The nominees for Best Villain in a Novel: Miranda Priestly, Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger Olga , Moonlight in Odessa by Janet Skeslien Charles Cici, I Heart Paris by Lindsey Kelk Patty, The Icing on the Cupcake by Jennifer Ross Valerie, Bulletproof Mascara by Bethany Maines Please vote for your favorite by commenting below. Everyone who votes is entered to win!
I actually had a tough time choosing my Best Dressed for the Emmy Awards that aired last Sunday night. No one in particular blew me…
The nominees for best BFF Novel (Best Friends Forever): Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner Hope in a Jar by Beth Harbison Summer Sisters by Judy Blume Second Time Around by Beth Kendrick Please vote for your favorite by commenting below. Everyone who votes is entered to win!
The nominees for best Romance Novel: Summer of Two Wishes by Julia London Something Blue by Emily Giffin Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks Anyone for Seconds? by Fiona Cassidy Please vote for your favorite by commenting below. Everyone who votes is entered to win prizes!
The nominees for best Laugh Out Loud Novel: Not Ready for Mom Jeans by Maureen Lipinski Lowcountry Summer by Dorothea Benton Frank Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella Sleeping with Ward Cleaver by Jenny Gardiner Please vote for your favorite by commenting below. Everyone who votes is entered to win prizes!
The nominations are in! Thanks to everyone who participated in nominating their favorites, now it’s time to vote so your favorites can win! For the next seven days, three categories will be highlighted, each category getting their own separate post. The five nominees will be listed along with a link to read more about the novel. Please cast your vote by commenting on the post or emailing me at Samantha@chicklitplus.com. Voting will close Monday, September 6th. Remember- each time you vote you are entered to win some fabulous prizes! The novels and the lovely authors we are giving them away are as followed:
In My Mailbox: Week of August 29th Title: Single in the City Author: Michele Gorman Received: From Michele Gorman Synopsis: It’s official. Hannah has left her friends and family in the US behind and is following her dream. To live in London. She’s going to find: 1. Her dream guy. A prince or Hugh Grant would be nice. Or does she have to settle for her half-naked Australian housemate or an “English gentleman” with terrible hygiene habits? 2. Her dream job. Something fantastic in fashion. So how has she ended up being the mini-me for an evil party planner who doesn’t even trust her to arrange the paperclips? 3. Her dream friends. But everyone in London seems to have known each other for years and Hannah doesn't know the rules of engagement. Who's she going to have fun with? Dream life? Should Hannah just dream on? She wanted a big change but maybe it would have been simpler and cheaper to just get a new haircut. Was she mad to move 3,000 miles away from everyone she knows? Will she ever find love and her perfect life in England? Title: Chronicles of a Midlife Crisis Author: Robyn Harding Received: From Robyn Harding Synopsis: Lucy had no clue that her husband of sixteen years was about to bolt. Now she's dealing with shock, loneliness, and girlfriends who alternately pity her and provoke her. She also-unbelievably-is apparently competing with her own teenage daughter for a new man's attention. Trent pictured freedom, self-discovery...and maybe some sex with actual passion. So far, he's mostly watching hockey in a hotel room and wondering what's next. Being middle-aged and married isn't easy. The jury's still out on being middle-aged and single... There are two sides to every breakup. In this witty, heartfelt novel, Robyn Harding explores them both-and takes us on a journey through the end of a marriage and the beginning of something new...which may or may not be something old too. Title: Slim to None Author: Jenny Gardiner Received: From Jenny Gardiner Synopsis: Abbie Jennings is Manhattan's top food critic until her expanding waistline makes staying incognito at restaurants impossible. Her cover blown on Page Six of the New York Post, her editor has no choice but to bench her—and suggest she use the time off to bench-press her way back to anonymity. Abbie’s life has been built around her career, and therefore around celebrating food. Forced to drop the pounds if she wants her primo gig back, Abbie must peel back the layers of her past and confront the fears that have led to her current life. Title: Little Miss Straight Lace Author: Maria E. Romana Received: From Maria E. Romana Synopsis: When a brilliant biostatistician learns too much about her pharmaceutical client's research, her life begins to spin out of control, and a dashing computer security expert from South America seems the perfect antidote. But is his arrival really just the happy coincidence it appears to be? Find out in this complex tale of suspense, humor, and romance.
Paris Hilton- when are you going to get it? Drugs are illegal. The hotel heiress, 29, was arrested right before midnight on Las Vegas Boulevard when a cop pulled over the car she was riding in. People.com reports ‘public information officer Marcus Martin said the vehicle was stopped after officers believed marijuana smoke was coming out of the car.’ Searching Hilton’s belongings, the officer found cocaine in her purse, and arrested her. She was booked into the Clark County Detention Center early Saturday morning but later released. This is the third time just this summer that Hilton has been involved with drugs. Early in July, she was questioned by South African police at the World Cup after she was allegedly caught smoking marijuana. She was not charged. Later that month, she was held by police on the French island of Corsica and caught with less than a gram of marijuana in her purse but released without being charged. I hope she gets something this time, she obviously has a drug problem, and I’m just as tired of reading about her as I am Lindsey Lohan.
