Steven Scaffardi's Blog, page 2

Author Interview with Steven Scaffardi (taken from Chris Hill's blog)

This author interview was originally posted on Chris Hill's blog on Wednesday, April 27 as part of the #LadLitBlogTour 

A warm welcome today to lad-lit author Steven Scaffardi whose new book The Flood is out right now. Steven and I have both written novels which are romantic comedies from a male perspective plus we both have a background in newspaper journalism so it’s a real pleasure to have him along here today – welcome Steven.

Tell me about your journey as a writer – how you started and how you have developed?
Hey Chris, thanks for taking the time out to chat to me. I studied journalism at university and after graduating I freelanced for a while for various football magazines and lad mags, before becoming the sports editor for a local paper in Crawley.

After three years I switched careers, working in the media and marketing sector, but continued to enjoy writing in my personal time and eventually I wrote The Drought.

In terms of how I have developed my writing skills, I’d say that I try to make sure that each character has a true identity and individual personality. It doesn’t matter if they appear in one chapter or in all of the chapters I want to know exactly how they’d react in a certain situation. The more you know about your characters the easier it is to create the world around them.

How would you describe your work – it‘s themes and the important things about it?
I like to look at love, relationships and dating from the man’s point of view because I think we get it wrong so often that it’s funny! If chick lit is the perfect ‘after’ picture then lad lit is the not-so-perfect ‘before’ picture.

I have sat with my wife on countless occasions shouting at the TV when she has made me watch another one of her romcoms. I get that it’s escapism, but those films do men no favours whatsoever! They set the bar far too high – women watch these films or read chick lit books and expect to meet the perfect man. We’re far from perfect! It’s a fairly well-known fact that when it comes to dating, we’re pretty useless! I’m bringing the bar back down and doing men everywhere a huge favour. No need to thank me – it’s my pleasure!

I know you write in the lad lit genre, can you tell me a bit about the genre and what attracted you to it?
It is indeed lad lit although I am quite happy just labeling it comedy. It tackles relationships and dating from a male perspective. For me, the most important thing is to make people laugh. I used to do stand-up comedy and being able to make people laugh is the best thing in the world.

Let’s be quite frank here – my books are not going to change the world. It’s about a guy trying to get his leg over so he can put an end to his sexual drought! But every time I get a review that says the book had them in stitches or a reader contacts me to let me know that they laughed so hard they spat their tea out on a train, it gives me a lift.

I’m not quite at the sales numbers JK Rowling has achieved yet, but I’ve had people read The Drought from the UK to the US and from Malaysia to the UAE, and knowing that somewhere in all corners of the world someone has laughed at my words is awesome! It takes on a different meaning when I tell you that The Drought was loosely based on a period in my own life, which pretty much means that people on each continent are laughing at me but that’s a different story!

Tell me about your current book – what is it about and what makes it a great read?
I am just about to publish my second novel The Flood. It is a follow-up to The Drought and part of the Sex, Love & Dating Disasters series I am writing. From my point of view it was great fun writing it as I got to ‘work’ with a lot of the same characters again as I became quite fond of them the first time round.

I’m hoping this one will be equally if not funnier than The Drought. So far it has been getting some really good feedback on Goodreads with one reader saying: “Oh my gosh, laugh out LOUD funny! My roommate ran in the room asking what was so funny and when I told her, she laughed so hard she could no longer walk!”

Tell me about your journey to publication, who is your publisher or did you decide to self-publish and why?
I self-published with a company called Acorn Independent Press. They were super helpful and they’re really cool guys too. I tried going down the traditional publishing route after I had written The Drought but I didn’t get very far. This time round I didn’t approach and literary agents or publishers, for no other reason than I couldn’t quite bring myself to write so many submission letters again!

I’ve had quite a lot of fun getting to know readers across social media and Goodreads so I just decided to stick to what I know. I got inspired by other self-published authors like Nick Spalding (who also writes lad lit) who did amazing self-publishing his own books. And the anonymous author The Bourbon Kid series – which happens to be my favourite set of books at the moment – self-published and he has just sold the film rights to Hollywood. So as that 90s diva Gabrielle said, dreams can come true!

Where can I buy a copy of your book?
You can buy my books at Amazon. The eBook is just 99p and the paperback is £8.99. The Flood will be available on the Kindle from April 30 (you can pre-order now for 99p) and the paperback will be published on May 19. However, as a special treat over the upcoming Bank Holiday weekend, I am running a giveaway from April 28 to May 2 so you can download The Drought for free!

