I'm so pleased to have UK author Zanna Mackenzie here with me today. Zanna is the author of How Do You Spell Love - another book with a bit of a magical theme!
Interview
Tell
me about your latest book:
How Do You Spell Love? (HDYSL) is a
contemporary romance with elements of mystery and a magical theme. It follows
the story of friends Kat and Summer and how what they think they want in life
and who they want to be with changes over the course of one summer. Kat is
trying to get over the end of her relationship with Nathan whilst part of her
is still convinced he is the guy for her. Then she meets Alex and starts to
wonder where her future lies. Summer is trying to hold together her
relationship with Rob but at a party she meets Kat’s cousin Tom and she too
begins to question her relationships.
What
inspired you to write this story?
One of my favourite authors is the talented
Christina Jones who has written many modern romantic comedy novels with a
deliciously light magical element to them. Her books involve spells and myths
with herbs, plants, essential oils, crystals etc and I wanted to write
something in a similar genre, so I created HDYSL. The magic in the book is only
really in Summer’s half of the story, not Kat’s and it’s very light hearted –
Summer only casts spells to try to help and she does so in a shed on her
vegetable plot allotment!
Tell
me a little about your Works in Progress:
I number my books so it is easier for me to
keep track, so my current works in progress (WIP) are books 4 and 5. Book 4 is written
and is now at editing stage. It’s a contemporary romance set in Derbyshire’s
Peak District and centres on the inhabitants of a village which is a mecca for
extreme sports enthusiasts. The main three characters are Faith who owns and
runs a coffee shop in the village, and Zane who co-owns an outdoor sports
centre with business partner Matt. It’s about the complex and developing
relationships for each of them. Book 5 has a scene outline of about 40,000
words in place and I now need to go back through it and ‘fill in the gaps’
adding in the detail. It is set in Scotland and London and about the negative
side of fame and how it impacts on relationships.
For
any new readers who would like to read your work, please tell me a little about
your past books.
The first book I wrote is yet to see the
light of day and is on my ‘to do’ list for a major revamp. Book 2 is called The
Love Programme and is a romantic comedy set on a private estate in the Scottish
Highlands, complete with castle and gorgeous laird. Lucy needs to get out of
town for a while due to circumstances beyond her control (i.e. her ex walking
out on his wedding to someone else saying that he is still in love with Lucy)
and she ends up as part of a TV programme about the psychology of love being
filmed on a Scottish Highland estate. She’s supposed to be sorting her head,
heart and her life out whilst there but finds herself falling for the estate’s
owner Paul who has a mysterious woman called Hannah in his past. Things get
further complicated when her ex tracks her down in Scotland, wanting to win her
back.
Do
you have a favourite writing snack?
No, I don’t. To be honest when I’m writing
I get totally immersed in my work and forget about food/drink/answering the
door/feeding the dogs (no, just joking on that one, honestly, the dogs would
never let me forget to feed them!!)
If a
movie was made about your book, who would be in your ideal cast?
When I create characters I tend to do a
detailed bio for them with lots of back story. To get a good visual picture of
them in my head I tend to base them looks-wise on people I have seen on TV and have
added to my ‘character inspiration folder’. Because of this system I can
instantly say who my ideal cast would be because I would choose the actors my
characters look like, which would be:
Alex – the actor Paul Walker (Fast &
Furious, Noel)
Kat- the actress Keri Russell (August Rush)
Summer – the actress Rachel Hurd-Wood
(Peter Pan)
Tom – the actor James Lafferty (One Tree
Hill)
Do
you have a character you’ve enjoyed writing the most?
I think in HDYSL it was Alex, for some
reason I often prefer writing the male characters to the female ones. Alex was
fun to create, he has a lovely sense of humour and is rather yummy too –OK, I
admit, I had a bit of a crush on him!
What
do you do for fun when you’re not writing?
Gardening, especially growing fruit and
veg, walking the dogs with my husband, reading (of course!) and watching films.
What
sort of books do you like to read?
All sorts, from Mills & Boon romance to
chicklit, crime, mysteries, thrillers to witchcraft/magic stories, travel-lit
to Jane Austen.
Do
you have any advice for people wanting to write their own book?
Be persistent and believe in yourself and
what you’re doing. Treat it seriously and commit time to your writing.
What
parts of the writing process do you love and hate the most?
I love thinking up the plots, creating the
characters. My least favourite part (though I don’t hate it) is having the
patience to type up all of the book – I get super keen and want the book to be
finished in an unfeasible length of time so I get a bit irritated when my
fingers can’t type fast enough to keep up with all the plot scenes and dialogue
whizzing round in my head, all keen to get down on the page.
How Do You Spell Love? was published in
March 2013 by Crooked Cat Publishing.
Make A Wish…
Kat can’t help wishing there was more to
life than this. What happened to her dream job? What happened with Nathan?
Summer is wondering where her life is going
too… battling the developers of a controversial housing estate and working out
why boyfriend Rob is increasingly distant.
When the developers win the battle and move
into town everyone’s life is turned upside down.
Kat meets building site project manager
Alex. She enjoys his company far too much, even though he’s on the town’s most
hated list.
