Lily Graham's Blog, page 2

Win a signed copy of The Paris Secret!

Hello my lovelies! As it is a gloomy Wednesday I thought it might be nice to do something a little fun. So I am doing a signed paperback giveaway of The Paris Secret!

The story, as some of you will know, is very dear to my heart as it is inspired by my love of reading, bookshops, family and Paris.

The question for the giveaway is inspired by the lead character, Valerie, who discovers to her surprise as she never knew her mother growing up … that her favourite childhood novel is the same as her mother’s… In a way this is true for me (not the not knowing my Mum, lol, but sharing the same favourite children’s book, which is Anne of Green Gables. I still remember her suggesting it to me when I was about ten or eleven in the local library and how much I fell under the spell as soon as I cracked open the spine and smelt the old pages… (Libraries like Bookshops are always a little magical to me!) To this day Anne Shirley remains one of my favourite ever fictional heroines.

So … all you need to do to enter the competition is like/follow my Facebook page – see here (if you haven’t already) and answer the question on the FB site. 

The question is: What was/is your favourite children’s book? And (if you also want to answer this question for a bonus point:  Who is your favourite fictional hero/heroine and why. (Feel free to answer both if you like as I’d genuinely like to know and it would be fun to see if everyone’s answers !)

The winner will be chosen by COB 30 November and is open worldwide. I will be putting the names in a hat and randomly selecting it. I’ll put your name in twice if you answered both questions

Books, baguettes and the city of light and love: The inspiration behind The Paris Secret

I was asked by The Book Trail to share the inspiration for my latest novel, The Paris Secret a story about a woman who journeys to Paris to find out the truth about who she is and what happened to her parents during the Second World War, and I thought I’d share it here with you as well.

It was probably inevitable that at some point I’d write about a bookshop in retrospect, and this story seemed in many ways to write itself, it just flew onto the page and I wasn’t quite sure where it came from. Perhaps it had lain there in my subconscious for a while, who knows? But I did enjoy writing it, and sometimes I still think of the characters as if they are alive, because that’s how they feel.[image error]

I have always had a love affair with bookshops. They’re my refuge when things are going bad or when I need a lift, or just the best way to spend a rainy afternoon. When it came time to write The Paris Secret, as more often than not, the story that I’d originally intended to write fell away. The bookshop appeared as if by accident complete with the characters of Valerie and Vincent Dupont, grandfather and granddaughter. As I wrote I started to imagine what it would look like to see the war pan out from behind the walls of a bookshop, and the effects the war would have on this one family.[image error]

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The Griboullier bookshop in the novel (which means Scribble) is a blend of my favourite bookshops, growing up in Johannesburg, as well as the legendary American-owned Paris based bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, which closed during the years of the Paris occupation but was once the haunt of Hemmingway, Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, a sort of meeting spot for the lost generation. Walt Whitman opened his shop in the fifties on the left bank, which he later called Shakespeare and Company in tribute to that old store, and is still going to this day, which retains much of the first’s charm. One of the most interesting facts about the shop is that it helps out aspiring writers and artists for the exchange of help in the store. Over the years many would-be-authors have lived in the shop, sleeping where they could, and living hand to mouth while they worked on their novels – there’s something deeply romantic about this idea to me.

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I loved this idea of a ‘living’ bookshop, and the sort of things that a store like this would see over the passage of time and I think that fed into my fictional Parisian bookshop. That and my own love for books, of course. Like my main character, Valerie, I too fell into the arms of books the way some women fall into arms of men, headfirst and without a life jacket. For some women it’s shoes or bags, for me it’s always been books.

My first job was at a bookshop while I was at university – my mother got me the job when I made the mistake of telling her how much I wished I could work there, by dragging me by the hand to meet the manager shortly after those words fell out of my mouth … this despite the fact that I was dressed in paint-splattered tracksuit bottoms with unwashed hair and had been up most of the night before studying … oddly enough the manager decided to hire me anyway. Mainly because my mother was standing there with her big ‘Don’t break my kid’s heart’ mum eyes. The manager was a retired professional from the country’s largest electricity supplier. With more degrees to his name than he could count, but had decided to take early retirement and work in a bookshop because that was his biggest passion. He was an interesting character, in his late fifties, kind and whip smart, who only ever read the classics – though he didn’t judge anyone too harshly for reading ‘along with the masses’ as he called it. We used to have long discussions about books that would last hours and I worked there all through my university days and probably would never have left except that the store closed down! They had to break the news to me gently, but I still cried buckets for weeks after.

