Sealed with a Kiss by Rachael Lucas is free today (18th June 2013)

Have you ever dreamt of writing a novel that experiences success beyond your wildest dreams and then being head hunted by a number of prestigious literary agents in London? That’s exactly what happened to Scottish author Rachael Lucas earlier this year.

I saw her self published kindle book on Facebook and I decided to download it as a show of support. Sealed with a Kiss exceeded my expectations and I recommended it to family and friends. It seems that everyone else was doing the same, to date it has been downloaded over 80,000 times. It has over 300 reviews averaging four and a half stars.

As a Scottish author I was keen to feature Rachael Lucas here so that she can share some insight into her extraordinary success.

1. How did the idea for Sealed with a Kiss come about?

About two years before I started writing, I woke up one morning and scribbled the words “girl moves to island to escape crap life in city” in a notebook – I’d had a dream about it. Very mystical! Initially, though, she was divorced and escaping her horrible ex and she had a couple of children. When I came back to the idea, I’d signed up to do NaNoWriMo and was determined to complete it, and I realised straight away in the pre-planning weeks that I didn’t want to be caught up with children and I wanted my heroine to be younger, so Kate was born.

2. Why did you choose Scotland as the location for your story?

I chose Scotland because it’s where I come from, and because it was easy for me to draw the characters – they jumped right into my head. They weren’t based on people I’d met (although there are bits of quite a few in there, and I always wonder if they recognise themselves) but I find Scottish people have such big personalities and such a sense of humour that they fit really well into books.

3. Did you have to do much research into Scottish Islands to create the right feel for your book?

Yes and no – I suppose you could call it living research! My family come from the Orkney islands, so I’m an islander by blood, and I lived on the Island of Bute when I was married to my ex, and I’d always planned to write about island life, so it was very much in my head. I did go back to the island in October last year (you can see the photos here) when I was working on final edits of the book, just so that I could remind myself how it felt to catch that ferry and take myself away from the mainland. I had a proper island adventure when I was there – a piece of the car fell off and a very kind man from the garage in Rothesay repaired it for free, and the people were just as lovely as I remembered.

4. Will your future books be set in Scotland?

I’m going to write a sequel to Sealed with a Kiss, so yes, and I suspect there may be more stories to come from the island. There’s so much to write about island life – it’s really true that it’s so small that everyone knows everything, and yet the places are full of secrets. I imagine there’ll be some books in the future set up in the Highlands, which is home to me.

5. Where’s your own favourite place to visit in Scotland?

Oh, I have a few! Edinburgh, because as a teenager and after university I walked every inch of the place and I know it inside out. My best friend still lives there, and although I don’t get back often, whenever I do I know exactly where I have to go: Henderson’s on Hanover Street for a huge vegetarian salad and their gorgeous gingered fruit and sour cream pudding, then a wander down to Stockbridge to look through the shops and have a coffee down by the water. And of course Inverness is home, and being back there fills my heart up. All the streets are full of memories of childhood and people I love. Just writing that makes me want to get straight on a plane and go home!

6. Tell us about the crazy success of your book?

I actually finished the first draft of Sealed with a Kiss in 2011, and sent it to a few agents. I had polite ‘lovely, funny, but not quite my thing’ replies from them, which I was told at the time was actually a really good sign – usually writers get a standard rejection letter. I also had some interest from a small independent publisher, but then put it to one side to deal with life, divorce and moving myself and my children to the seaside, all of which took priority! I decided, though, that 2013 was the year I turned 40 and it was time to get on with things. So I paid to have the book professionally edited, hired a cover designer, and released it in February. I hoped for 100 sales, and dreamt secretly of hitting 1000. I reached that within weeks, and then when I used the Amazon KDP Select promotion to offer the book for free download, I hit 25,000 downloads over the course of five days! It hit no.1 in the Amazon Kindle Free chart. That pushed the book into the Amazon top 100 and I reached no.7 in the Amazon chart. Sealed with a Kiss has been in the Amazon Top 100 ever since and is continuing to sell really well.

I was contacted by several agents after the book had been on the Amazon chart for a while, and eventually signed with Amanda Preston from Luigi Bonomi Associates. We’re working now on plans for books 2 and 3, as well as translations of Sealed with a Kiss for foreign markets. It’s all very exciting!

7. Have you always wanted to be a writer?

Yes, always. As a child I read voraciously, and wrote constantly. I used to spend every summer holiday filling old school jotters with pony stories and at university I dreamt of becoming the next Jilly Cooper. (I still do – the day Sealed with a Kiss received a review from a Costa Book Awards judge pronouncing it ‘reminded her a bit of Jilly’ I would have jumped for joy, had my broken ankle not stopped me!)

