In the spirit of the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, I’ve decided to go a step further and am introducing the ‘Twelve Months of Winning’. Each month, you’ll get the chance to win a prize pack inspired by the themes in my published novels so far.
The December prize is wrapped and ready to go! It includes things to eat, pretty things, things to grow and a book to read or gift to another. The book theme for this month is of course ‘Christmas’.
This is precisely why I write books: to make people feel good.
Books like (legal) brownies for all!
I love this story. From May this year, ‘Books on Prescription’ will begin in the UK, with doctors able to ‘prescribe’ a book to assist a patient and improve their mood. The books include both non-fiction and fiction, as well as poetry. It’s also hoped the scheme could help the struggling libraries. Win-win. How wonderful!
In the first couple of months after my baby was born, life was pretty insane in our house. Something I missed the most was reading and it was only when I began to learn how to get the reading time back into my life that I started to feel normal again. I always read before going to sleep, something that’s a very powerful mood producing activity for me. I literally feel stressed if I don’t have a good book nearby to delve into.
But it has to be the right kind of book. For me, there’s no point in reading something angst-ridden, violent, negative, sarcastic or miserable in order to feel better. Uplifting, comforting, engaging and fun–that’s what I want to read and that’s what I want to write.
My contemporary fiction novel, The Tea Chest, about three Australian women thrust together in a bid to sell tea to the English, will be out in 2014. And if you’re looking for something to make you feel good (a book that reads like a chocolate brownie tastes) then it might just be the book for you.
