Nicola Doherty's Blog, page 5

Christmas 2014: cabins, crackers and cats

Today is the first day back at work and even though my commute is only down the corridor I’m having trouble re-adjusting. We had a lovely Christmas. We went to Dublin on the ferry which was totally fine despite my memory of traumatic over-crowded crossings in the past, especially since we splashed out and booked a cabin where we could actually stretch out and sleep during the journey. Recommended. And Dublin was lovely and full of family and friends though in retrospect we maybe tried to pack too many things in, all while racing around trying to buy crackers. Oh, the crackers. My sister in law made Christmas dinner and our only job was to bring crackers. We carefully and lovingly chose some ages ago to take to Dublin, and then left them under the bed in London. You’d be surprised at how many places sell out of crackers by 24 December (or maybe you wouldn’t, in fact if you were the man in Dunnes Stores you’d be positively smug about it). In retrospect we probably needn’t have spent a morning looking for crackers but it seemed Very Important at the time especially since I didn’t want to be the flaky youngest child and have people say ‘You had one job‘. I was saying to a friend that if some anthropologist saw us all racing around looking for these important totem items without which the feast cannot take place they would say we’ve barely moved on from cavemen times. But she responded that really all of Christmas is like that: we all fear that if we take away one thing the whole edifice will collapse. Anyway, we got some in the end. Phew.

And then we came back to London and we had cats! Not forever cats: we had two cats staying with us for a few days while their owners went away. I really, really want a cat and was looking forward to having these as trial cats to see how it went. Unfortunately it was a bit of a disaster – for the cats, not us. I’ll do a separate post on them but anyway the main thing is the cats are fine now. Thank God.

In more cheerful news I got some lovely presents – cat slippers, and two perfumes from the Library of Fragrance (Rain and Gin and Tonic).  And I bought myself a few Barbara Pym books and have spent the last week mainly on the sofa, watching The Americans (so good), The Borgias (OK, but it’s no Game of Thrones) and the end of Mad Men Season 7 Part One or whatever it is (picks up after a slow start) and Pitch Perfect (it’s aca-pretty good). And now it’s all dark and cold and we’ve put the Cadbury’s Heroes away and I’ve signed up for a half marathon and I don’t like it. Oh well, only eleven months and 20 days and it’ll be time for Christmas again.

Are you feeling Christmassy or are you having a festive m...

Are you feeling Christmassy or are you having a festive meltdown already? I’m feeling very sparkly and just attended a gorgeous carol service at St Bartholomew’s in Smithfield (which I didn’t realise is both the oldest church in London AND was used in Four Weddings and a Funeral). BUT, to prepare for the other aspect of Christmas, I’ve also written a blog post for Headline about how to survive festive meltdowns and fights with your nearest and dearest. You can read it here.

My top 5 rom-coms to watch at Christmas

When it comes to watching a film to get me in the mood for Christmas, I like a rom-com. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of Elf, or Gremlins, or Muppet Christmas Carol, and I’m also going to watch Die Hard for the first time this year (it’s a Christmas film, apparently). But I think the best Christmas films – the ones that I want to watch while snuggled up in front of the fire, with a hot chocolate or a Bailey’s – have a sprinkling of romance in them somewhere. Here are some of my favourites …

1. Groundhog Day

Love this film. Groundhog Day is 1 February so strictly speaking this isn’t a Christmas film as such. But there’s snow on the ground, and Andie McDowell becomes a snow angel, and Bill Murray gets a chance to mend his ways and become a better person so he’s basically Scrooge and it’s an updated version of A Christmas Carol but with a love story as well.  What more could you want?

2. Peter’s Friends

A group of college friends (Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Kenneth Branagh etc) gather for a reunion over New Year’s Eve: cue lots of fun, alcohol, romance and bad behaviour. I love the scene where Emma Thompson’s character produces Christmas presents for everyone and they all protest because they didn’t know they were doing presents, until in the end she screams ‘Just take the fucking presents!’ and runs out of the room. Christmas in a nutshell.

3. Metropolitan

This is another favourite film of mine: I’ve written about it before. It’s about a group of debutantes in Manhattan during Christmas vacation, ‘Not so long ago’. It’s sort of Woody Allen meets St Elmo’s Fire I suppose. They play bridge and dance the cha-cha and play Truth or Dare, and there’s a subtle little love triangle which doesn’t end the way you think it will, and a character called Fred who falls asleep in every scene. Here’s a great article on the making of this film.