Where can we find out more about you?
You can find my at all the usual hot spots – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Instagram and on Goodreads. Plus you can follow me on my blog, and if you want to know more about lad lit make sure you follow the #LadLitBlogTour and #LadLitSunday hashtags.

Character interview with Jack Chatham from The Drought and The Flood (taken from Rachel's Random Reads)

This character interview was originally posted on Rachel's Random Reads on Thursday, April 28 as part of the #LadLitBlogTour

Jack Chatham is the happy-go-lucky cockney character from the Sex, Love and Dating Disaster book series, and good friends with the main protagonist Dan Hilles. Today he has popped into Rachel’s Random Reads as part of the Lad Lit Blog Tour…

Welcome to Rachel’s Random Reads Jack. Thanks for joining us, please tell the readers a little bit about yourself.
Thanks Rachel, I’m excited to be here. Out of the four boys who star in The Drought and The Flood, I’m the joker in the pack. I’m the one who keeps the banter full to the brim. Girls love a man with a sense of humour, you know?

Is that right? In The Drought you are known to favour chat-up lines when attempting to woo a lady. What is your best chat-up line?
There are so many Rachel, but it’s all in the delivery. Allow me to demonstrate (clears throat, licks his finger and wipes it down Rachel’s top). Let’s get you out of those wet clothes! And if that one doesn’t work I normally just invite the girl back to my place for pizza and sex. If she says no, at least I know she doesn’t like pizza.

Really? That’s your best chat-up line? No wonder your friend Dan experienced a sexual drought if that was the sort of advice he was getting!
What are you talking about? That is top grade material right there. It is not my fault Dan is hopeless with the ladies.

Tell me a bit more about Dan and how he comes to end up in this predicament.
Basically you either have the golden touch with the girls or you don’t, if you catch my drift Rachey babe. Dan’s problem was that he stupidly got himself into a relationship and wasted three years when he could have been playing the field like me! So when he broke up with his ex-Stacey – which by the way was hilariously messy – he had completely forgotten how to go on the pull. It was embarrassing to be honest; watching him get into one ridiculous situation after the next. Do you know that he once went on a date and was unable to seal the deal because he got chased away by a sausage dog? True story.

In an attempt to help Dan get over his drought, you and the boys take him on a road trip. You created a set of rules for you and your friends to abide by. What is the most important rule you have to obey on a road trip?
That one is easy Rachey babe…

Stop calling me Rachey babe.
…What happens on tour, stays on tour! When you’re away with the lads, you can’t go blabbing about every little detail when you get home. In The Drought I delivered a 10 point rule all men should follow when they hit the open road for the ultimate lad getaway. You can read it here.

Things are a little bit different for Dan in The Flood as this time round he makes a bet with you and your friends that he can date four girls all at once. What can you tell us about that?
Watching him transform into a nervous wreck trying to keep each girl from finding out about each other was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Dan never makes things easy for himself. Instead of finding himself four quiet and unassuming girls that would have been easy to deal with, he goes and dates a stalker, his crazy ex-girlfriend, the office ice queen, and a girl so hot she could melt the polar ice caps. The problem is, when you are as unlucky-in-love as Dan is, it is never going to be smooth sailing!

Okay, time for a quick-fire question round before we wrap this up. Who would you be stuck on a desert island with?
Cheryl Cole.

What is your greatest ambition?
To be stuck on a desert island with Cheryl Cole.

What's your greatest fear?
That if I made it on to that island with Cheryl Cole, she might be good at boat making.

Thanks for joining me Jack and good luck with promoting The Drought and The Flood.
It was my pleasure Rachey babe. Hey, do you like pizza?

Sigh.

"The Flood can definitely be read as a stand alone... I was smiling the whole way through" - The Flood book review (taken from Rachel's Random Reads)

This book review was originally posted on Rachel's Random Reads on Thursday, April 28, 2016 as part of the #LadLitBlogTour

My only slight regret with regard to this book, is that I didn't make the time to read The Drought first, and that is purely because I loved the writing so much in The Flood, that I'm already longing for more. The Flood can definitely be read as a stand alone and enjoyed as such, and I was smiling the whole way through.