The character of Vincent Dupont is perhaps a blend of my old manager there who later became a friend, my own father who is also the biggest book nerd who I often sit chatting with for hours about books and writing, but to a large part Vincent is based on my beloved, grouchy father in law, Joao. He’s a curmudgeon at times, with a boiling temper – which is just hot air really, but he truly has a good heart and I’ve never known anyone who is more endearing in his flaws than him. When he’s sweet it knocks your socks off. He once bought me an old typewriter from a car show, just out of the blue. I still have it, it sits in bride of place on my desk.[image error]

Like my love for bookshops, Paris has always been a special place for me. It’s a city that gets into your bones. It’s full of colour and life. I have a towering stack of books and memoirs set in the city. It’s living history and you truly do feel that when you’re there.

 

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My favourite thing about the city though, apart from the food, and the art, is how each street is its own village – with coffee shops, pastry shops, markets and bistros. The French, to my eyes at least, have a talent for making life beautiful on the street that they live. There’s no need to travel to another area, not unless you really want to. There’s something poetical about that for me – like the idea that the grass is greenest on the patch you water. It’s why most of the novel is set in the Rue des Oiseaux in the 3rd Arrondisement – though my street is a fictionalised version, alas. While I set my novel there it is very much based on my experience of Montparnasse, which has preserved the very traditional French charm of a Parisian neighbourhood. This quarter bustles with street life and plenty of typical Parisian cafés, restaurants, and shops.

I have to agree with Audrey Hepburn, “Paris is always a good idea”, grin.

[image error]If you’d like to read the book, The Paris Secret is out now!

The Paris Secret out this October!

I am delighted to reveal the cover of my latest book, The Paris Secret! It is out this October.  I really hope you like it!

This has been such a joy to write. It’s also been quite a different direction for me,  with a historical focus, which was so much fun to write. I love bookstores and Paris and this was one of those rare novels where the characters just take over and you end up writing something vastly different than you first imagined …

Here’s the cover and blurb!

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A beautiful Parisian bookshop hides a heartbreaking secret that will tear one family apart forever …

The last time Valerie was in Paris, she was three years old, running from the Nazis, away from the only home she had ever known.

Now as a young woman all alone in the world, Valerie must return to Paris, to the bookshop and her sole surviving relative, her grandfather Vincent, the only person who knows the truth about what happened to her parents. As she gets to know grumpy, taciturn Vincent again, she hears a tragic story of Nazi-occupied Paris, a doomed love affair and a mother willing to sacrifice everything for her beloved daughter.

Can Valerie and Vincent help each other to mend the wounds of the past? Valerie isn’t after a fairytale ending, she only wants the truth. But what is the one devastating secret that Vincent is determined to keep from his granddaughter?

An unputdownable and unforgettable story of love, fear and courage in a time of war. Immerse yourself in a Paris where soldiers’ boots echo on cobbled streets and the air is full of whispers. Fans of Before We Were Yours, Kathryn Hughes and The Paris Wife will be absolutely hooked by this beautiful, tragic tale.

It’s available for pre-order now! 

The Island Villa out now!

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I am delighted to announce that today is publication day for THE ISLAND VILLA!

Marisal. A villa on a sleepy Spanish island. A place that time had forgotten. A place of long ago summers, sun-kissed memories and one terrible betrayal …

When Charlotte’s husband James tragically dies, he leaves her an unexpected gift – her grandmother’s beautiful villa, Marisal, on the Spanish island of Formentera.

As she begins to explore her new home, and heal her broken heart in the warm golden sunshine, Charlotte discovers that her grandmother Alba has been keeping secrets about her life on the island. Intrigued by her family’s hidden history, Charlotte uncovers a devastating love affair that put many lives at risk and two sisters torn apart by loss.

Can the heart-breaking truth of the island’s dark history finally be laid to rest? Or will the secrets of the past shake the new life and love that Charlotte is close to finding?

Amazon link: mybook.to/TIVSocial

 

Based on a blend of myth and fact …

This was such a wonderful story to write, a real challenge too at times as I wanted to give  a real flavour of the island’s history,  and in the end the story became like the island itself, a blend of myth and truth, as I fell in love with Formentera and its beguiling story, particularly the myth around its role in the Inquisition. I really hope you enjoy it!

xxx

 

 

THE ISLAND VILLA available for pre-order now!

