What if the one person you wanted to talk to wouldn’t listen?
Winter Gregory and her twin sister Daisy live oceans apart but they still have the ‘twin thing’ going on. Daisy is Winter’s port in the storm, the first person she calls when things go wrong…
And things are wrong. Winter has travelled to a remote Yorkshire village to write her new book, and to escape her ex-boyfriend Dan Bekener. Dan never liked her reliance on Daisy and made her choose – but Winter’s twin will always be her first choice.
She soon finds herself immersed in village life after meeting the troubled Hill family; horse-loving eight-year-old Scarlet and damaged, yet temptingly gorgeous, Alex. The distraction is welcome and, when Winter needs to talk, Daisy is always there.
But Dan can’t stay away and remains intent on driving the sisters apart – because Dan knows something about Daisy…
On the day of its Choc Lit paperback release – 6th May – I told you all about how much I enjoyed I Don’t Want To Talk About It by Jane Lovering. If you missed my review, you can read it again here – I’m a totally unashamed fan of her writing.
And I’m delighted to welcome Jane as my guest on Being Anne today. I’d wondered about Jane’s history with pets, and whether she was quite as pony-mad as Scarlett when she was a child…
I Don’t Want to Talk About It features two supporting characters that might not strike most people as ideal secondary characters. I mean, lots of books have dogs and cats in, but this one has a hobby horse called Light Bulb and a guinea pig called Bobso, both courtesy of the eight year old pony-and-pet-mad Scarlett. And before you ask the question, the idea for Light Bulb as a name came from my eldest daughter who received a rocking horse for Christmas when she was about four. She called him Light Bulb, which is such a random name that I knew I had to use it in a book, hence the wonderful corduroy headed, lopsided-expressioned hobby horse that Scarlett canters around the village of Great Leys on. It could have been worse, I could have called the hero Light Bulb …
Like Scarlett, I was a pony-mad child. My idea of bliss was to be allowed to stand with the donkeys on Exmouth beach, stroking their lovely soft noses and fiddling with their bridles. One day… I used to think, one day I’ll have a pony… But until that day arrived I used to canter my own hobby horses around the garden, build show jumps out of flowerpots and pea sticks and perform a weird kind of ballet as I attempted hobby-horse dressage.
Dear reader, I did, eventually, get a real pony. And a guinea pig, a gerbil, fish and a cat, because my mother clearly hadn’t suffered enough already. I do have to say that guinea pigs are the most wonderful children’s pets, my children had them throughout their childhood (that’s the children’s childhoods, not the guinea pigs’ – they are born covered in fur, running about and eating solid food. I wish human children were the same). They also reproduce at a prodigious rate if you aren’t diligent – and sexing guinea pigs is a job I wouldn’t wish on anyone without 20/20 vision and a degree in biology, so we often had an entire lawn covered in squeaky little bundles of fur.
On the plus side, I never needed a lawn mower …
Thank you Jane! I Don’t Want to Talk About It by Jane Lovering is now available to buy in paperback from all good book stockists and retailers.
Author bio
Jane was born in Devon and now lives in Yorkshire. She has five children, four cats and two dogs! She works in a local school and also teaches creative writing. Jane is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and has a first class honours degree in creative writing.
She writes romantic comedies which are often described as ‘quirky’. Her debut Please Don’t Stop the Music won the 2012 Romantic Novel of the Year and the Best Romantic Comedy Novel award from the Romantic Novelists’ Association.
You can find out more about Jane from her blog and website, her Facebook author page, or follow her on Twitter.