My first impressions of this book, was that it reminded me a bit of that 90s TV programme, Men Behaving Badly, especially with regards some of the humour. I find that humour is subjective, so although this didn't have me rolling on the floor with laughter, as I may have been hoping, I did find it very amusing, and there are some brilliant one liners.

In fact any time Olly or Steph said something they got either a giggle or an eye roll from me, depending on the exact level of stupidity they were displaying. They are loveable characters, just unfortunately a bit dim, or as Olly said for himself at one point, that he needed to work on his "vocadbury".

If you are a person who doesn't like reading about men dating multiple people at one time, then this may not be the best book for you. However this is fiction, none of these women got hurt in the making of the book, and it is all a bit of fun, especially for a group of four lads in their twenties, as a result of a very drunken bet.

The Flood is a brilliant example of the Lad Lit genre between its sense of humour and the overall storylines and situations the characters find themselves in. This is emphasised by Dan and the four women he attempts to date simultaneously which include his ex-girlfriend, a stalker, the office ice queen who loves bad boys and the girl he has previously messed up two previous dates with.

We also get to know all of Dan's friends really well, and with the introduction of reasonably naive lad into the group, who needs Jack's expert tuition to be better with the ladies. There are chat up lines galore in this book, as well as drunken hijinx, a very weird flatmate, the stalker's stalker, and all manner of weird and wonderful happenings.

All I am going to say at this point is that books ends with those three words can really bug a person, and I am really looking forward to the next edition of this Sex, Love and Dating Disasters series. I think Steven Scaffardi is definitely a talent to be watched in this genre.

The Lad Lit FAQ

This guest blog was originally posted on The Book Review Cafe on Tuesday, April 26, 2016 as part of the #LadLitBlogTour

The most frequently asked question I get these days is “So what is lad lit?” It’s not exactly the thing you want to hear as a lad lit author – one reader after another confessing to not having heard of the genre you have put so much work into. It’s a bit like being Kim Kardashian and someone asking you what a selfie is.

The truth is lad lit has many names – bro lit, dick lit, fratire, bloke lit, chick lit for men. And it could technically fall into a number of different categories such as humour. But whatever name people want to label it, there is no denying that some of the best contemporary fiction in recent times can be classed as lad lit. Take High Fidelity by Nick Hornby for example.

So when I knew I’d be popping into The Book Café for my favourite cup of coffee, I decided to bring along my very own lad lit menu of FAQs to try and answer the questions on everyone’s lips. So…

What is lad lit?
Lad lit is best known as the male equivalent of chick-lit, primarily written by men exploring relationships, emotions and day-to-day life experiences from the perspective of a male protagonist. Often told with humour, charm and wit, lad lit leaves many readers laughing out loud at the scenarios men get into.

Who writes lad lit?
There are a cluster of best-selling authors in the UK writing lad lit including Mike Gayle, Danny Wallace, Nick Spalding, Matt Dunn, Tony Parsons, Jon Rance and the undisputed king of lad lit – Nick Hornby. A Bafta winner and two-time Oscar nominee no less!

So why haven’t I heard of it before?
Lad lit has been living in the shadow of its older and much more successful sibling, chick lit, for quite some time now. Plus there is a common perception that women read more than men, so sometimes it is not obvious where the fan base would come from.

Is lad lit just for men then?
No, not at all. It’s certainly a genre that men can relate to with great hilarity, but at the same time it offers an alternative to chick lit and opens up the door to a man’s mind leaving women to worry if that’s what men really think with a nervous laugh!

What’s the difference between chick lit and lad lit?
Apart from the obvious (one is written from a woman’s point of view and the other is an insight into the male mind), then not too much really. They both tackle the same sort of issues, but of course you’re always going to get different completely different angles, and in that very subtle difference is the major separator. After all, men are from mars and women are from venus.

How will I know if I will like lad lit or not?
The best way to find out is to sample it. You can read chapter one of The Flood HERE

How is the Lad Lit Blog Tour going to help raise the profile of lad lit?
I’m hoping to promote the genre to as many book lovers as possible. A lot of readers would have picked up a lad lit novel before without even realising it is lad lit. I hope as many people as possible follow the #LadLitBlogTour and I’d be happy to answer more questions on Twitter.

If lad lit was a film, what would it be?
It would probably be something like The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Knocked Up. In the case of my Sex, Love and Dating Disaster series, a TV producer actually likened The Drought to hit Channel 4 comedy The Inbetweeners.