4. When Harry Met Sally

You might not think of this as a Christmas film …. until you remember the ending, with Harry running to meet Sally on New Year’s Eve. And Manhattan can’t help but be Christmassy. One of my favourite scenes is when Sally’s dragging her Christmas tree along by herself, remembering last year when Harry helped her with the tree. The soundtrack is dreamy too, with Ella Fitzgerald and Harry Connick Jnr sounding like mulled wine and crackling fires.

5. The Holiday

I’ll admit it: this Nancy Meyers film about Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet doing a transatlantic house swap over Christmas does look a tad cheesy at first.  Jude Law is a ‘book editor’ who lives in a seven-bedroom mansion and Kate Winslet as a newspaper staffer who lives in a fairytale cottage in an impossibly chocolate boxy village… But it’s really charming, and fun, and Rufus Sewell is brilliant as a toxic ex who won’t let go and insists on being ‘friends’. And there’s a really great moment where Kate Winslet tells her Mr Wrong ‘I’ve got a life to live! And you’re not in it!’ Great stuff.

And finally here’s one I’ve got lined up: Happy Christmas.

This looks like just the kind of indie comedy that I love. It’s got Melanie Lynskey, who was great in Hello I Must Be Going, and Anna Kendrick and Lena Dunham, and it’s about a chaotic irresponsible sister who moves in with her sensible older brother and his novelist wife, so I’ve basically got to watch it. That’s Saturday night taken care of …

Maggie Does Meribel is out today!!

Love and other disasters in the French Alps: you can buy it or read an extract here. I really hope you like it … And as I said below, if you want to find out what happens to David and to Rachel after the end of If I Could Turn Back Time, then this is the ebook novella for you.  Enjoy!!

Countdown to Maggie Does Meribel

This is an exciting week. I can’t allow myself to get excited about Christmas until December 1 but now we are ON. We’re lighting a fire in the evenings, I’m planning on buying a Christmas tree this week, we’re due at our first Christmas party on Saturday … and it’s also the release of my new ebook novella Maggie Does Meribel on Thursday!!

Maggie Does Meribel  is about a girl who goes on a skiing holiday over New Year’s with her boyfriend Leo, and a group of his friends who she’s never met before. Maggie and Leo have been having problems, and a romatic skiing holiday will be just the thing to bring them closer together. Those group holidays always go smoothly, right? Right?? Well, no.

Like all the Girls on Tour series, Maggie can be read as a stand-alone story. It can also be read as part of the series, since Maggie is the best friend of Lily from Lily Does LA, and she and Lily also appear in the next book, Rachel Does Rome. But Maggie can also be read as a sort of bonus section to my last full-length book. ***Spoiler alert: Do not read any further if you haven’t read If I Could Turn Back Time***

Because it’s a small world, Maggie ends up going on holiday with four people from If I Could Turn Back Time: Rachel and Oliver, who are now a couple, David, who’s there on holiday with his new girlfriend Nina, and of course Jenny, who still goes wherever David goes, new girlfriend or not. I felt a bit sorry for David at the end of If I Could Turn Back Time. He’s not a bad guy, and just because he wasn’t right for Zoe, doesn’t mean that he couldn’t be happy with someone else. But what kind of girl? I had fun finding exactly the right person for David. I also knew that Jenny would continue causing problems between them … And I wanted to conclude the story of David and Jenny in a suitably dramatic way.

So that’s the story behind Maggie Does Meribel. You can buy or pre-order it here. I really hope you like it … And happy start of Winterval!

The Library of Fragrance

I don’t like buying perfumes, partly out of pikiness but partly because I get sick of them so quickly. Of the four ones I use at the moment, one was a present (Clarins Eau Dynamisante), one is a cast-off from a friend who didn’t like it (Coco Mademoiselle), one was free in a goody bag at London Fashion Weekend (Juicy Couture Viva La Juicy – actually very nice) and one I got half-full on eBay (MOR Marshmallow – adorable but only in small doses).

However, I love trying perfumes, and am a total snob about them (which is probably another reason why I don’t buy them much as my tastes are too expensive). In my first job, when I worked in a little literary agency in Soho, I used to go to Liberty’s during my lunch break and drift around smelling all the perfumes. They must have loved me in there. I was (and still am) very into Serge Lutens and L’Artisan Parfumeur (Tea for Two is gorgeous) and Diptyque – though my boss at the time wore L’Ombre dans L’eau which sort of ruled it out.  But Liberty’s had a more affordable and very cool range called Demeter Fragrance Library – little 30ml bottles of weird scents like Dirt, Gin and Tonic, Baby Powder and Holy Water as well as limited editions like PlayDoh (wish I had bought that one). The one I really loved was Rain. When I first tried it I literally swooned and I wore it loads until someone said something very uncomplimentary about it (she thought it smelled too, shall we say, earthy) and I stopped. Then Liberty’s stopped stocking Demeter and I stopped wearing Rain. The End. Sad face.