Hello! I am thrilled to announce that my latest novel, THE ISLAND VILLA, is available now to pre-order.

Thank you to everyone who sent me such gorgeous feedback with the cover reveal last week! If you haven’t seen it yet – here it is!

The story centres around the beautiful, Spanish island of Formentera, and a secret that goes back to the years of the Inquisition,  it is based on a blend of myth and fact.

A story of two sisters, living in a time of fear and betrayal, and rumours of a stranger on the island. If you loved The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah or The Island by Victoria Hislop, you’ll devour this dramatic tale set in a beautiful Spanish villa where the walls whisper with secrets.

When Charlotte’s husband James tragically dies, he leaves her an unexpected gift – her grandmother’s beautiful villa, Marisal, on the Spanish island of Formentera.

As she begins to explore her new home, and heal her broken heart in the warm golden sunshine, Charlotte discovers that her grandmother Alba had been keeping secrets about her life on the island. Intrigued by her family’s hidden history, Charlotte uncovers a devastating love affair that put many lives at risk and two sisters torn apart by loss.

Can the heartbreaking truth of the island’s dark history finally be laid to rest? Or will the secrets of the past shake the new life and love that Charlotte is close to finding?

OUT 29 JUNE – AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER HERE

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Writing, moving and a big thank you to you guys

Hello my lovelies! Sorry I have been so quiet lately, but I have been hard at work on the next book/s. Or, um, at least, I should be writing …. I have been a bit distracted because as of a week ago we are moving house!

My husband has been offered a job in a different part of the country so we are frantically looking for a house to rent somewhere in Sussex/ Kent. You know, if life hadn’t been busy enough, right?! But while it’s super sad to leave the friends we have made over the last year and a bit, I’m trying hard to focus on it being an adventure too. Sussex and Kent is pretty spectacular but in high demand so finding a house is a bit tricky … wish us luck!

Here are some rather fabulous pics of the county we’re moving to … of course we may not end up in one of these pretty villages which seems to require the deposit of a pair of lungs and a kidney, so I’m probably going to end up somewhere a little less picturesque … but a girl can dream, right?

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Aside from moving though, I really wanted to check in with you guys most of all because of the incredible messages I’ve been receiving lately – from emails to Twitter DMs and messages on Goodreads (how incredible all these ways we have of getting in touch nowadays, right?) you all have been so kind!

Thank you SO much for this guys, it means the world. I’ve had a few readers tell me that they have read all four of my books over the past few weeks, and I cannot tell you how honoured I feel, it’s surreal.  As a reader I used to do this myself but never imagined people would do it with my books so I can’t tell you how incredible it is to hear that some of you have done that! Thank you and for those who read them one at a time I love you just as much, grin.

The two books I’m working on for this year are coming along slowly but surely. The first one will be out in June, and is set on a small Spanish island and involves a secret that goes back to the years of the Inquisition … and the other, which will be out in October if all goes well, is set in Paris in a bookshop in the 60s. Writing two at once was never the plan (I bumbled deadlines) but I can honestly say that when I’m not panicking I’m having a really good time, grin.

How’s your January going? Is it just me or did it feel like this month had about 98 days in it and all of them with dust in the coffers since Christmas?

xx

 

 

 

 

My first YouTube interview! (eep)

Hello everyone!

I’m thrilled (and a little nervous, eep) to share this YouTube interview I did with the absolutely lovely Michelle Dunton for her fab channel Writing Fun. I’ve never been on YouTube before and generally stay very far away from cameras but I felt it was important to conquer those fears and also just let go of being anyone but myself – it’s something I truly believe in and am embracing the older I get. It was also a central message in my latest novel, Christmas at Hope Cottage. So here I am with my girly South African voice (I’ll be about a hundred and still sound twelve … smiling way too much as usual, grin.)

In this interview we speak about the magic of being who you are flaws and all, my latest novel, baking, my crazy yet wonderful relatives and much more.  I really hope you enjoy it!  If you do please give the video a like as it will mean a lot to Michelle and I! x

All the best!

Lily xx

Christmas at Hope Cottage enters the top 15 on Kobo and top 100 on Amazon!