Seeing as you have brought it up, what is The Drought about?
The Drought is the laugh-out-loud tale of one man’s quest to overcome the throes of a sexual drought. After the stormy break-up with his girlfriend of three years, Dan Hilles is faced with the daunting task of throwing himself back into the life of a single man. With the help of his three best pals, Dan is desperate and determined to get his leg-over with hilarious consequences!

And you are sure that women are going to enjoy this as much as men?
Oh yes, in fact Chick Lit Plus gave it a four-star review and said: “Steven Scaffardi’s first novel is absolutely hilarious and will leave every reader, male or female, laughing out loud.”

Finally, what is The Flood all about?
Much of the same in terms of the laughs, but this time Dan makes a very silly drunken bet that he can date four women at the same time, and of course, it turns into a total nightmare! Not that he should be surprised when he is dating a stalker, his ex-girlfriend, the office ice queen and the one that got away.

Chick Lit vs Lad Lit

This was originally posted on Chick Lit Goddess on Monday, April 25 as part of #LadLitBlogTour

“But a man wouldn’t say that!”

This is a common rant I direct at my wife, normally heard a few seconds after I have picked up a copy of whatever chick lit book she happens to be reading at the time and have skimmed a few lines.

“And he definitely wouldn’t turn into a vampire.”

That specific rant is reserved for when she happens to be reading Twilight.

I’ll hold my hands up and admit I’ve never actually read a chick lit novel, but I’ve been forced to endure plenty of romcom films and I’ve skimmed enough pages to know that chick lit is setting the bar far too high for us men.

Let’s be honest ladies – how many of those perfect male chick lit characters who win the heart of the main female protagonist have you actually met in real life?

I’m not trying to say that men are completely clueless when it comes to the opposite sex, but there’s a reason why wine and girls nights out were invented, so you could all sit around commiserating about the fact that we are still friends with our ex’s on Facebook and don’t see why that’s a problem.

I often use the analogy that if book genres were a diet then chick lit would be the perfect ‘after’ picture and lad lit would be the rather sheepish looking ‘before’ picture.

I sometimes wonder if there is some sort of conspiracy that I don’t know about and all of these chick lit novels are actually written by men pretending to be women, just so the seed can be planted that there is an abundance of flawless men somewhere out there.

But then I realised that if a man did have that idea, he’d probably get so excited that he’d call his mates up to invite them to the pub to celebrate, drink too much, neglect to text his girlfriend to let her know he’d be late home, roll in at about 4am with a kebab and completely forget the great idea he thought of.

That’s why I believe men write lad lit, to create some balance in the world. Lad lit is about exposing the male mind to female eyes and leaving women the world over wondering: is that what men really think?

And when you think about it, lad lit is the perfect companion for chick lit fans. It’s the other side of the coin, the yin to the chick lit yang, the John Lennon to the Yoko Ono. Lad lit is completely different to chick lit, yet exactly the same – just like the perfect relationship.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that chick lit vs lad lit is a bit like the battle of the sexes. We both strive to get the upper hand in the gender stakes, but at the same time we simply can’t live without each other.

So I’ll make all of you chick lit fans a deal right now. I’ll pick up a chick lit novel and I’ll give it a chance if you do the same for lad lit. But please, promise me one thing – don’t judge us. We try our best, and just like lad lit, all we want to do is put a smile on your face.

#LadLitBlogTour Rewind! Interview with Chick Lit Goddess

This interview was originally posted on Chick Lit Goddess on Monday, April 25, 2016 as part of the #LadLitBlogTour

Describe yourself in five words: 
Husband, father, friend, sarcastic and imaginative.

Tell us about your writing/editing/publishing process?
I try to write between 1-2 hours a day, and maybe a little more at the weekends. Writing is not my day job so I have to juggle a few things around it, but I try to use those everyday experiences as inspiration. I think the funniest things in life are those actions or scenarios that everyone can relate to. For example, in my new book The Flood, there are three or four scenes set around the main character’s train journey to and from work, and it includes people and situations that most commuters see on a daily basis. The reaction to those scenes in the book from book bloggers I gave preview copies to has been brilliant, with many of them highlighting those parts as the funniest.

