Today I'm very happy to welcome the wonderful Nikki Moore on Sky's Book Corner - she answered some questions for me. Last week Cocktails in Chelsea her forth story in the #LoveLondon series, came out. Thanks for answering my questions lovely lady.
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Thanks so much for inviting me here for a chat Simona :)
1. Did you always
dream of being a writer?
Absolutely :) As
soon as I learnt to read, I knew I wanted to make up stories for a living (by
being a published author, not a professional liar! Lol) and started scribbling
away. The first story I remember writing was based on a brief given by a
primary school teacher, The Cry of the
Banshee. Needless to say it was a horror story, not a romance!
2. Cocktails in Chelsea is the forth book in your
LoveLondon series, what is it about?
Well,
here’s the short blurb...
Mix one ambitious barman who has a serious
dislike for Chelsea princesses, with one tomboy who might just have pretended
to be something she isn't, add one impulsive kiss and a late night rescue,
shake and serve over ice... Springtime in Chelsea – will love blossom?
3. Can you tell us
more about the main character(s)?
Sure. Sofia is a Bournemouth
girl who is reluctantly visiting old childhood friends in London for Easter
weekend. She’s keenly aware she's not part of their glamorous world, and is
more comfortable riding a surfboard or skateboarding than wearing designer
dresses and towering heels. In fact, she’s very used to being ‘one of the boys‘
and hasn’t got a lot of experience with men. Unfortunately, in trying to fit in
with her friends, she comes across as everything that Nathan (the hero) doesn’t
like. He‘s working as a barman to raise money to set up his own cocktail bar,
and is fiercely ambitious. He dislikes posh, entitled girls, and although he’s
not looking for a relationship, at heart he wants a girl-next-door type. So it
gets interesting when they run into each other...
4. The first book in
the series is called Skating at Somerset
House, can you tell us more about it?
I’ve been so lucky with this series. Skating
at Somerset House was a Christmas title and got lots of great attention,
and has the largest number of reviews on Amazon so far. I think the covers are
amazing (thanks so much to Steve Panton, genius designer) and a series of
romances set in and around iconic London landmarks / locations seem to have
really captured people’s imagination.
Here’s the blurb...
There’s nothing
Holly Winterlake loves more than Christmas and skating, so working as an Ice
Marshall at London's Somerset House is a dream come true.
Noel Summerford
hates the festive season and is a disaster on the ice, so taking his godson to
Somerset House is his idea of the nightmare before Christmas!
Things are bound to get interesting
when these two collide…
With a forty foot
Christmas tree, an assortment of well meaning friends and relatives, and a mad
chocolate Labrador, will this festive season be one to remember … or forget?
5.
How about New
Year at the Ritz and Valentine’s on
Primrose Hill?
Well, This Means
War is one of my favourite rom-coms (I think Reese Witherspoon is great)
and I love the premise of choosing between two guys, so I suppose I was
channeling that initally when I first started New Year at The Ritz, but needless to say, the stories are very
different, especially as mine takes place over only a few days, and features a
scavenger hunt!
New Year, New Love… or Old Love,
New Start?
Everyone
keeps telling Frankie Taylor that a new year is a time for new beginnings.
She's not so sure. Single for a year, she's been more than happy on her own,
thanks very much!
At
least, that's what she thinks until she receives a note on New Year’s Eve
inviting her to follow the clues, and her heart, across Knightsbridge.
But
who's behind the romantic adventure? Old flame Christian who she loved for
years and was always there for her, or new admirer and work colleague Zack, who
has the habit of turning up in all sorts of unexpected places?
There's
only one way she's going to find out…
As for Valentine’s on Primrose Hill, this is one of my personal
favourites. Georgiana and Leo had
been in my head for a long time, waiting for their story to be told, and of all
my babies, this is the one I am probably most proud of. So I’m unbelievably
excited that it’s had mostly five star reviews. Here’s the blurb...
For Georgiana
Dunn, life changed forever in the devastating moment that the lorry hit her
car.
Scarred
and scared, she's not left the house in months. Then her mum buys her a puppy,
forcing her to face the world again, walking on London's beautiful Primrose
Hill. But that doesn't mean she's looking forward to Valentine's Day.
Leo
devotes himself to working with children with special educational needs. In
fact, he does very little else, and his friends are always telling him to get a
(love) life. So when they challenge him to find a date for Valentine's Day, and
he meets a lovely but lost girl who looks like she could use a friend, he
thinks he's found the perfect solution.
But
life has a way of being less than perfect … Will he be left standing on his own
on the most romantic day of the year?
6. What can we expect
from the rest of the series?
Well,
Strawberries in Wimbledon, the last
short story / novella is out on 23 April, and is about Adam and Rayne
(university sweethearts) and whether you can ever go back and recapture that
first love.
Picnics in Hyde Park is out as an eBook on
21 May and paperback on a print on demand basis from 30 July. It’s a full
length summer novel, and the end of the series :( You finally get to meet
Matt and Zoe, who some of the rest of the #LoveLondon series characters are
linked to, and find out their story. As a taster, I can tell you that Zoe, on
the rebound from a cheating fiancé, believes Matt (a rich, famous music
producer) and his brother Stephen have basically ruined her younger sister’s
life, so she moves in with Matt and pretends to be his children’s Nanny while
she plots revenge against him. Except he’s not quite as bad as she expected...
7. What was your
inspiration for the series?
My lovely HarperImpulse editor Charlotte
commissioned me to write a series of romantic short stories all set in London.
We decided there would be five, with the sixth story being a full length novel, which I had already pitched to her.
