Happy Friday!!!! The sun is shining (just about) and today I am joined by Andy Jones to talk a little bit about his new book (out now) and a his reading preferences…
Andy, can you tell us about your new book?
The Trouble with Henry & Zoe could be summed up as: Right person, right place, wrong time. Henry is having a crisis; he’s jilted his childhood sweetheart on the eve of their wedding and has had to flee the small village in which he grew up. He arrives in London carrying little more than a lot of guilt. And then he meets Zoe – she has her own issues, but I’m going to keep them secret for now. What I will tell you is this – at the time of meeting Henry, she is four months away from going travelling. For a year. On her own. So whatever chemistry exists between them – and there’s plenty – there is a ticking clock on any relationship they might have.
What is your favourite place to write?
In the kitchen at home. It’s lighter than my study, and the coffee is close at hand. The cats provide an occasional distraction, but they’re not too demanding.
Where do you get your character inspiration from?
Sometimes they appear spontaneously, just dropping into my head. Other times I find them in the real world. Sometimes they are formed carefully and deliberately to fit a story – but even here something unexpected will present itself. But all of these only happen if I am writing – not necessarily at my desk, but in the process of writing a book. When there’s a story forming in my head, I find that I’m more dialled in to what’s going on around me. I think inspiration is really just a by-product of being immersed in the work of writing. Rather than the other way around.
What are your 3 desert island books?
The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Stand
The Princess Bride
What is your favourite place to read?
On a deckchair, with a beer close at hand and the sound of waves in the background.
What is your favourite book and why?
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Character, plot, theme, language, lyricism, hope, humour, anguish, sacrifice. It’s all there in this slim book. A complex man of somehow conflicting and consistent principles, undone by perhaps his most redeeming quality – his refusal to bend to someone else’s will. To do what society says he must. If he capitulated, he could be saved, have another chance at life. But his will, his obstinate sense of himself – is all he has left in the world. He clings to it, and is undone. It’s so tragic and beautiful; I need to read it again.
What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
Hang out with my family, read, watch a good movie, sleep.
Chocolate or sweets?
Sweets on a long drive. Chocolates with a glass of wine.
Is there a book you wished you wrote?
Too many to list. But let’s start with the Princess Bride – although it’s good that I didn’t. It wouldn’t have been one tenth as good as the one William Goldman wrote. So actually, no – I’d only ruin them.
You have a free flight and accommodation to anywhere in the world where would you go?
In my new book, Zoe has a ticket to one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. If not the most. I’d go there please.
Where can we find you?
Twitter @andyjonesauthor
Facebook.com/andyjonesauthor/
The Trouble with Henry and Zoe by Andy Jones Also by this author: The Two of Us, Girl 99
Published by Simon & Schuster UK on July 28th 2016
Pages: 464
Goodreads
Amazon Kindle, Audible
Henry and Zoe have more in common than they realise. For a start, they both have pasts they'd rather leave behind.
After jilting his childhood sweetheart on the eve of their wedding in the small town where they both grew up, Henry runs away to London, planning to reinvent himself and start afresh.
Zoe has her own healing to do and so she plans to leave London, travel the world, and figure out just what it is she wants out of life. She doesn't know where she's going, but she is determined to go there alone.
If Henry and Zoe had met one year ago, perhaps things could have worked out differently. But that's not the way it works; they meet seven months after their worlds have been turned upside down. And four months before Zoe is due to climb on a plane...
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