The Santa Clause
One of my favourite festive films is The Santa Clause. It’s a fun film centring around family with a sprinkling of magic, which is what I hope The Mince Pie Mix-Up is too, so I decided to take inspiration from the film when naming my characters. Most of the names – even down to Miller the dog - were inspired by The Santa Clause films.
Bite-sized
The Mince Pie Mix-Up started off as a much shorter novella at just over 22,000 words. My editor suggested I expand the story, which gave me the chance to develop the characters and story more.
Christmas Through Your Eyes
The book was initially inspired by the song ‘Christmas Through Your Eyes’ by Gloria Estefan. Although the song is about seeing Christmas through the eyes of a child again, it sparked the idea of experiencing Christmas in somebody else’s shoes
Working title
The Mince Pie Mix-Up’s working title was ‘Christmas Through Your Eyes’, due to the song inspiration.
The Green Teapot
The Green Teapot – and some of its staff and customers - have appeared in some of my short stories – The Chocolate Box, Pumpkin Pie at The Green Teapot and Mince Pies at The Green Teapot.
Magical fairy
The Mince Pie Mix-Up is my second book to feature a life-altering wish and a magical fairy, with Everything Changes But You being the first.
Christmas in July
I wrote a lot of the book during the summer, so to get me in the festive mood I drank my tea from a Christmas mug and stuck a mini Christmas tree ornament on my pin board.
Festive swears
Calvin’s boss, Perry is quite an angry man who doesn’t treat his staff very well. He swears a lot, but as I didn’t want my festive book to be littered with swears, I came up with the idea of replacing the swears with festive-themed words instead. This was a lot of fun!
Hartfield Hill
Hartfield Hill – where the book is set – is a fictional village where some of my short stories are set.
Benvenuti
In the original version, I didn’t know what a ‘Benvenuti’ was. It was simply an important campaign Calvin was working on. Once I started to develop the story further, I had to come up with a whole campaign!
‘I wish I could live your life. I’d happily swap lives with you.’
’Tis the season to be jolly but for Calvin and Judy the usual festive bickering has already begun! Judy’s convinced that her husband has it easy – no glittery wrapping paper, no playground gossip and absolutely no Christmas baking.
Calvin wishes he could trade in his obnoxious boss and dull nine-to-five job to spend more time kicking back with his kids – how hard can Judy’s life really be?
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