Four books and a calendar - Kandy Shepherd

I hope you all enjoyed a very happy December 25, however you might have celebrated. We had wonderful festive feasts with family and friends on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and then did the Aussie thing of a swim at the beach on Boxing Day, the next day. Perfect!

Part of the festive fun is exchanging presents. I was fortunate to get some lovely, thoughtful gifts. Books are always a favourite, of course. And I do count on a gift of a calendar as I still prefer a good, old-fashioned calendar as well as the electronic kind.

My daughter is an incredibly thoughtful gift giver. She really takes note of people’s likes and gifts them accordingly. I’m very fond of cookbooks by Aussie/international chef Bill Granger.  She hunted me down one I didn’t have, Bills Open Kitchen. and it’s fabulous, packed with light summery recipes just right for this time of year Down Under. 

Note the tags on the pages—we’ve gone through and marked recipes we want to try. Already by Boxing Day we’d made two, a delicious savoury French toast and a roast chicken with a wholemeal stuffing flavoured with pancetta, herbs and lemon. Yum! The entire family is destined to benefit from this gift.

Husband surprised me with the recently published autobiography by musician Phil Collins Not Dead Yet. Phil Collins is a long-time favourite, I still love his songs. Years ago in the days when I saw as many rock concerts as I could, I saw both Genesis and his Phil Collins band. I found him to be a wonderful, generous performer. As a romance writer I’m also interested in his well-publicised multiple marriages and divorces. I’m into the second chapter and loving it!

Hubby also gave me a gorgeous journal with a cute vintage typewriter cover. I keep a journal for each book I write, keeping it with me at all times to jot down ideas, phrases, descriptions, plot twists and so on. The journal stays with me especially at night. I’ve learned to my frustration that those great ideas that come to me at night in dreams or fleeting thoughts are never remembered in the morning. I have to write them down immediately!

Then there’s the mystery book that arrived in the mail via an online book store with no clues as to who sent it to me. I have some ideas and will do some detective work! In the meantime I’m ready to settle down in some post-Christmas downtime and enjoy Goodwood by Holly Throsby, it looks fabulous. Has anyone read it?

There’s also the book I tracked down for my rabid cyclist husband: Lonely Planet’s Epic Bike Rides of the World. It’s a marvellous book full of incredible rides and thankfully he loves it! He’s even getting me interested in some picturesque (and very flat!) rides in Europe.

Then there’s the Christmas present stalwart, the calendar. I kinda guessed from the shape of the parcel that another present from my daughter might be a calendar. I prepared to ooh and ah at cat and kitten pictures, as people usually give me cat calendars. Instead I swooned at images of Tom Hiddleston, one of my very favourite actors. I fell for Tom as Loki in Avengers and then proceeded to love him in every movie I saw him in. My daughter didn’t see the appeal until she saw him in The Night Manager. It’s not just his looks but his presence and voice that appeal but the calendar is very nice, thank you very much!

What about you? Did you get a good book or calendar for Christmas this year or any other year? Or a different kind of present? Please make a comment, I’d love to hear about it!

Happy New Year!

The World Inside my Head

As a newly published author one of the most common questions I’m asked is…what inspires you? So, as I’m a new cat on the block, I thought I’d introduce myself by letting you in on a few of my secrets, what inspires me and just what is going on with my brain cells?

WARNING: You may not want to know what’s inside my head –it’s not always pretty! Proceed with caution!

Waipu Township

Places  I love to travel, I’ve been very lucky and visited quite a few places on my bucket list, but there are tons more places I’m burning to see. I aim to use some of those locations in the settings of my stories- but it’s early days, and so far I’ve used the real place Waipu in Northland as my jumping off point for creating fictional towns North Beach and Atanga Bay in books 1,2 and 3. 

Waipu Cove Beach

But in book 4 (currently unfinished), we visit real cities –Auckland and Rotorua here in New Zealand. It’s fun making up your own places, you can decide what’s there, how it looks etc- but it’s also great to use actual places so that readers can visualize exactly where your characters are. I’m planning book 5 and itching to use more glamorous places- London, Paris, Sydney, possibly LA.

People  At first, when creating my characters I used to trawl through websites and find pictures of glamorous people to help inspire me. That’s great for the exterior image- who wouldn’t love the adorable Paul Sculfer or cute Natalie Portman (both inspirations for my The War-Hero’s Locked-Away Heart book)? 

Paul Sculfor- source BangShowbiz

The real essence of my characters comes from people I know- the inner strength they have  when faced with adversity, or people I read about. Recently I read Katie Piper’s story- OMG, what a brave and strong woman – such courage. I’ve also spent 22 years working as a nurse and know first hand what both sick people and medical professionals have to go through every day. Dedication and professionalism, humility, vulnerability, grim determination…

some of my current faves

Food As the owner of over 85 cookbooks I hold my hand up and say I LOVE FOOD! (My first ever writing gig was creating recipes for an organic veggie delivery service in Manchester, UK). So food rates pretty high on my must-have list for my stories. In each of my books I try to match appropriate food with characters- it’s a fun thing to do- and what’s nicer than having the hero cook for the heroine? My most recent cookbook purchase is Marian Keye’s Saved by Cake- which I bought not just for the recipes (and I need all the help I can get with baking) – but also for the story of her recovery from mental illness. I love food of all kinds- although, (dare I admit this?) I’m not a huge fan of ice-cream…

Passion By this I don’t just mean high sensuality rating- although I do love a good HOT book! I mean- belief in something so strongly that you would do anything to achieve it. As a budding writer I made my craft and aspiration my passion (although I do have others too – on a frivolous level I couldn’t live without Zumba, but on a more serious note I’m a passionate proud member of Amnesty International). I tend to create characters who have a passion for SOMETHING. In my first book One Month to Become a Mum my heroine’s passion was for helping underprivileged kids. In Waking Up with His Runaway Bride, Mim’s passion was keeping her GP practice open, despite the odds, in remembrance of her mother. And in The War Hero’s Locked-Away Heart, Skye’s passion was to travel. I just love someone with burning ambition or dedication to a cause, it adds an extra dimension to their character- what do they have to do to achieve their dream? How can I, as a writer, make it difficult for them? (Mwahahaha…)

So, that’s a bit about me, and some of what makes me tick. I’m very pleased to meet you all – tell me, what inspires you? What are you passionate about? Do you love food too –any cookbook recommendations?

I have a signed copy of One Month to Become a Mum to give away to one commenter.