Welcome contemporary romance author, Alison Brodie...

Great to have you here, Alison and to be a part of your ongoing tour for your latest release, BRAKE FAILURE. I'm looking forward to learning more about you and your work. Let's start things off with my questions...

1.)    What is your favourite thing about yourself?

I can’t stand injustice.  I secretly destroy hunters’ lairs up in the mountains to stop them shooting down migrating birds.  Once, on Barcelona beach a thief grabbed a backpackers pack and slunk away – everyone was watching but did nothing about it.  So I ran after the guy shouting “policia!  policia!!  I didn’t know if that was Spanish for police but it worked - the guy dropped the pack and ran like hell.

2.)    What do you wish you’d known before you started writing?

I wish I’d learnt not to perfect every sentence before moving onto the next sentence.  I didn’t realise then how much it slowed up the story, preventing it from flowing.

3.)    Share a romantic moment in your life.

Reading the final paragraphs of Love Story by Erich Segal.

4.)    Is there one subject you’d never write about as an author? What is it?

Cruelty to animals.

5.)    Do you have any suggestions to help someone become a better writer? If so, what are they?

Enjoy yourself!  Don’t force yourself.  Don’t let anyone (e.g. a publisher) force you. 
Never sit at a blank screen with a blank mind.  Wait for your characters and/or story to come to you.  Then take long walks while jotting down notes.  When you have enough notes, start writing/typing FAST – get it all down, without revising, without stopping.  Just get it down!  Then leave it in a drawer for a couple of months and when you take it out, you are reading it as a stranger would read it, and you know immediately what needs changing.  Then it is polish, polish, POLISH. 
Don’t rush to publish it – good ideas will come to you even when you believe you have finally finished your novel.  This for me is the Exquisite Time: all the hard work is done and now it’s all about putting the cherries on top!

6.)    If you could be the original author for any book, what would it be? Why?

Back Roads by Tawni O’Dell.  I love the way she captures you in the first sentence; and her tenderness towards her characters, who have harrowing insurmountable problems.  And then there are those little touches of humour.  I don’t mean laugh out loud humor, I mean moments that make you smile, even though minutes later you’re biting your finger nails in suspense.

7.)    What did you do growing up that got you into trouble?  

At school I couldn’t be bothered to do a cross-country race so I hitched a ride from a lorry driver. 
At another school, there was this huge bully of a girl.  I was the “invisible” type and she left me alone.  One morning, though, at the bus stop she turned on me, but I fought her tooth and nail even though she was twice my size.  I did her some damage and when she got to school she reported me to the headmistress!
At college, I organised a fund-raising for the local animal rescue and I got hundreds to take a 20 mile sponsored walk with the newspaper reporter waiting at the finish line.  Me and my friend stopped off in pubs on the way and finished the walk hours after everyone had gone home. 
I’ve been arrested in London for busking, in Athens for hustling, in Switzerland for hitching, in France for jumping a red light, in Spain for speeding, etc, etc.  At least I’m not as bad as Ruby in my novel, Brake Failure.

8.)    If I came to your house for dinner what would you prepare for me? Why?

Tapas.  Lots of tiny little delicacies on tiny squares of bread. Easy to eat, and easier to make conversation that if you were ploughing through a four course meal.

Blurb:

“Is it too late to tell him you love him when you are looking down the barrel of his gun?”

An English debutante transforms from Miss-Perfectly-Correct to criminally insane as she breaks the bonds of her rigid upbringing. Sheriff Hank Gephart tries to reel her in - but she’s out of control and she’s not hitting the brakes.

What happened to the genteel lady in twin-set and pearls? And why did she shoot Mr Right?

Brake Failure is set in 1999 in the months leading up to Y2K “meltdown” when the US government was spending $150 billion preparing for Armageddon As Lionel Shriver says in her novel, We Have To Talk About Kevin: "1999, a year widely mooted beforehand as the end of the world."

http://amzn.to/2hJfKph                         Amazon.com

http://amzn.to/2gLOUef                        Amazon.canada

http://amzn.to/2gLNTDh                       Amazon.co.uk

Giveaway

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