Just wanted to say a HUGE, fudge-filled, massive thank you to you guys for downloading Christmas at Hope Cottage! I’m thrilled to announce that it’s now in the top 100 on Amazon UK, and is currently no 14 on Kobo UK, and no 2 in the contemporary romance category there as well, woo hoo!

Of course, trust me, it’s not about hitting the lists that matters most to me – it’s the fact that with all the books out there you guys have chosen to read mine,  and your support means that I get to keep it up, which means the world! So thank you!!

Here’s a snapshot for prosperity, grin. On Amazon in particular this little bit of magic moves fast so it will most likely drop out of the top 100 which is why I am a screen saving diva lol

Christmas at Hope Cottage out now!

In all the excitement of having my book come out this Wednesday, I didn’t get a chance to share it with you all here, but I’m delighted to announce that CHRISTMAS AT HOPE COTTAGE is out now!

Thank you SO SO much to everyone on Twitter and Facebook who have been sharing it far and wide, and a humungous, Fudge-filled thank you to everyone who received a an ARC and who has taken the time to leave an review. As it stands the book has been out for two days and there’s twenty reviews – twenty! I’m truly touched and overwhelmed.

I’m absolutely delighted to tell you that my new novel, Christmas at Hope Cottage, is out now! This book was a real labour of love, and I faced so many challenges writing it, but I’m thrilled to share it with you.

If you’d like to get the book, it’s available to download now!

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“In the little village of Whistling, with its butterscotch cottages and rolling green hills, snow is beginning to fall. Christmas is coming, and Emma Halloway is on her way home.

When twenty-eight-year-old food writer Emma Halloway gets dumped then knocked off her bike, she’s broken in more ways than one, and returns to her family’s cosy cottage in the Yorkshire Dales. Emma hasn’t been back in some time, running from her crazy relatives and her childhood sweetheart, Jack Allen.

Emma’s grandmother is determined to bake her back to health and happiness, as the Halloways have done for generations. Surrounded by old friends and warm cinnamon buns, Emma starts to believe in her family’s special talents for healing again. But then in walks Jack with his sparkling hazel eyes, stirring up the family feud between them.

As the twinkly lights are strung between the streetlamps, Emma remembers just why she fell for Jack in the first place… and why a Halloway should never date an Allen.

The infuriating new lodger, Sandro, doesn’t believe anyone should have to choose between love and family. With a little bit of Christmas magic, can Emma and Jack find a way to be together, or will Emma find herself heartbroken once more?

I hope you enjoy reading Christmas at Hope Cottage curled up on these cold autumn evenings!

Christmas at Hope Cottage is available from Amazon, iTunes, Google Play and Kobo.

Love,

Lily

Take a cinematic peak inside Hope Cottage

So as my new book is out in three days time. (Three days?!) I thought I’d do something fun and offer you a sneak peak inside, a little cinematic tour of what it would look like if it were a film … I hope you enjoy my little sketch trailer! x

In the small village of Whistling in rural Yorkshire, with its rolling green hills, purple moors and butterscotch cottages, some things never change. October marks the start of the frost, it always snows at Christmas and whenever anyone’s in trouble they visit Hope Cottage, where remedies come on plates…

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It is here that the Halloways have lived for over two-hundred years, making recipes that many believe have the power to change lives.

“It is said that when a Halloway woman kneads dough, long-held quarrels iron themselves out, and when she sieves flour, things fall smoothly back into place…”

Yet not everyone comes knocking on their particular door, with it’s knocker shaped like a curmudgeon of a cat, as not everyone is convinced that the Halloways are who they say they are…

“The Leas’ think the Halloways are witches, the Allens’ that they are expensive frauds, no one remembers long ago that they all used to be friends …”

It is this that has led to one of the oldest feuds between the three largest families in the town since anyone could remember.

A feud that got in the way between a young girl and a young boy …  a boy that happened to be an Allen, a girl that happened to be a Halloway …

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And made her run away …  away from the family business of meddling in people’s lives via food,  and away from the boy she’d given her heart away to at the age of six, most of all. [image error]

Now twenty-eight, a successful food historian and writer, Emma Halloway thinks she’d got it all figured out.

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Except life has other plans … as this Christmas Emma Halloway, is coming home…

Where her grandmother and her crazy aunts believe that they can fix anything with food, even a broken heart.

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Except, not everything is as it was … for one thing there’s a new lodger at Hope Cottage, who is always in the way and he seems to have some new ideas himself … ideas about what makes a happy life, and why family matters most.

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