in the latest racy read from Janet Mullany

1822, England: Lady Caroline Elmhurst is twice-widowed, down on her luck and pursued by creditors. But she’s optimistic about finding a new husband – or if necessary, a rich lover – and when she meets handsome, mysterious Nicholas Congrevance at a house-party in the country, she sets out to entice him. For his part, Nicholas simply sees Lady Caroline Elmhurst as just the sort of woman he’s used to exploiting – rich, available, and gullible. Neither realizes the other is penniless and neither has any intention of falling in love…

Chris Manby has got many books to her name, including under her pen-name of Olivia Darling, so we were pleased to see that she’s got another book out early next year. Getting Over Mr. Right is due out in February 2010 and sounds like another brilliant read. Here’s the synopsis from Amazon:

“Ashleigh has never had much luck with men. Days after the first date, while she is planning the wedding, they are planning their escape. So when she meets Michael, after swearing off men for life, and is still with him two and a half years later, she not unreasonably thinks she’s onto a winner.

Until she gets his Facebook update: ‘Michael is no longer in a relationship’. She tries to log onto his page - but he has Defriended her! Things get worse: in her inability to get over Michael, Ashleigh loses her best friend, her job and her flat, gaining only a letter from a lawyer warning her to stop stalking his client and a pink knitted voodoo doll called Mini-Michael . . .”

It looks like a hilarious look into love and the new craze of social-networking, so look out for it early next year! We’ll post the cover when its becomes available.

Sarah Webb has written a blog post telling us exactly how her novels go through the writing and editing process. It’s a very interesting read and shows us just how long the editing process is.

Here’s what happens to my novels in a nutshell (the non fiction books are a little different):

1/Finish first draft - now I don’t rewrite much as I go along - so it’s a messy first draft and needs a lot of work.

2/ Print out the whole thing - I can’t edit on screen - I need to scribble - and read through the whole thing - A4 pad by my side, to write on and insert extra scribbled pages into the manuscript as necessary.
I delete scenes/chapters that don’t work, plotlines that go nowhere, delete a lot of descriptive passages and rewrite them in a sentence or two. Work on making each character stronger.

Read the rest of the blog here…

When I re-did the Book Review page a couple of weeks ago I mentioned the fact I was going to make two further review pages - book reviews by title and book reviews by rating.

The main Book Reviews page shows you the book reviews by Author so if you would like to see it by title or rating, click either of those in the Also See which is located just under the introductory paragraph.

We hope you enjoy the alternate views to our book reviews.

Wendy Walker, whose debut novel Four Wives was released last year, has her 2nd novel out in September called Social Lives. The cover looks great and I really like it. The synopsis for Social Lives reads:

Step into Wilshire, home to some of the wealthiest people in the world, where the mansions are tastefully designed, the lawns are expertly manicured, and the streets are as hushed as the complexities in the residents’ lives. While Wilshire’s husbands battle each other in the financial world of nearby Manhattan, their wives manage their estates and raise the next elite generation. Some women are envied, some respected, and others simply tolerated. But regardless of where they stand, each woman is defined by the world she inhabits and would do anything to keep it.

For Roslyn Barlow, the most socially admired woman in Wilshire, “keeping it” means silencing the scandalous gossip threatening her daughter’s reputation. For Caitlin Barlow, it means navigating life as a teenager in a culture of wealth and sexual promiscuity. For Sarah Livingston, it means quelling the terror she feels at having another child that will bind her more closely to a world she’s grown to resent. And for Jacqueline Halstead, who’s just discovered her husband is under investigation for embezzlement, keeping the life he’s put at risk means doing the unthinkable – and her actions could shake Wilshire to its core.

A while ago I posted snippets from Mike Gayle‘s newsletter letting us know all about his next novel. He told us it was going to be called The Importance of Being A Bachelor and would be out in April 2010. Amazon have it up with the same name but say it will be out on 18th February 2010 published by Hodder & Stoughton. The synopsis reads:

Despite the example of their own parents’ enduring marriage, the three Bachelor brothers show no signs of settling down. Adam has a string of glamorous girlfriends, but they aren’t suitable wife material. Luke has just proposed to Cassie but his refusal to consider having children looks like an insurmountable barrier. And baby of the family Russell is in love with the one woman he can’t have.

Are all three Bachelor brothers totally hopeless cases or just late starters?

Amy Huberman’s debut novel, Hello Heartbreak, is out on 2nd July. Amy is an actress and is engaged to Ireland rugby captain Brian O’Driscoll. The novel sounds like an interesting read:

You’d think twenty-seven years would be enough time to wise up to the rules of love and loss, especially Rule Number 1: Do not, at any time, let him see how much he has hurt you. But no, Izzy Keegan was probably off doing sambuca shots when that lesson was taught. So, starting with public humiliation (that infamous blow-up with her Ex and his new woman … huge mistake), and taking in temporary insanity, rebound sex, and a night in a police cell along the way, Izzy has to make up her own rules for coping with heartbreak.

Luckily she has friends who are there for her through thick and thin (even if ‘doing an Izzy’ is their new shorthand for completely losing it). And she’s got her foot in the door of the film business (though dogsbody wasn’t exactly the job she dreamt of doing). Now, all she has to do is put the dirty cheating love-rat behind her. You’d think twenty-seven years would be enough time to wise up to the rules of love and loss. Make that twenty-seven and a bit …