8. Did you ever believe that you’d achieve your ambition of being a writer?

For a long time I didn’t have the self confidence or self belief to pursue my dream. I thought that becoming a writer was something that happened to other people – then, when I started blogging about training to run the London Marathon (despite being a rather podgy chocolate loving couch potato), I realised I was capable of writing things which moved people to laugh or to cry. That gave me the push I needed.

9. If you could give other aspiring writers just three pieces of advice what would they be.

1 – Write. Start a blog, if you don’t have one already. The discipline of writing regularly will help you get in the habit – and the old cliche about writing a novel being “99% perspiration and 1% inspiration” really is true. I’m working on my second book at the moment and there are days when every word takes about ten minutes to get out. It’s torture.

2 – Listen. People ask me all the time (which feels a bit of a fraud, because I’m only working on book two, so I’m not a proper writer) where I get ideas from. I have *heaps* of ideas, because I sit around listening to conversations in coffee shops and at the hairdresser, and I think “ooh, what would happen if…” and there you are – another idea! And then write them down.

3 – Read. If you’re planning to write chick lit, read the competition. Read it with a notebook in hand. I spent ages dissecting some of my favourites, working out the plot, the character development, what happened to each character, and then I took it over to my book and dissected my story in the same way before rewriting.

10. Finally, what’s next for best selling author Rachel Lucas!

I’m working on a few things: hopefully there’ll be some exciting news soon about the next two books. I’m in the process of a big blog redesign so my author site rachaellucas.com and my blog talesfromthevillage.com will come under the same roof. Lots of writing – and of course lots of lurking in coffee shops listening in on conversations!

Download Sealed with a Kiss here

There comes a time in many parents’ lives when the inevitable question comes: “Can you take me horse riding?” The usual answer is no, but if your kids happen to be excellent negotiators you might want to review the options so you can suss out exactly what you need to know before committing to it. There are several factors involved and the best advice we can give is to thoroughly research the area before making a decision, but we’ve taken some of the leg-work out and made a list of the essential areas to consider.

Costs

It’s no secret that horse riding can be expensive. This all depends on how you want to go about it. You can go from a horse all the way down to going for a couple of pony rides at the local farm. Buying a horse can run up the costs into the thousands where going on a training course or a one-time ride can cost literally tens of pounds.

There is much to consider in the way of equipment. Again, if you’re planning to go away somewhere scenic and try a short course, it’s likely that you’ll be able to either hire the equipment from the centre you’re training at or the equipment will be provided in the cost. However if you’re thinking of becoming a regular it might be worth looking into buying your own tailored equipment so you get the most out of every ride.

Finding the right training is essential when learning to ride. There are many places that claim to be offering a good quality service yet don’t have the correct certification to do so. If you find the right place they’ll be able to match their training to your child’s skill so you never feel like you’re going too fast or too slow. A good school will also be able to make the whole experience fun rather than just a learning experience. For more information on this, check out resources like the Visit Wales website for more information regarding accredited trainers and schools and other ideas for horse riding holidays in the UK.

As with many outdoor activities, riding can be hazardous. When working with live animals it’s always a possibility that they’ll do something unpredictable and in the case of horse riding this can be very dangerous indeed, as they’re no small animal. Make sure that whether you’re at a training school or not you’ve got a helmet that meets safety standards as well as the other protective gear like proper boots and gloves.

It goes without saying that there’s a lot to take in when going in for something as specific as horse riding, but the rewards are worth it in the end. You’ll be riding along the British coastline with your kids before you know it. That said, you may need to learn to ride a horse yourself first.

This post is brought to you by Visit Wales

Edinburgh is full of gory history; the hangings in the Grassmarket, the drowning of suspected witches and the infamous murders of Burke and Hare. There is plenty to satisfy the appetite of small children who can’t get enough horrible history.

On Friday we were invited to review the new Horrible Histories commentary on the City Sightseeing tour. The new commentary is voiced by Edinburgh’s annual pantomime villain Grant Stott who will be familiar to many children in Edinburgh. The tour lasts about an hour but your ticket lasts 24 hours so you can hop on and off. The tour passes, amongst other places, Edinburgh Castle, the Royal Mile and the Palace of Holyrood House. The gory stories were good but I felt that they would be improved by more sound effects and voices to really bring it all to life.

After a quick bite to eat at Wannaburger we took a short taxi ride to the Kings Theatre.