In terms of publishing and editing, I self-publish so I do a lot of it myself. I must have written over 30 drafts of The Flood, and in the end I had to just stop myself because you end up becoming too familiar with the story and then want to change it all. You have to know when to walk away and know that you’ve done the best job you can.

If you could meet any author, who would it be and why? 
Wow, that’s a hell of a question! I have a few favourite authors who I bet have some great stories to tell. People like Ben Mezrich who has written brilliant stories such as the birth of Facebook to the MIT students who took down Las Vegas casinos, or maybe Jeff Abbott or John Grisham who I admire greatly for being able to create such suspense within their writing. But I think the one author I’d love to meet is probably Stephen King. I think he has one of the most imaginative minds on the planet. He is known for writing horror stories, but he has written so many different types of genres. For example, two of my favourite films of all time – Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption – were both inspired by Stephen King stories.

Tell us about the genre, Lad Lit? 
Lad lit is the male equivalent to chick lit. It is books primarily written by men about men, or certainly from the male perspective. Like chick lit it traditionally focuses on subjects such as love, relationships, and dating. From a personal point of view, I think lad lit should always have humour at the heart of the story.

Hard/paperbacks or eBooks?
As much as I love to embrace new technology, you can’t beat the feeling of holding a book in your hands. I think eBooks are great and make so many different types of books accessible to people all over the world, but sit me on a beach with a good paperback and I’m as happy as can be.

What’s a typical day like for you? 
I work in the media and marketing sector and luckily I get to travel all over the world for my job, so each day is varied. But the two constants in my life are my amazing wife and our beautiful baby daughter. I make a lot of fun in my books about the differences between men and women, but I love those two little ladies more than life itself.

What are you reading? 
I’ve just finished reading a book called Milk-Blood by Adrian Simon. It’s an autobiography about a guy in Australia whose father was convicted of trafficking heroin and sentenced to 12 years in a Thai prison. He talks about the impact his father’s choices had on him as a young child, but what makes this book so good was that Adrian has led such an amazing life. It’s an incredible story.

Is the social media a help or a hinder? 
I’d definitely say it’s a help because it has allowed authors – particularly indie authors like myself – to have direct access to readers. But it can be very time consuming. Take Twitter for example – you are playing in a field of over 300m users. Where do you even begin to get through to the right people? But it makes it all worth it when you get a tweet out of the blue from someone halfway around the world that has some nice things to say about your book. It makes it all worth it.

Do you have any writing rituals?
One I have is that I like to create a music playlist for whatever book I happen to be working on. It’s a bit like a movie soundtrack and it helps me come up with ideas when I’m listening to it. I also like to give each character as much background as possible, even if they are just appearing in one chapter. The more you know about a character, the better prepared you are to write about how they would react in different situations, and makes them less two-dimensional.

What do you want people to take away from your books?
I want them to walk away with a smile, having laughed their way through the pages and not taken anything too seriously. Life is too short. Smile, laugh, chuckle. I used to do stand-up comedy and there is nothing quite like being able to make a room for of people laugh at the jokes and stories you have made up. I love it when readers contact me to tell me that my book has literally made them laugh out loud in public. It’s a great feeling.

Every author must have (a):
Perseverance. In abundance! I think you have to write for the love of it, and don’t expect people to read your book just because you have written one. Heck, you’ll be lucky if all of your friends even read your book! It’s tough trying to write, promote, and market your book all by yourself, so you’ll need to persevere at every corner.

What are you working on right now?
I have just finished my second novel The Flood, so I am trying to promote that but I am planning on a third book in the Sex, Love and Dating Disasters series. The working title is The Pact and all I can really say at this stage is that the boys travel to Latvia and encounter a bunch of gangsters, drag queens, pimps, corrupt cops and lots more. I’m looking forward to getting it down on paper!

My top five favourite characters from the Sex, Love & Dating Disasters series

This guest post was originally postedon Amy's Bookish Life on Tuesday, May 10 as part of the #LadLitBlogTour

On Sunday, before taking my daughter over to the park to enjoy the rare bit of the London sunshine, I was watching a bit of Sunday Brunch (don’t judge me – I’m 38. This is what I do with my life now!), and John Barrowman was talking about the series of YA books he writes with his sister, Carole. At one point he was telling a story of how his sister called him up late one night in tears, crying that she simply couldn’t kill off one of the characters they had created because she had simply grown too attached.