For me, what usually happens
is the two main characters appear in my head first, then the plot slowly builds
from them. But in the case of the #LoveLondon series, I had the settings and
key dates / events first e.g Christmas/Somerset House, New Year’s/The Ritz,
Valentine’s Day/Primrose Hill etc and then thought about what each one of those
represented, and the conflicts that theme might present for the characters, and
I built the heroes and heroines from there.
8. Where and when do
you write your stories?
Great
question, simple answer :) Wherever and
whenever I can! I used to be a bit
precious about my writing time, but now I fit it in on the sofa over breakfast
at 6.30 a.m. (before getting ready for the day job) or in the evenings in bed
with my laptop once the kids are in bed. Occasionally I take the laptop into
work and write on my lunch break. I do have a writing room set up but don’t
spend a lot of time in there as it always feels cold...
9. What do you do and
enjoy when you’re not writing?
I adore reading. I love crime thrillers, police procedurals
and gory serial killer series but also love Chicklit, romances, and weightier
women’s fiction. But really I’ll read anything I can get my hands on.
Apart from that, I like spending time with my kids,
family and lovely boyfriend, drinking wine, watching films, trying new stuff
and going for bracing walks on the beach. I’m also partial to social
gatherings, which is why I love being part of the Romantic Novelists
Association.
10. Last year your novel Crazy Undercover Love was published, can you tell us more about it?
I worked on Crazy,
Undercover, Love for about four years before it was accepted for
publication, and rewrote it about eight times, so this one will always be very
close to my heart. It’s about feisty uber-career girl Charley who travels to Barcelona
on a weekend assignment with hot, complicated CEO Alex to try and get her life
back on track. There are lots of twists and turns in this story, which readers
seem to like, so I’m very happy I persisted with this book.
11. If you could switch places with a characters from a
book, who would it be and why?
What
an amazing question. Wow, there are too many to choose from, but it would
definitely be a strong, independent female character who has to overcome
unbeatable odds to achieve her goals. Let me think about that some more...
12. What books have
most influenced your life most?
To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my
favourite books, and the things it taught me about empathy, prejudice and
forgiveness are instilled in me even now, more than twenty years after reading
it. I also think the style of writing has a certain beauty to it.
13. What are you
working on at the moment?
I’m currently focusing on the
promo for the #LoveLondon series but in terms of my next writing plans, I’m
hoping to get back to a women’s commercial fiction book that I’ve been working
on for a couple of years now. We’ll have to see what my publishers think...
14. What do you enjoy most about writing?
The opportunity to tell the stories of the people who live in my head :). I know that might
sound a bit odd, but to me my characters are friends who sit around and tell me
what’s going on in their lives, how that’s made them feel, and what they’ve
learnt from it.
Of course I also love it when readers or reviewers contact me and tell
me a particular story has touched them, or taught them something, or simply
helped them escape from real life for a while. The opportunity to connect with
other people and know a story has meant something to them is an honour and
privilege.
15. You have written other short stories as well, what are
they about and what makes a short story special in your eyes?
That’s right - I’ve also written The
Love Letter and A Day in the Life...
which featured in the HarperImpulse short story collection Be My Valentine. The Love Letter is written from a male perspective
and is about a widower moving on after the death of his wife, and A Day in the Life ... is the story of a
runaway bride alone on her honeymoon in the Maldives.
A Night to Remember, in the bestselling
Mills & Boon / Romantic Novelists Association anthology, has been billed as
an English version of Nicholas Sparks’ The
Notebook, and asks the question, can love conquer anything?
Short stories are very hard to write, as you need to try and fit a
compelling tale into a tight word count, along with characters that are well
developed enough to make readers care. But they’re incredibly satisfying for
the same reasons, and I think I’d be very sad if I only got to write full
length books.
16. Coffee or tea?
Tea. I have to start every day with a cup.
17. Paperback or e-reader?
Both. Can I do that? Paperback for the bath, e-reader
or app on my mobile for any other time I have a minute to read.
18. Mountains or the sea?
Sea. I love the beach, and swimming, and the sounds and
smells of it. I’ve lived on the south coast my whole life, and love it.
19. Summer or winter?
Definitely summer. I hate winter, because I don’t like the cold. The
only good things about winter are Christmas, New Year and the opportunity to
snuggle up with a book and hot chocolate when it’s cold outside...
20. Sweet or salty?
It
has to be sweet. I have a sweet tooth, and it’s awful because at work we always
have cakes, chocolates, sweets or biscuits lying around. It’s a wonder my hips
aren’t a lot broader than they are!
Thanks
for the interview Simona; it’s been fun x
About the author
Nikki Moore lives in Dorset near beautiful
Sandbanks beach with her two gorgeous children, and is lucky enough to have a
lovely boyfriend too. She has a full-time day job in Human Resources, enjoys
the variety of her role and is grateful for her very supportive colleagues! She
loves writing and does it as often as possible, but can also be found reading
and consuming white wine in long, hot baths on a regular basis...
Her debut novel Crazy, Undercover, Love was published by HarperImpulse in 2014 and
she is also the author of the #LoveLondon series, with a short story A Night to Remember in the bestselling
Mills & Boon/Romantic Novelists Association anthology Truly, Madly, Deeply.
Nikki is a member of the Romantic Novelists
Association, went through the RNA New Writers Scheme, and is a firm advocate of
aspiring and emerging authors. She is on Twitter @NikkiMoore_Auth and Facebook
at https://www.facebook.com/NikkiMooreWrites and would love to hear from anyone who wants
to chat about reading, writing, love or life in general!
Bk 5, Strawberries at Wimbledon (Short Story) Coming April 2015 Amazon UK
Bk 6, Picnics in Hyde Park, (Novel) Ebook Coming May 2015 Amazon UK