There are two Horrible History productions currently touring the country – Terrible Tudors and Vile Victorians. Both shows use actors and 3D Bogglevision to bring the history alive and make you feel a part of it. The show is not for the feint hearted, it opens with a story of how baby farmers promised to look after babies for a fee before drowning them. However, it is all delivered in a humourous and highly entertaining way and I walked away thinking that this is how all history lessons should be. The kids loved it and seemed completely unphased by all the death we’d witnessed. The 3D is an added bonus, it reminded me of some of the shows we saw in DisneyWorld which must use the same technology.

We thoroughly enjoyed our Horrible History themed day out and would recommend it to other blood thirsty kids

For more on what’s coming to Edinburgh theatres next see here.

For more on the Horrible Histories tour see here.

As parents there are lots of important long term considerations to stay on top of, which can be hard to manage when you’re busy with work, the day to day running of a household and spending quality time with your family. Future planning, building up savings and remembering other big life concerns can end up on the permanent back burner and low on the priority list.

So we’ve put together a few tips on getting some of the important things sorted sooner rather than later, so you can focus on the here and now without worrying about all those things at the back of your mind that still need arranging.

Savings

Making sure you’ve got some savings is really important for any family. You might be saving for a deposit on a home, to help your kids with costs like university fees several years down the line, or maybe you just want to have something set aside for those inevitable rainy days. Thinking and worrying about savings can be an energy drainer, so the best thing to do is decide how much you can realistically save each month and set up a monthly direct debit into your savings account.

Have a shop around for the best interest rates on savings accounts, or consider setting up an ISA (which allows you to save up to £5,760 tax-free each year). Once you have a direct debit you just need to note down the point at which your interest rate may change, and be sure to have another shop around when that time comes to make sure that you are getting the best deal on your money at any given time. Aside from that, you can now sit back and relax knowing that you’re building up your savings every month and you’ve got one more bit of admin crossed off the list.

Life insurance

For many people it’s upon starting a family that they first consider life insurance. Taking out a life insurance policy ensures that in the event of your family being left behind mortgage payments can be continued and your family will be financially secure. It’s hardly everyone’s idea of a fun way to spend their time or energy, but once you sort out a policy you can sleep a little easier and focus on the more positive aspects of your family life. As with setting up a savings account, you want to shop around to find the right deal. You can compare policies at comparethemarket.com/lifeinsurance to see what is out there.

Essential home maintenance and upgrades

Most people have a list of things they want or need to sort out in their home, including upgrading a kitchen or bathroom, a long list of DIY fixes and adding new features like conservatories. These home improvement tasks can hang over you and never get done while you’re pressurising yourself so much.

Rather than constantly thinking about this stuff and taking no action, sit down and plan a realistic timescale to carry out all the work. If you’re planning some major work like building an extension, decide when you want to do it (e.g. next summer) and then work towards saving and preparing your home in that time. This way you make it an achievable goal and relieve some of the pressure you’re feeling about not completing the task or not knowing when you’ll have a chance to properly think about it.

Often, getting on top of all these big considerations requires that you give yourself a bit of a break about them. Tackle each item on the list one by one but give yourself realistic goals for when you’ll have them sorted. As you cross things off the to-do list you’ll feel empowered to make decisions and get your life in order; and then you can get back to the things that really matter.

This post is brought to you in association with Compare The Market

As I pondered the title of this dish I considered whether to call it an omlette or a frittata. Frittata sounds a bit more special but I didn’t want to be misleading and seeing as I didn’t actually know what the difference was I decided I should look it up. It turns out that an omlette has its ingredients folded inside it, whereas a frittata has its ingredients mixed through. So what we have here is a bona fide frittata, and that makes it a little bit special. Special enough for an evening meal with a nice salad or a treat yourself lunch.

Ingredients (for a one person frittata as pictured)

3 new potatoes
2 eggs
6 chives
30g soft goats cheese (I may be biased but I like welsh goats cheese, specifically the stuff that comes from Abergavenny)
Cress for garnish

These ingredients are just a guide really as you can’t go wrong adding or taking away from the quantities suggested. Two eggs per person, or three for a big appetite is about right.

1. Slice and par boil your new potatoes in salted water.

2. Once the potatoes are cooked through (but not soft), drain them and place them in a frying pan with a knob of butter and a bit of salt and pepper. Keep turning your potatoes until they have a bit of colour and they’re soft enough to eat.