It got my thinking about the characters in my Sex, Love and Dating Disaster series. Who are the characters I simply couldn’t live without in the series?

So for this blog post, I wanted to share with you my top five favourite characters from The Drought and The Flood, and hopefully this will give you a bit of an insight to what lad lit is all about.

5. Kelly Campbell
Kelly is probably the most challenging character I have to write about, because unlike the other female characters in the books, she is actually quite normal! But with that normality comes great responsibility. With more female readers of my books than male, Kelly is my one chance at proving that I had some knowledge of the female mind (although my wife would argue even that is pretty limited!). But Kelly is crucial to the book, because without her it would simply be Dan listening to a bunch of bad advice from his mates. She brings balance to the crazy world that Dan lives in, and creating a friendship between the two of them has been a lot of fun.

4. Ollie Pemberton
How could you not love a guy who thinks Kama Sutra was the name of a foreign exchange student he went to school with, or believes that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is historically accurate?! I think everyone has a friend like Ollie – the sort of guy who would do anything for you, but is as thick as two short planks! No matter what the situation the boys get themselves into, you can guarantee that Ollie will always say or do the wrong thing to make things even worse. I never get bored of trying to come up with an Ollie one-liner that is even more ridiculous than the last!


3. Dan Hilles
With no Dan Hilles, there would be no Sex, Love and Dating Disasters. Dan is the main man of books – the unlucky-in-love fool who can’t catch a break! Whether it’s experiencing a sexual drought in the The Drought or comically stumbling his way through having to date four girls at the same time in The Flood, you can always count on Dan to keep proving beyond doubt that men are definitely not hopeless romantics. We are, in fact, hopeless at romance. A lot of what happens to Dan has either come from personal experiences or those from friends, so he holds a very special place in my heart. For all the wrong reasons!


2. Denise Andrews
Denise is without doubt the most unpredictable of characters I have written so far. She was so much fun to write, because you could take her in so many directions depending on the situation. My favourite has to be the train scenes with Dan which has gotten so much positive response from readers because of how funny they are. Denise turns up in The Flood as one of the four women Dan ends up dating, and the fact she is known as a stalker tells you quite a lot already! Along with her ex-boyfriend, Ronnie (who by the way ends up stalking Dan too), I was never short of comical scenarios to stick her in. She was brilliant to write about, and secretly I think I’d like to date her too… just the once though!

1. Jack Chatham
Like marmite, you either love Jack, or you hate him, but I have nothing but love for the mouthy, little, cockney-wannabee who is always raring to take the mickey out of someone’s misfortune (normally Dan!). Jack’s relationship with Ollie is another highlight to write, because it pits the big, gormless, giant against the sharp-tongued mini assassin! The king of the chat-up lines with a small-man syndrome, Jack is the guy you probably warn your friends against dating, but can’t help but warm to once you get to know him. He is the little devil that lives inside each and every man, even though we might not show it quite as much as Jack.

"Brilliantly written, character driven, laugh out loud funny….. Steven Scaffardi makes writing comedy look easy!" - Chat About Books reviews The Flood

This book review was originally posted on Chat About Books on Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Having read The Drought (Sex, Love and Dating disasters, Book 1) not so long ago (You can find my review here – The Drought) I just had to read The Flood as soon as I possibly could.

These books are just hilarious!! If you fancy a laugh, give them a go, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

I have thoroughly enjoyed catching up with Dan, Rob, Ollie and Jack (amongst others) again, but especially Dan. I definitely have a soft spot for him. He really needs to chill out and go with the flow a bit more. He tries far too hard, in an attempt to impress the ladies, and in doing so gets himself into all sorts of awkward situations!! (The men’s toilet scene with Dan and Ronnie! LOL!!!!!! One of many hilarious moments.)

In contrast to The Drought, where Dan fails to get his leg over for what seems like an eternity, The Flood sees him trying to juggle four different women and not at all successfully, bless him. It makes for a highly amusing read though. I loved it!

Brilliantly written, character driven, laugh out loud funny….. Steven Scaffardi makes writing comedy look easy!

I can’t wait for Book 3!

Amy's Bookish Life gives The Flood a four-star book review!

This book review was originally posted on Amy's Bookish Life on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 as part of the #LadLitBlogTour

4/5 Stars
After reading The Drought and absolutely loving it, I had really high hopes for The Flood. I was really looking forward to getting stuck in and following the adventures of Dan Hilles once more.

