A Beginner's Guide To Saying I Do: Take the Quiz!

If you've read A Beginner's Guide To Saying I Do, you can now take the quiz over on Goodreads (you can take the test even if you haven't read the book, though you'll have to wing it).

Take the Quiz

How much can you remember? Let us know your score in the comments below, or you can tweet it or post on my Facebook page!

Three women. Three weddings. But who will say I do – and who will say I don’t?

Ruth can’t quite believe she’s managed to snag The One but when he proposes, she can finally accept that she’s found her happily ever after. But when Ruth finds herself booking her dream church for just six weeks away, she starts to panic. You can’t plan a whole wedding at such short notice. Can you?

Trina has only just walked down the aisle, but she’s already starting to question whether they can make their marriage work. Will they survive the honeymoon period, or have they just made a very big – and very expensive – mistake?

Erin has somehow found herself agreeing to be a bridesmaid for the tackiest wedding known to man. With drunk hens, ridiculous outfits and a terrifying wedding planner, just what has Erin signed up for?

Amazon UK | Amazon US 

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ABOUT THE BOOK

 

 

One summer can change everything…

Mae has no time for men in her life! Local vet Alfie might be totally gorgeous but she’s far too busy looking after her young daughter and running her little bed & breakfast by the sea.

Willow is in the middle of building her dream home with her husband, Ethan, when disaster strikes. And with every month that passes she secretly worries that her happy ever after will never come true…

Melody only intended to stay in the bustling seaside town for a few days. But when she meets Hugo – the charming man in the ice cream van – she decides to stay a little longer.

It seems the little bed & breakfast is full of surprises!

 

Amazon UK | Amazon US

A Beginner's Guide To Saying I Do: The Playlist

I always put together a playlist for my books, and for A Beginner's Guide To Saying I Do, I decided to focus on Ruth's wedding reception. I've picked the songs she'd choose, so expect lots of cheesy pop in there!

Three women. Three weddings. But who will say I do – and who will say I don’t?

Ruth can’t quite believe she’s managed to snag The One but when he proposes, she can finally accept that she’s found her happily ever after. But when Ruth finds herself booking her dream church for just six weeks away, she starts to panic. You can’t plan a whole wedding at such short notice. Can you?

Trina has only just walked down the aisle, but she’s already starting to question whether they can make their marriage work. Will they survive the honeymoon period, or have they just made a very big – and very expensive – mistake?

Erin has somehow found herself agreeing to be a bridesmaid for the tackiest wedding known to man. With drunk hens, ridiculous outfits and a terrifying wedding planner, just what has Erin signed up for?

Amazon UK | Amazon US 

A Beginner's Guide To Saying I Do: Fun Facts

Fancy a peek at some of the behind-the-scenes stuff of A Beginner's Guide To Saying I Do? Here you go!

Bridesmaids

Apart from Erin, Lindsay’s bridesmaids are inspired by the character names from the film, Bridesmaids.

 Victorious

The names for sisters Trina and Tori were inspired by the sisters in TV show, Victorious which my oldest daughter watched A LOT while I was writing the first draft of the book

 Changing Names

Wedding planner Ingrid’s original name was Greta. I wrote the first draft of A Beginner’s Guide To Saying I Do between drafts of Everything Changes But You, which I realised also had a (different) character called Greta.

Drafts

I wrote the first draft in 2014, the second and third in 2015 and finally worked on the edits in 2016.

Points of View

While the book covers the POV of Ruth, Erin and Trina, the first draft covered Ruth, Erin and Jared’s POV. It didn’t feel right so I ended up cutting Jared’s chapters (around 1/3 of the book) and bringing Trina in.

[I'll be sharing a deleted scene from Jared's POV in my September newsletter - subscribe here if you fancy a peek!]

Trina

Trina was a minor character who popped up only a handful of times, along with her sister, Tori. But she kept jumping up and down and trying to get my attention. When I knew I had to rewrite 1/3 of the book, I knew I wanted to fully explore Trina’s story.

Working Title

The working title was A Beginner’s Guide To Weddings.

  

Recurring Places

Libby’s wedding dress boutique is located in Hartfield Hill, which is the setting of The Mince Pie Mix-Up, as well as some of my short stories. 

Recurring Characters

Karaoke host Keith Barry can also be found in Everything Changes But You.

Three women. Three weddings. But who will say I do – and who will say I don’t?

Ruth can’t quite believe she’s managed to snag The One but when he proposes, she can finally accept that she’s found her happily ever after. But when Ruth finds herself booking her dream church for just six weeks away, she starts to panic. You can’t plan a whole wedding at such short notice. Can you?

Trina has only just walked down the aisle, but she’s already starting to question whether they can make their marriage work. Will they survive the honeymoon period, or have they just made a very big – and very expensive – mistake?

Erin has somehow found herself agreeing to be a bridesmaid for the tackiest wedding known to man. With drunk hens, ridiculous outfits and a terrifying wedding planner, just what has Erin signed up for?