Summer meets Tom who has plenty of
relationship troubles of his own, so things could get really complicated.
Soon everyone is keeping secrets, lives
change and hearts are broken. Is everything falling apart, or does life just
work in mysterious ways…
Excerpt
Kat pushed the last of the cottage cheese
and shrimp sandwiches into the cool box and slammed the van door shut. As if
her life wasn’t enough of a disaster zone as it was – no money, lousy job,
losing Nathan, having to move back home to live with her parents – now this had
to go and happen.
Cringing as a van full of builders stopped
at the nearby traffic lights, Kat braced herself for the inevitable. After the
standard-issue wolf whistles had drifted across from their van, next came the
leered, “Wouldn’t argue with that, love!” as one of them nodded towards her
sparkling clean van, parked neatly at the curb. The words “A Bit of Crumpet on
the Road” emblazoned down the side in deep purple, glittery lettering. Not for
the first time Kat cursed her boss Janice for calling her bakery-cum-deli that
name.
Kat sighed, well it certainly drew comments
from the public and from their customers, not always welcome ones, but as
Janice was always keen to point out, any kind of publicity and attention was,
in her eyes, good publicity and attention.
Pulling her navy and white striped apron
more tightly around her T-shirt and shorts, Kat ignored the builders and
climbed into her van to begin that morning’s deliveries. As she indicated to
pull out into the busy street in Luisborough, she mulled over the bad news –
that she was to add the controversial Netherton Meadows housing development to
her daily sandwich round.
Netherton Meadows. Yippee. If Summer found
out, she’d surely be ostracised for fraternising with the environmental enemy.
This was a development that pretty much everyone in Luisborough had fought
against for getting on towards a year. It had been the focus of STW campaigns.
It went against everything that Kat believed in environmental-wise. Everyone
hated the Netherton Meadows developers. Except, it seemed, Janice, who was
perfectly happy to, in her words, ‘supply yummy builders with yummy
sandwiches.’
Lost in thought, Kat just managed to spot
the approaching traffic lights had turned to red and hastily slammed a foot on
the brake. The van lurched to a halt and several boxes of crisps and one of the
cool boxes in the back tipped over. It was shaping up to be one of those days.
Two hours later Kat had visited all her
usual drops, was extremely hot and bothered, and could put off going to
Netherton Meadows no longer.
Driving through the assorted vans,
machinery and portacabins Kat parked next to a building marked as being the
Site Office and hit the button on the dashboard. Tinkling chimes filled the air
as Kat climbed from the driver’s seat and made to open the back doors of the
vehicle. It was embarrassing enough that the van had the company name in large
lettering along its side but, just to make sure that it received maximum
exposure – and achieved maximum embarrassment – Janice had had some irritating
chimes fitted to the vehicle too. Kat was under strict instructions to sound
the chimes when she called at all of the sites where people came out to the
van; such as they were about to at Netherton Meadows.
A man came down the steps of the office
with a grin on his face and walked towards her. “Hi, you must be Kat.” He
wedged a clipboard under his left arm and offered a hand to shake. “I’m Alex.
Project manager for the site.”
“Hi,” mumbled Kat, spotting a group of hard-hat-clad
builders advancing towards her with hungry expressions on their faces.
“Right, lads,” Alex turned towards the men.
“This is Kat and she’s very kindly agreed to venture onto this site to bring
you all your lunch. Don’t give her any hassle, OK?”
The men laughed and then nodded. “Sure,
Alex. You’re the boss.”
Fifteen minutes later it seemed that all of
the team at the development had made their sandwich, crisp and drink selections
and sloped off to devour them in the sunshine. Only one of the builders, a
portly man who must have been twenty years Kat’s senior, had pushed the
boundaries a little, despite Alex’s earlier warning. As he’d selected a smoked
salmon and cream cheese roll – a choice that had surprised Kat somewhat, having
pegged him as a ham and cheese kind of guy – he’d asked Kat if she’d fancy
joining him for a drink sometime. She’d politely declined his offer, saying
that she had a boyfriend. No need to tell him that, technically, she and Nathan
were no longer an item. No need to tell him why either.
About Zanna
Zanna Mackenzie lives in the East Midlands
in the UK with her husband, 4 dogs, a vegetable patch that’s home to far too
many weeds and an ever expanding library of books waiting to be read.
Being a freelance writer and editor of
business publications is her ‘day job’ but, at every opportunity, she can be
found scribbling down notes on scenes for whatever novel she’s working on. She
loves it when the characters in her novels take on minds of their own and start
deviating from the original plot!
Formerly a travel agent and therapist (she
has qualifications in clinical aromatherapy, crystal healing, naturopathic
nutrition and herbalism) she loves walking the dogs and gardening – that’s when
she’s not writing or reading!
Zanna has written two novels, The Love
Programme and How Do You Spell Love.
Find out more about Zanna at:
Twitter: @ZannaMacKenzie
Facebook: www.facebook.com/zanna. mackenzie
Leigh, thanks so much for inviting me to visit A Broom With A View, much appreciated!
ReplyDeleteYou are most welcome. Thank you for joining me :)
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