After his eight month 'drought' Dan Hilles is ready to put his dating disasters behind him and get back in the driving seat, if only things were that simple. After a drunken afternoon, Dan bets his three friends that he can juggle multiple women at the same time within eight weeks. Sure enough, this isn't plain sailing as Dan soon finds out how hard it is to date four different women without them all finding out about each other. Things soon come to ahead in comical circumstances.

The Flood, like it's predecessor was absolutely hilarious, in a hurt your ribs laughing kind of way. I feel that in this book Dan got himself into more awkward situations than he did in The Drought. Some of them involving pub toilets, giant dogs, a strange flatmate, unfortunate train situations and fights. It was certainly humour at it's best. Like with The Drought it was so hard to stop myself from laughing when reading it in public and I certainly did get a few strange looks, which I couldn't care less about.

All the same characters that I'd grown to love in The Drought were back for The Flood such as Rob, Jack and Ollie and there were also new characters introduced which I found myself loving such as Ieuan and Steph. I found it quite endearing how Jack took Ieuan under his wing and called him 'Iron'. It was little things like that that made the book what it was. I found Dan in The Flood to be somewhat of a lovable prat. I found myself rolling my eyes and the lies he told and the predicaments he got himself into, but at the end of the day I couldn't stop myself from liking him. I think I liked him more in this, than I did in The Drought which I was quite shocked about to be honest.

What I also enjoyed about The Flood was the fact that yes we got the male perspective of things which we had in The Drought, but we also got to see a female perspective as well. In The Drought we didn't really find out a lot about the girls Dan was perusing, however in The Flood we got to find out a lot more about them. I found it rather interesting how my perception of Denise, Dan's 'stalker' changed after finding out some rather shocking things about her. I just found it to be a great thing to have the women in the story more of central thing in this book.

I found The Flood to be a great follow up to The Drought. It was full of the typical British lad humour that I'd come to expect and I couldn't stop myself from laughing. I love how the story ended on a cliffhanger leaving us wanting more and I for one cannot wait to read the next book in the series.

"I am just going to come right out and say it, this book was friggin' hilarious!" Amy's Bookish Life reviews The Drought

This book review was originally posted on Amy's Bookish Life on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 as part of the #LadLitBlogTour

4/5 Stars
I'm a big fan of Chick Lit and I love immersing myself in it. However, I'd never heard of Lad Lit until Steven Scaffardi contacted me. The genre itself intrigued me and I knew I had to know more and delve into it with an open mind. The Drought was my first look into the world of Lad Lit and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised.

Dan Hilles is an average lad who after breaking up with his long-term girlfriend, Stacey, finds himself single and available. Having been out of the dating game for a long while, he is understandably a bit rusty. We go on a journey with Dan as he, alongside his friends Rob, Jack and Ollie attempt to end his drought and get back into the saddle. It isn't without its downsides though as we experience how hard it really is for Dan to talk to women, date women and get out of this Drought he has found himself in.

I am just going to come right out and say it, this book was friggin' hilarious! I found myself laughing at almost every single page. I was reading it in public at times and it was so hard too stifle my laughs. I couldn't believe some of the predicaments that Dan got himself into at times, and it just made the humour even funnier. The bit that got me the most was a moment between Dan, some condoms and a dog, it literally had me in tears of laughter. The dynamic between Dan and his friends Rob, Jack and Ollie reminded me of The Inbetweeners in a way. They had that sort of dynamic and I could somewhat imagine the four of them having their own show about their escapades. I know I'd watch it!

As this is Lad Lit, like Chick Lit it obviously had sexual scenes within it. I know some people may have a problem with that, but for me I found it perfectly reasonable for the genre. I feel like the scenes were handled well, and especially with this book they were also pretty laughable. I don't think anyone would really have a problem with them and if they do, then that's their own choice. I think many twenty-something lads would relate with Dan as a character. He is easily relatable and I'm sure many lads will have experienced some of the same things as he experienced throughout the book. He is, in my opinion a very real character, unlike so many others you get nowadays.

For my first look into Lad Lit, I admit I absolutely loved The Drought! It was funny, it kept me hooked and I found myself become rather immersed in the story. It was also great how typically British it was and I did love the fact that it was set in London. If you are looking into giving Lad Lit a go, definitely start off by reading The Drought. You will honestly love it!