Wednesday 20 November 2013

Enter to win Karl Pilkington & The Moaning of Life goodies [UK only]

If you're in the UK and happen to be a fan of Karl Pilkington, you'll love this competition where you can win a bunch of amazing Moaning of Life prizes!

Check out the details here:
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If the approaching end of Karl Pilkington’s TV series The Moaning of Life is set to send you into a spiral of withdrawal, worry not as the book to accompany the show is out now. And, to coincide with the launch of the DVD, a new competition has launched where three lucky winners will each receive:
  • a SIGNED copy of the book
  • a SIGNED illustration from the book
  • a copy of the DVD. 
Plus, five runner-ups will each receive a copy of the book. Does life get any better, Karl Pilkington fans?!

To enter, simply look at the photo below and then e-mail marketing@canongate.co.uk with Karl Pilkington in the subject line, telling us what you think Karl is saying in the picture:


The funniest entries win. The competition closes on Monday 2 December and the lucky winners will be chosen at random by Canongate. 

Don’t forget to follow @welovemoaning on Twitter for all the latest updates on Karl Pilkington’s Moaning of Life book.

Good luck, everyone!

Tuesday 19 November 2013

The 'I am officially back' post!


Okay, I know it's been ages. Aside from a must-read interview with Elizabeth Moss, posted at the beginning of the month, I haven't exactly been around.

And for this I blame life, which has really eaten up my free time and forced blogging into the back of my mind. But, from now on, that's going to change. I have a few weeks off work and I'm almost caught up with my studies, meaning I'll have more time to be here. Woohoo!

So, over the next few days, look out for some fab new posts. Among these you'll find a competition, an interview with an awesome Young Adult author, and something Typewritten. I'm also currently reading Allegiant, the final instalment in Veronica Roth's Divergent series, so expect to see this reviewed sometime in the near future.

It's certainly great to be back!

Thursday 7 November 2013

Interview with Elizabeth Moss – author of Wolf Bride

It's delightful to welcome author Elizabeth Moss to the blog, who's here to talk about her newly
released historical erotic romance novel, Wolf Bride.

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Wolf Bride tells the steamy tale of Queen Anne Boleyn’s lady in waiting, Eloise Tyrell, and the man she is betrothed to, Lord Wolf. What attracted you towards setting such a story during this historical period?
The sheer drama of it. Everything was more life-and-death at the Tudor court than in most later periods of history, with the slightest error in judgement getting you carted off to the Tower of London. This raises the stakes in a romance to an alarming degree. With Henry VIII in the mix, it's not just 'Does the hero get the girl?' but 'Can they survive this and reach a happy ending?' And of course we know, as 21st century readers, that not everything is going to end well for Anne Boleyn at least.

What can you tell us about the two main characters? Are they based on any real historical figures?
Lord Wolf and Eloise Tyrell are not based on any specific historical figures, but they are representative members of the Henrician Court. Lord Wolf is a superb soldier and commander, tough-minded, incredibly loyal to the crown, driven by his loyalty in fact. But as a nobleman, he approaches picking a wife - to breed an heir - with the same lack of emotion as when buying a horse. So you can imagine how a feisty and rebellious young woman like Eloise throws him off balance. Yet he finds her passion invigorating and seems to take pleasure in nettling her whenever they are together. Eloise has been serving the Queen for several years, and is an independent spirit. She wants to marry for love, so being forced into an arranged marriage - Tudor women often had little choice in the matter - makes her desperate. What stuns Eloise about Wolf is how well he seems to understand a woman's body - he's an expert lover, of course! - while failing to understand her heart. But just when things begin to hot up for them, Anne Boleyn is arrested, with Eloise suspected of hiding dangerous secrets about her mistress ...

Wolf Bride has gained a positive response from several high-profile media outlets, and has been described as a cross between Hilary Mantel and Sylvia Day. What do you think critics and reviewers have found so appealing about the novel?
Cross-genre writing is a very exciting development in fiction right now. And this is really an account of Anne Boleyn's fall from grace, but we see it not through the eyes of key historical characters, but via Wolf and Eloise's love story. By constantly foregrounding the dangers inherent in a marriage where a husband has absolute power over his wife, even to the point in Henry's case where he can sign her death warrant, Wolf Bride achieves an unsettling note that makes the erotic content more ... well, erotic. It responds to something in the zeitgeist, in my opinion. This is the right book for the right time, perhaps.

Judging by the list of previous releases on your blog, you’re quite the productive writer. How do you stay motivated?
I have a large family to support; needing to pay the bills is usually motivation enough to go to my desk every morning. When that doesn't work, I remind myself how little I have achieved so far in comparison with my late mother, who wrote over 150 novels under the name Charlotte Lamb. Now that's productive!

Lastly, what’s next for you? Do you have any other projects currently in the works?
I have two more novels in the Lust in the Tudor Court series to come out in 2014, but would dearly love to write a contemporary erotic series too. I do write under other names, but mostly historicals, so a contemporary story would be marvellous.

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Blurb:
England, 1536

Bound to him against her will...
Lord Wolf, hardened soldier and expert lover, has come to King Henry VIII's court to claim his new bride: a girl who has intrigued him since he first saw her riding across the Yorkshire moors.
Eloise Tyrell, now lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne Boleyn, has other ideas. She has no desire to submit to a man she barely knows and who - though she is loath to admit it - frightens her not a little.

Then comes that first kiss...
It awakens in both a fierce desire that bares them to the soul. But as the court erupts into scandal around the ill-fated Queen, Eloise sees first-hand what happens when powerful men tire of their wives.

Dare she surrender her body and her heart?
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