Q: You studied accounting and sociology in college. When and why did you decide to try writing? I didn’t dream about being a chick-lit writer as a little girl. I didn’t even dream about being a writer. As you rightly point out, I studied accounting at university, but never really got the hang of debits and credits, to the dismay of several managers. One day, sitting in my office, I thought “Why won’t someone pay me for what’s inside my head, without me having to come to an office?” I hit upon writing as an option. But with no practical knowledge or writerly training, it was a rather long road to publication. I started out writing literary fiction, amassing stacks of rave rejections from agents and publishers that said ‘so close’, but still not publishable. Then one day I stumbled upon my first chick-lit book, in an airport on my way to a holiday in Italy. It was an international best-seller. It was a terrible book. Incensed at having just had my third novel rejected when this book seemed to be in every bookshop on the planet, I decided to change genres. As an American who’d followed my boyfriend to the UK several years earlier, I had plenty of first-hand experience to draw upon, and it seemed natural to write a fictional account about building a new life in London despite constant cultural misunderstandings. Single in the City was born. Q: How long did it take for you to write Single in the City? It took 6 weeks to write (spite is a great motivator), and two years to edit so that it was good enough to publish. Generally my books take around a year to write and edit. Q: Do you have plans for a second novel? I do. I’m writing 2 in fact. First, my agent and I are going to see if publishers are interested in a sequel to Single in the City. I’m also working on chick-lit for an older target market. There isn’t a genre for this yet, so I’d like to propose: NOT sell-by date chick-lit. Most of the books for thirty-somethings seem to involve cheating spouses, body issues, date-hindering children or deafening biological clocks. But there are a lot of women out there who are happy, well-adjusted and independent, in their 30s, who may not have married yet, or have come out of a relationship, and are optimistic and enthusiastic about their future. There doesn't really seem to be much out there that reflects that kind of character. So I’m writing one. Q: What was the hardest part about writing? The edits. It’s wonderful to write, and see the story develop and the characters become real. Editing is a necessary evil. Q: Do you have a regular writing routine? Same place you write in, set number of words or hours you write a day, etc.? I have a ‘day job’ on Mondays through Wednesdays, so Thursdays and Fridays are writing days. I’m cursed with the inability to sleep late, so am usually up by 7.30 or so. Coffee first, then a jog if I’m feeling energetic, or have a plot problem to work out (I do some of my best thinking while plodding through the park). I generally write for 3 or so hours before lunch, then have a break, and carry on for a few more hours in the afternoon. There’s usually a nap in there somewhere. I like to think it’s necessary for creativity. I don’t have a specific word count that I try to stick to (mainly because I don’t want to beat myself up if I don’t hit it), but am thrilled if I write a couple thousand words in a day. My flat is tiny, but I like to write in different places (even though these places are all about an arm’s-length away from each other). So I might start on the sofa, laptop on lap, then shift to a comfy reading chair, then the dining table. And I often write on my bed if it’s sunny because the light is lovely there in the afternoon. Q: Why did you choose to write in the chick lit genre? Spite. See answer above. It turns out that I love writing in this genre. It’s style suits my natural writing voice. Q: What do you say to people that say chick lit is dead? Tell that to the millions of women who love to read it! I think chick lit gets a lot of unfair criticism. I did a blog post for The Guardian newspaper a few weeks back (the Huffington Post picked it up too), in defence of chick lit. So I’d like to say to those critics that there’s no need to fret over the malleable minds of chick-lit fans. Our poor little female brains aren’t going to turn to mush because we read light and breezy books. We don’t all sitting on the sofa eating cakes and waiting for the next reality TV show. In fact, many of us even have quite intellectually challenging jobs. Is it any wonder we crave a little escapism? And it’s not as if women who read chick-lit read it exclusively. Most of us enjoy chocolate cake, but we don’t eat it every night for dinner. Q: You were born in America but have since become a citizen in Britain. Was the citizenship test difficult to pass? It wasn’t really difficult, but you wouldn’t pass without studying! I imagine it would be the same for someone taking an American citizenship test – without cramming, how many of us know the number of congressmen in the House of Representatives?! Q: You maintained a long distance relationship for many years, which can be very uncommon. How were you able to make it work? I think the key was not to over-think, or constantly wonder where things are going. We took the approach that we were enjoying each other so we didn’t put any pressure on ourselves or on the relationship. It evolved naturally. Q: What is your best advice for aspiring writers? Find your story. My books always spring from a question. What if? Single in the City began with the question: What happens when you take a hapless young American girl and move her to a city where she’s completely ill-equipped to live? Find your voice. We’re tempted to write in a style that we like to read, but like covers of songs, the copy is never as good as the original. It took me three books to find my voice, so experiment and see where you’re most comfortable, what seems most natural. If you want to publish, then find a ‘new’ agent. When you’ve written the book and are searching for an agent, think about this. A new agent is just starting out. She’s hungry, she’s building her writer list and her career. She will have much more time for a new writer. Also, and this is key, she is going to have contacts in the publishing houses who are also starting out, and looking to build their writer lists and careers. It’s very tempting to think that an experienced agent is best, but for a new writer I’d advise a new agent any day. Q: Where would be your dream vacation? I’ve been lucky enough to do a lot of incredible travelling over the past dozen years, from African safaris to trekking in the Himalayas, from beach resorts to incredible cities, so my dream would be low-key and closer to home. It would be Autumn, holed up in a gorgeous country inn, where I could take long walks, find delicious food at cosy pubs or restaurants, and spend hours sitting snuggled next to a fire reading, playing board games and drinking wine.
