The Classic Makeover Story

Today, I'm welcoming a good friend, wonderful writer and fellow Novelicious team member, Jennifer Joyce, to the shed to tell us about her hilarious book, A Beginner's Guide to Salad.
 

There are loads of makeover films and books out there. You know the type: geeky/plain/overweight girl is madly in love with the hero. He isn’t interested. He’s probably got a stick-thin, beautiful girlfriend anyway.

Cue the makeover!

Our heroine loses her glasses/weight and plasters on a load of make-up. Look at her! She’s stunning! Who knew? Certainly not our hero, but he knows it now. He suddenly notices her, his jaw drops as he begins to fall in love with our gorgeous swan. His elbow juts out to despatch with the stick-thin, beautiful girlfriend. She was probably a cow, anyway. He takes our heroine in his arms and kisses her before they walk off into the sunset to live happily ever after.

How sweet.

But wait a minute. What was wrong with our heroine before? She was smart and funny and our hero would be damn lucky to be with her. What happened to beauty being skin deep? Does that only count after the makeover?

When I wrote A Beginner’s Guide To Salad, I wanted to throw away the old formula. I wanted our heroine (Ruth, in this case) to be loved for who she is, fat or thin. Because Ruth is a fantastic woman who deserves the hero, who deserves to be accepted for who she is. Because who she is, in my opinion, is pretty fab. With or without a makeover.

Jennifer Joyce is a writer of romantic comedies who lives in Manchester with her husband and their two daughters. A Beginner’s Guide To Salad is her first novel.

You can find out more about Jennifer and her books at

www.jenniferjoycewrites.co.uk,

www.facebook.com/jenniferjoycewrites

or follow her on twitter: @Writer_Jenn

Reading Books, Writing Books

Here's a picture of a sign a lovely friend sent to me recently. I wanted to include it in a post and then realized that I hadn't blogged since September and that's far too long. It made me think back to why I'd been such a tardy blogger last year. 2013 was a funny old year... well sometimes not that funny, but full of ups and downs.

I was made redundant from my wonderful job at Play.com at the end of June which was sad, but spent four months of one of the best summers on record being able to write at home - that was FANTASTIC!

Throughout 2013 I had a great time being part of the incredible Novelicious team, and was able to read/review some brilliant novels through the year, as well as interview talented authors for the Alternative Thursday slot. I've spent a lot of time working on my 'other' project, which has been an enormous learning curve, but great fun, and I've met many writer friends because if it and hopefully I'll be able to link it with this page at some point.

I love the 'unknown' and am looking forward to this coming year, reviewing books for Novelicious.com, getting to know more fabulous writers through their novels, as well as writing my next book - so, what are you looking forward to in 2014?