Spotlight on Guest Author Jan Brigden

This week, Jan Brigden is joining me on my blog. She is another fellow Choc Lit author.

Jan lives in South London with her husband & motley crew of cuddly toys.

After attending many author talks, literary events, connecting with writers and readers on Facebook and Twitter, Jan learned of and subsequently joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s New Writers’ Scheme.

She proudly signed with Choc Lit after winning the Choc Lit & Whole Story Audiobooks Search for a Star competition 2014/2015 with her debut novel As Weekends Go.

An avid reader and all round book devotee, Jan is also one eighth of the on-line writing group The Romaniacs (www.theromaniacs.co.uk) who in November 2015 received the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Industry Media Star award.

I asked Jan some questions :-

When do you write?

I’m home-based so able to chop and change the hours I write around my other commitments, so no typical writing days, really. In my dining room is mainly where I work, either at my little desk or at the table.

Where do you get the inspiration for your books? 

The idea for As Weekends Go stemmed from a creative writing course I completed a few years back via The Writers Bureau.

I had to create a tense scenario involving two characters only. I chose a husband and his wife’s best friend. He’d secretly invited her to his house on the pretence of discussing his wife’s surprise 30^th birthday party. Instead he confronted her about some gossip he’d heard regarding a recent weekend trip the two women had taken together. Which afterwards begged the question in my mind:  ‘Well, what did happen during that weekend?’ And so the story evolved…

The inspiration for my fictional footballer came from having met a few players over the years, a couple of them so far removed from the stereotypical image we so often read about in the press, (often justified, I hasten to add, as some players do themselves no favours!) that it made me wonder how these particular players cope with the pre-judgement. This sparked the challenge to create a footballer who could hopefully buck the preconceived assumptions about him and endear himself to the reader.

What are you working on at the moment?

The sequel to As Weekends Go which has involved lots of eyebrow-raising research. It’ll be a standalone novel, though, so can be read without having to first read Book 1. We’ll see Rebecca (my main character from As Weekends Go) facing a whole fresh set of challenges in the new world she’s stepped into. Plenty of glitz, glamour and drama, which is all I can really say at the moment without giving too much away.

Thank you, Jan. It’s been a pleasure having you on my blog. The new novel sounds intriguing.

Blurb for As Weekends Go

What if your entire life changed in the space of a weekend?

When Rebecca’s friend Abi convinces her to get away from it all at the fabulous Hawksley Manor hotel in York, it seems too good to be true. Pampering and relaxation is just what Rebecca needs to distract herself from the creeping suspicion that her husband, Greg, is hiding something from her. 

She never imagined that by the end of the weekend she would have dined with celebrities or danced the night away in exclusive clubs. Nor could she have predicted she would meet famous footballer, Alex Heath, or that he would be the one to show her that she deserved so much more …

But no matter how amazing a weekend is, it’s always back to reality come Monday morning – isn’t it?

You can catch up with Jan on the following links:-

Contact Links for Jan Brigden

Twitter

Facebook

Jan Brigden  Writer Blog

The Romaniacs

To buy As Weekends Go click here