Amazon UK | Amazon US 

Have You Subscribed To My Newsletter?

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My September newsletter will be going out next week, so there's still time to subscribe and be in with the chance of winning a notebook and magnet set, a signed postcard, and chocolate. All subscribers are automatically entered into the prize draw each month, so it couldn't be simpler!

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A Beginner's Guide To Saying I Do: Which Character Are You?

I've put together a little quiz so you can find out which character from A Beginner's Guide To Saying I Do you're most like!

Tick either A, B, C or D and then tot them up at the end to see which letter you agreed with most to find your character. Let us know your results in the comments below :)

Three women. Three weddings. But who will say I do – and who will say I don’t?

Ruth can’t quite believe she’s managed to snag The One but when he proposes, she can finally accept that she’s found her happily ever after. But when Ruth finds herself booking her dream church for just six weeks away, she starts to panic. You can’t plan a whole wedding at such short notice. Can you?

Trina has only just walked down the aisle, but she’s already starting to question whether they can make their marriage work. Will they survive the honeymoon period, or have they just made a very big – and very expensive – mistake?

Erin has somehow found herself agreeing to be a bridesmaid for the tackiest wedding known to man. With drunk hens, ridiculous outfits and a terrifying wedding planner, just what has Erin signed up for?

Amazon UK | Amazon US 

Back To School

We've had a fun summer, but today is officially Back To School Day (one of my daughters went back yesterday, the other today. This did not go down too well with the former).

Back To School Day is also Back To Writing Day for me - I have been squeezing in writing time during the school summer holidays, but now it's time to go back to working all day, which is a bit of a relief, to be honest. It's quite hard cramming everything into a short space of time each day, and it means dragging my weary body to my desk in the evenings when all I want to do is slump on the sofa and relax. I also find it difficult to switch off after writing at night, which means I'm awake longer than I want to be!

Lots of exciting bookish things have happened over the past few weeks of the summer holidays; my seventh book, A Beginner's Guide To Saying I Do was published, and the paperback of The Little Bed & Breakfast by the Sea was released. I've also been featured on The Write Stuff With... over on Shaz's Book Blog and shared 10 Things I'd Like My Readers To Know About Me on Female First. I've also started to post the 'Book Extras' for A Beginner's Guide To Saying I do here on the blog - and there will be more over the next few weeks.

But now it's time to knuckle down and get the first draft of Book 8 finished. My deadline is looming and it needs a good tidy up before it goes off to my editor! I'm so close to The End now - just two more chapters to go!

What We Did This Summer

I know it isn't officially autumn yet, but the summer holidays are pretty much done and dusted (I have one child back in school and one returning tomorrow) so I thought I'd look back at the last couple of months.

It's been quite a busy couple of months for me, with two book releases; A Beginner's Guide To Saying I Do and the paperback publication of The Little Bed & Breakfast by the Sea.

The second book in the Beginner's Guide series was published mid-August and I've been busy planning lots of book extras to put up on the blog. I've been working on the book for a long time (since 2015!) so it was exciting finally releasing into the world of Amazon.

The ebook edition of The Little Bed & Breakfast by the Sea was published back in June, but the paperback was released on 24th August, which was an amazing moment as it's my very first paperback. It was a surreal moment popping into my local Sainsbury's and seeing it on the shelf!

I had to wait a week to actually see the book on the shelf, as I was on holiday at the time of release and it sold out at my local Sainsbury's on the first day. I had to wait until they'd restocked before I go and see it 'in the wild' and have a stroke/sniff/take a shelfie.

The weather hasn't been too good during the school holidays, but we did manage to get out to Uppermill for a day out of feeding the ducks, going on the barge, and eating ice cream, and we went bowling and to the arcade which was fun (and dry).

Thankfully the weather improved for our holiday to Blackpool. We decided to stay in the UK this year and have a few days at the seaside, which was a lot of fun. We built sandcastles, flew a kite and had a paddle at the beach, spent the day at the zoo and went to the Tower Circus. You can see my blog post about our fun here

At the beginning of the school holidays, I gave Rianne and Isobel a little gift each; their own copy of Colin Dann's The Animals of Farthing Wood for our summer read-along.

It's my favourite childhood book and I couldn't wait for us to read it together. As well as the book, we also had the magazines to read (which were out in the 90s and I've collected from eBay) and the DVD to watch.

We didn't quite manage to read the whole book over the summer, but we've only got a few more chapters to go.

As well as The Animals of Farthing Wood, I also wanted to re-read some other books over the summer. I chose Kiss Him Goodbye by Victoria Routledge, Rainy Days & Tuesdays by Claire Allan, and Snap Happy by Fiona Walker.

I also read Vicky Pattison's My Sister's Wedding and I'm currently reading The Angel at No. 33 by Polly Williams.

The summer has been fun (even if there's been far too much rain this August) and it passed way too quickly!

What did you get up to this summer?