Thrilled to welcome my good friend, Jenny Kane to my blog today! Great to have you here, lovely lady - I'm so happy you can fit me in between your manic writing, lol. Let's kick off with some questions...
Many
thanks for inviting me over today, Rachel, on this, the last spot on my ‘Jenny Kane’s Christmas Collection’ blog
tour.
1.)
What did you want to be when you grew
up? An archaeologist – which I was! I spent many happy years on my hands and
knees sifting through the past.
2.)
Coffee, tea or hot chocolate? Coffee every time – A Black Americano please!
3.)
What genre do you typically read?
Why? – I adore reading crime novels, particularly detective fiction. I like to be
sucked into the puzzle of a plotline and see if I can work it out along with
the characters in the book. I
particularly like the original Inspector
Morse novels by Colin Dexter and pretty much every sort of Victorian murder
mystery written.
4.)
Share a favourite childhood memory. –
Walking through White Cross woods in Buckinghamshire with my much loved Grandad
and his dog Brandy. We’d talk about everything and nothing while hunting for
musket shot left over from the English Civil War in the dirt beneath our feet.
5.)
Do you have any shameless addictions?
ie. Tea, Books, Shoes, Clothes? It has
to be coffee – I can’t get through the day without it! So much so, that I recently
acquired a job which involves travelling around Somerset and Devon reviewing
coffee shops for a blog called Have
Americano and Pen...Will Travel!
6.)
What do you think is the biggest
challenge of writing a new book? For me, the very first paragraph is always the
hardest. Getting that immediate impact so that the reader is keen to keep going
is so important, that it has to be perfect. I often write a temporary introduction
to my novels, and then I write the ‘real’ instruction after the remainder of
the novel is written.
7.)
Do you aim for a set amount of
words/pages a day? I aim for 1500 words
or one chapter a day (my chapters are generally between 1500 and 2000 words).
8.)
What are your thoughts on writing a
book series? I have written three different series now- although I never
intended to write any of them! I’m something of an accidental series writer.
My Another Cup of... series began with the novel,
Another Cup of Coffee. Set in a
fictional coffee shop in Richmond, it tells the interlocking story of a group
of university friends, coffee shop regulars, and staff.
As
this was my very first novel under the pen name Jenny Kane, after years of
writing erotica as Kay Jaybee, I was nervous about how my contemporary fiction
would be received. When Another Cup of
Coffee became a Kindle bestseller I was stunned – and very excited!
As a
consequence, my publisher asked me to write a Christmas novella length follow
u- and Another Cup of Christmas, was
born.
It
wasn’t until the following Christmas (2014), when I was asked to do another
Christmas special centring on the Pickwicks cafe, that my ‘coffee stories’
began to take on ‘series’ form.
The
idea of compiling a series is daunting. I didn’t want to make the stories too
samey or let the characters become dull. To overcome this problem, I decided to
take one of the lead characters, Pickwicks’ waitress Megan, and send her on a
mercy mission to the Cotswolds. (Christmas
in the Cotswolds). This temporary character relocation worked so well, that
in Christmas 2015 I took another of the original Pickwick characters, the
novelist Kit, on a literary adventure to Scotland. (Christmas at the Castle).
This
year, after much soul searching, I decided it was time to finish the Another Cup of...series with one last
full length novel; Another Glass of
Champagne.
I
wanted all the characters in the series to have one more adventure together at
the Pickwicks coffee shop before I moved my pen onto pastures new.
As
much as I love the characters within these 5 books- and as easy as it would be
to keep writing about them- I didn’t want to fall into the trap of rewriting
the same story, in a slightly different way, over and over again.
The
three Christmas novellas mentioned have now been compiled into one volume,
entitled Jenny Kane’s Christmas
Collection. Available in both paperback and as a Kindle download, you can follow
the Pickwicks’ crew adventures over 3 successive festive seasons.
Blurb for Jenny Kane’s
Christmas Collection
There is something very
special about Christmas…
Jenny Kane's Christmas Collection combines all three seasonal shorts from Jenny’s best-selling Another Cup of … series in one festive anthology.
In ‘Another Cup of Christmas’, we return to Pickwicks Coffee House in London, the setting for Jenny’s bestselling novel Another Cup of Coffee. Together with old friends Kit, Amy, Scott and Peggy, we meet new Pickwicks waitress Megan, who’s in charge of organising a charity event for the local hospital…is romance as well as seasonal goodwill in the air?
‘Christmas in the Cotswolds’ sees Megan, now an established face at Pickwicks, travelling to the beautiful Cotswold countryside after an emergency call from her friend Izzie. Can Megan help Izzie pull off the perfect Christmas at her Arts and Crafts Centre – and save the business from disaster?
Kit Lambert, Pickwicks’ writer-in-residence, takes centre stage in ‘Christmas at the Castle’. Already nervous about appearing at her very first literary festival, in the grounds of a magnificent Scottish castle at Christmas time, Kit suddenly finds herself co-organising the whole thing – and trying to repair old friendships – with the deadline fast approaching…
Jenny Kane's Christmas Collection combines all three seasonal shorts from Jenny’s best-selling Another Cup of … series in one festive anthology.
In ‘Another Cup of Christmas’, we return to Pickwicks Coffee House in London, the setting for Jenny’s bestselling novel Another Cup of Coffee. Together with old friends Kit, Amy, Scott and Peggy, we meet new Pickwicks waitress Megan, who’s in charge of organising a charity event for the local hospital…is romance as well as seasonal goodwill in the air?
‘Christmas in the Cotswolds’ sees Megan, now an established face at Pickwicks, travelling to the beautiful Cotswold countryside after an emergency call from her friend Izzie. Can Megan help Izzie pull off the perfect Christmas at her Arts and Crafts Centre – and save the business from disaster?
Kit Lambert, Pickwicks’ writer-in-residence, takes centre stage in ‘Christmas at the Castle’. Already nervous about appearing at her very first literary festival, in the grounds of a magnificent Scottish castle at Christmas time, Kit suddenly finds herself co-organising the whole thing – and trying to repair old friendships – with the deadline fast approaching…
***
Many thanks Rachel,
Jenny xx
Bio
Jenny Kane is the
author the contemporary romance Another
Glass of Champagne, (Accent Press, 2016), Christmas
at the Castle (Accent Press, 2015), the bestselling novel Abi’s House (Accent Press, 2015), the
modern/medieval time slip novel Romancing
Robin Hood (Accent Press, 2014), the bestselling novel Another Cup of Coffee (Accent Press, 2013), and its novella length
sequels Another Cup of Christmas (Accent
Press, 2013), Christmas in the Cotswolds (Accent, 2014), and Christmas at the Castle (Accent, 2016). These three seasonal
specials are now available in one boxed set entitled Jenny Kane’s Christmas Collection (Accent, 2016)
Jenny’s fifth full
length romance novel, Abi’s Neighbour,
will be published in June 2017.
Jenny’s first
medieval murder mystery, The Outlaw’s
Ransom will be published in December 2016 under the pen name, Jennifer Ash
Jenny is also the
author of quirky children’s picture books There’s
a Cow in the Flat (Hushpuppy, 2014) and Ben’s
Biscuit Tin (Hushpuppy, 2015)
Keep your eye on
Jenny’s blog at www.jennykane.co.uk
for more details.
Twitter-
@JennyKaneAuthor
Facebook
-https://www.facebook.com/JennyKaneRomance?ref=hl
Jenny also writes
erotica as Kay Jaybee
Thanks hun !! xxx Jen xx
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