Celebrate 2021

 Happy New Year!

After the train wreck that 2020 turned out to be, it's great to welcome a fresh, new year.

Who knows what 2021 might hold...  I wish you all the best for it!

Books I've Read: Boys Don't Cry

 

With it being the holidays, I've been reading a lot more than I usually do and have been getting through a book a day for the last few days.  This was yesterday's book, and one I really enjoyed.

Dante is seventeen.  He's just finished his exams and is eagerly awaiting the results that will tell him whether or not he's qualified to go to university to study journalism.  The last thing he's expecting is his ex-girlfriend of more than a year ago to show up on his doorstep with a baby in tow.  A baby she claims is his, the result of his one and only sexual encounter, a brief, disappointing drunken few minutes at a party.

Claiming she needs to pop out and get some nappies and other things for the baby, Melanie leaves Emma with Dante for just a few minutes.  But then she never comes back.  A phone call hours later tells Dante she feels unfit to be the baby's mother and she's leaving Emma with him.

Dante's world - and that of his brother and father - is turned upside-down.  Nights out at the pub with mates are suddenly off the table.  So is university and the career Dante has imagined for himself for so long.  Reality is suddenly teething, crying, trips to the park and the endless anxiety that comes with bringing up a child.

While Dante is struggling with the realities of becoming a new father, his brother Adam has his own problems.  Openly gay, he's a target of local bullies, but keeps it to himself because the worst of the bullies is Dante's best friend and Dante has enough to deal with right now.  

This is a brutally honest book about the challenges of becoming a parent too young.  It's also a book about learning to communicate with the people you care about and to accept change as inevitable.  Dante and Adam are real, flawed characters, but by the end of the book you're really rooting for them to overcome their various challenges and find their places in the world.

I really enjoyed it.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

This is the explosively page-turning new novel for teenagers from the author of the award-winning "Noughts and Crosses" sequence. You're about to receive your A-level results and then a future of university and journalism awaits. But the day they're due to arrive your old girlfriend Melanie turns up unexpectedly ...with a baby ...You assume Melanie's helping a friend, until she nips out to buy some essentials, leaving you literally holding the baby ...Malorie's dramatic new novel will keep you on the edge of your seat right to the final page.

Weekly Goals 28-12-20

 I'm on summer holidays now (although the weather doesn't seem to think it's summer - I'm sitting here in the clothes I write in during the winter this morning as the wind howls around the house) so I'm trying to keep goals to a minimum.

I finished the edits on Chasing the Taillights and sent them off to my publisher on Christmas morning so they wouldn't be hanging over my head for the rest of the holidays.  So now I'm free to do whatever I want for the next couple of weeks.

I plan to send off a bunch more queries for Standing Too Close before we go away on Saturday, but other than that, I have nothing writing-related planned.  In fact, this week is all about getting the house sorted out.  I've hired a carpet cleaner for this afternoon and hope that might help freshen up the living area.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate Christmas!

 

Whatever you are doing, whoever you are with, I hope you have a magnificent day.

Books I've read...

 Goodreads has just sent me a handy wee infographic about my reading habits in 2020 so I thought in lieu of a single book review today, I'd share my year in books with you.  There appears to be a lot of re-reads in there this year, something I put down to the lockdown period when the library was closed and I was forced to explore my own bookshelves again.

So here's my 2020 in books.

If Goodreads has done the same for you, why don't you share it in the comments.  I'm sure people are looking for good books to read over the holidays.

Weekly Goals 21-12-20

 I have two goals for this week really.

1. get the edits done on Chasing the Taillights

2. get through Christmas.

Once those two things are done, I can relax and enjoy my vacation.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small things 18-12-20

This post is part of Lexa Cain's blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Head on over there to sign up!

What am I celebrating this week?

It's Friday!

It has been a stupidly busy week, considering there are only four more days of work before the Xmas break, so I'm grateful for the weekend, even if it does look like it's going to be super busy.

I got edits from my publisher for Chasing the Taillights, along with the news it's an Editor's Pick. That makes 4/4 of my Evernight Teen books being an Editor's Pick.  Plus An Unstill Life was an Editor's Pick with Musa Publishing who published it first.  Doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it makes me feel like I'm doing a good job.

Which is nice because agents seem to be trying to clear their query boxes before the end of the year and I've been getting rejections for Standing too Close.  During the break I plan to do a bunch more querying, so hopefully this trend will turn around.

Going up the coast on Sunday to (hopefully) have my first beach swim of the season and to catch up with a friend I've barely seen this year.  Then going to a BBQ at another friend's boatshed in the evening.  Such a lot of socialising!

What are you celebrating this week?