3. Whisk your eggs and stir in your sliced chives. Pour the mixture into the pan and crumble over your goats cheese.

4. Finish the frittata off under a grill until the egg has set.

5. Serve onto a plate and garnish with cress

A while back I gave you an alternative to an expensive chinese takeaway, this time I’m tackling Indian. Of course you could just open a jar, however it’s no comparison to a fresh curry. Sorry no pic, it kinda got demolished before I thought of it.

Ingredients

Whole chicken
2 onions
4 garlic cloves
olive oil
Large bunch of coriander
1 x can of coconut milk
165g korma paste
Optional extras; dessicated coconut, chopped almonds

1. Get your chicken into roast as per instructions on the label.

I like using a whole chicken as it’s more flavoursome, it’s cheaper, I get to add the juices to my curry sauce and I can make stock with the carcass afterwards.

2. Finely dice your onion and saute gently in a large pot with some olive oil.

3. Make paste from the garlic cloves and add to the onion.

4. Once the onions are soft add the korma paste. Chop the stalks off the coriander and chop finely and add to the pot. Roughly chop the leaves of coriander and set aside for adding to the dish later on.

5. Add the coconut milk and bring your curry sauce to the boil. You can add some dessicated coconut at this stage if you wish, sweeten with a small amount of sugar if required.

6. Once your chicken is cooked through stip off all the chicken and add to the pot. Finish the curry off with your fresh coriander leaves and chopped almonds (optional)

Serve with rice, poppadums and mango chutney

I’ve been to Orlando four times and I’ve managed to visit all the theme parks. Naturally I have my favourites and I often find myself daydreaming about going back for a week and what I’d do.

Day 1 – Disney’s Hollywood Studios

I’d kick off my trip with a visit to Hollywood Studios. I’d ride my favourite rollercoaster – the Rock ‘n’ Roller coaster and then I’d have lunch in the Hollywood Brown Derby.

Day 2 – Animal Kingdom

I love the safari at Animal Kingdom so I’d start with that before perusing all the little shops.

Day 3 – EPCOT

I think EPCOT is my favourite Disney park, I love all the different countries and cuisines. I’d ride Soarin’ and Living with the Land.

Day 4 – Busch Gardens

My visit to Busch Gardens a couple of years back was a revelation. I hadn’t heard good things about the park and I was very pleasantly surprised. If I had just one day I would do the Orangutan Experience again.

Day 5 – Aquatica

Aquatica is SeaWorld’s waterpark and I reckon it’s the best waterpark in Orlando. To get the best value buy a three day ticket from Florida Tix which gets you access to Busch Gardens, Aquatica and Seaworld.

Day 6 – Universal Studios

On my second last day I’d go to Universal and see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, one attraction that I haven’t yet visited. You can grab Florida Tix’s Universal tickets here.

Day 7 – Blue Springs

On my final day I would do a day tour that I did way back on my first trip to Orlando 13 years ago. We took a coach to springs and swam with manatee, we cooked our own blueberry pancakes and later on we enjoyed an open air barbecue and a boat tour. It was the perfect day and the perfect end to a trip to Orlando.

This post is brought to you in association with Florida Tix

1. Bake bread

If you fancy something more challenging try pitta breads or a poppy seed loaf.

2. Decopatch

3. Swimming

We like the Time Capsule. It’s more of a waterpark than a swimming pool, it has flumes, a rubber ring ride and a mean wave machine.

4. Build a den

Use a tent, a bit of tarpaulin, or even an old bed sheet.

5. Oil painting

Erin had a couple of oil painting lessons recently and really enjoyed it.

6. Make chocolate and fluff flatbreads

7. Themed treasure hunt

Pick a theme and base all your clues and treasure around it.

8. Cinema

The big kids releases coming this summer include Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University.


9. Wig wamming

At approx £50 a night wig wamming is a great way to take a break and do something adventurous.

10. Trip to ice cream parlour

Our favourite is Luca’s. If you live in South Wales then obviously you’ll be headed to the legendary Joe’s.

11. Make quesadillas and eat in the garden

12. Have a tea party

Make it a bit more grown up by giving them real food and (cool) tea to use.

More than I thought is the answer, according to Ladbrokes Bingo new game ‘Which Soap Star Are You?‘

I don’t really watch soaps so I wasn’t expecting to recognise the character I’m most like but Emily Bishop has been in corrie since forever and was in it when I watched it about ten years ago!

According to the game Emily Bishop is;

I think the people who know me best would say that is pretty accurate. I always try to be a good friend and confidante, and I’m definitely strong willed.

So apart from the age difference perhaps it’s not a bad outcome. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the husband who was most like Sam Dingle from Emmerdale!

Which soap star are you most like?

This post is in association with Ladbrokes Bingo