Friday in Focus with Rosie Blake

Posted 3rd June 2016 by Emma in FIF, Q&A / 0 Comments

Friday in Focus with Rosie Blake

Even though it was a short week I’m glad it Friday again. This week on Friday in Focus I am excited to be joined by Rosie Blake to get to know her a little better.

Rosie, can you tell us a little about you?

I’m a rom com writer and HOW TO FIND YOUR (FIRST) HUSBAND is my third novel. I love writing stories that are unashamedly FUN and I think this book delivers on that front (there are a lot of monkeys in it). I live in Berkshire with my lovely husband and my 3 week old son. I spend a lot of time tucking blankets around him and asking him questions he can’t answer. 

Can you tell us about your new book?

It is about a girl who goes on a global search to track down the boy she married in the playground when she was eight. It is set in LA, England and a tiny island in Malaysia.

What is your favourite place to write

A good cafe – somewhere that serves chai latte and carrot cake. There are a few lovely ones near our house in Pangbourne. Although over next few weeks we are decorating my new… writing shed. I am properly excited about it. It is in the garden with my chickens..!

Where do you get your character inspiration from?

I never base my characters on real people. I steal looks, habits and things like that but not the whole person. I fill in character questionnaires for my main characters to build up a more 3D person and go from there. Hopefully they start to do things that I didn’t expect.

What are your 3 desert island books?

Am I allowed to take series? YES I AM. All the Rutland books by Jilly Cooper please and ARE YOU EXPERIENCED by William Sutcliffe and YES MAN by Danny Wallace.

What is your favourite place to read?

In bed in the morning with a coffee.

What is your favourite book and why?

This is TOO HARD. It changes every week. I REFUSE to answer this.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I love pottering about, taking walks along the river, reading, watching box sets with the husband, snuggling my little boy and hanging out with friends and my lovely family.

Chocolate or sweets?

THIS IS LIKE SOPHIE’S CHOICE. I decline to answer.

Is there a book you wished you wrote?

Yes, I love Kirsty Greenwood’s VINTAGE GUIDE – she makes me proper LOL.

You have a free flight and accommodation to anywhere in the world where would you go? 

Ooh the Maldives please. We went there last year and it was incredible. Insanely incredibly. Beautiful. Stunning. I want to explore the whole area.

What is your favourite season?

Summer. Always. England in the summer is the greatest place on earth.

Where can we find you?

Twitter: @RosieBBooks

Facebook: Rosie Blake

Blog/Website: www.rosieblake.co.uk

Friday in Focus with Rosie BlakeHow to Find Your (First) Husband by Rosie Blake
Also by this author: How to Stuff Up Christmas
on 2nd June 2016
Pages: 400
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It's a beautiful day in 1994 and the turn-out in the school playground is fantastic. Isobel is eight years old and marrying Andrew Parker, the boy of her dreams. Life is perfect. Then the ceremony is over, and a week later so is the marriage. Twenty years on and Isobel is dressed as a prawn handing out promotional fliers outside an L.A. fish market. Her career is going nowhere and her love life leaves a lot to be desired. Nothing Isobel hoped for has gone to plan. Then, she catches sight of Andrew, her first husband, in the background of a TV news item and wonders: if she can track down Andrew, will she recapture the happiness that she felt all those years ago? Isobel travels the globe to find her first husband, via Cornwall, Devon and a remote Malaysian island, but is he really what she is looking for?

About Rosie Blake

Rosie spent her university years writing pantomimes based on old classics. The 2003 production of ‘The Wizard of Odd: Search for the Ruby Strippers’ enjoyed critical acclaim. This was followed a year later with a successful showing of ‘Harry Potter: The Musical’ (complete with moving opening number, ‘In my Cupboard I will Stay’).

Rosie went on to write a winning short story in the La Senza/Little Black Dress Short Story Competition and was shortlisted in a few others including the ‘Women and Home’ annual competition and the Daily Mail ‘Opening Paragraph’ Competition. She started writing novels and after some false starts, and horrendous jobs that she wishes to keep a closely guarded secret (or write about in the future), Rosie wrote How to Get a (Love) Life, which will be published in January 2014 by Novelicious Books.

Rosie likes baked items, taking long walks by the river and speaking about herself in the third person.


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