But! Boots have recently started stocking Demeter – they’ve called it The Library of Fragrance but it has to be the same thing, otherwise a major law suit is pending. The great thing about this range is that they’re all small and they’re all about £15, so it’s a good way to experiment, especially if you get sick of perfumes easily, like me. I also love the packaging, it’s so clean and sort of intellectual – the kind of perfume you could slip into a Marc Jacobs handbag along with a Penguin Classic. Here’s the link to the full range:

http://www.boots.com/en/Boots-Brands-A-to-Z/Library-of-Fragrance/

The other perfume I really miss is Mac MV2: a sort of vanilla/leather/butter scent, which Mac cruelly discontinued though you can sometimes find it for big bucks on eBay.

Anyone else out there have a favourite perfume that no longer exists? There’s a romantic topic …

Does it count as fan art when it’s your own book?

This is the sketch  I created to try and show my publishers how the girls in Girls on Tour all know each other …  Using the ‘seven squiggles and add hair’ ™ method I developed during boring Geography classes when I was fourteen.

I can’t believe they managed to turn it into this. Or that the brilliant Adrian Valencia managed to turn it into this … I may not be embarking on a career as a professional illustrator any time soon:

Ta-dah … Girls Take Manhattan cover reveal!

While I was on holiday in the States I got a very exciting email containing … this! It’s the cover of THE GIRLS TAKE MANHATTAN, the final e-novella in the Girls on Tour series. AKA the one where they all get together and have a wild weekend in New York. I absolutely love it and I love that all the details are right, from what they’re wearing (including Poppy’s Clarks brogues) and most importantly, the fact that I can instantly tell who’s who. From left to right: Maggie, Rachel, Lily and Poppy. Created by the talented Adrian Valencia.

Have you pre-ordered your copy yet??

Why Lily is my favourite Girl on Tour

(Shh, don’t tell the others.) Obviously I love all the Girls on Tour equally …. but if I HAD to pick a favourite, it would be Lily. I just love her. I find that there are some characters you have to build from the ground up: by writing lists of their favourite things, and who influenced them growing up, etc. That’s not a bad way, but it’s obviously much more convenient when they pop into your head fully formed. That’s what Lily did. I can’t even remember inventing her – just that one day, there she was, tugging at my sleeve and demanding to be sent to Los Angeles. That’s what Lily does. She sees a thing, she goes after it. I had to do a bit of work on her to make her less ‘ruthless’ but she’s still got plenty of chutzpah. I like that.

The reason for Lily’s trip to LA is because she’s attending, and helping organise, the wedding of her cousin Alice and Sam, from The Out of Office Girl. If you’ve written a romantic story, to get to write the characters’ wedding two years later is just The Best Fun Ever ™ – like writing your own fan fiction. I was also inspired by the hell our own wedding planning. Maybe it was because we did it all in 3 months but we found wedding planning very stressful and I haven’t seen that kind of stress depicted in books and films before. Of course there’s the rom-com cliché of the bride having a meltdown over her chocolate swans not appearing or whatever, but that’s not why weddings are stressful; they’re stressful because they involve your relationship, family, friends, expectations, money, and tons and tons of tiny decisions that are not important really but seem so at the time. So perhaps there was an element of catharsis there. And, it’s set in California which is one of my favourite places ever (see here for more on why I love LA).

Anyway, that’s the story of Lily Does LA. You can read more about it here … I hope you like it!

I have been away. I am just (well, as of Saturday) back f...

I have been away. I am just (well, as of Saturday) back from two weeks in Georgia, USA. And I know, if I was a proper media-savvy author I would have been blogging and tweeting my way around the state, but a) I was on holiday! and b) I’m not normally paranoid but I’m also not sure of the wisdom of advertising on social media that you’re AWAY and your house is EMPTY for two weeks. Once broken-into, twice shy.

This bear has no link with Charleston but he’s been in Charleston History Museum for ages and they keep him there for sentimental reasons.

Anyway. We flew to Atlanta where we hired a ridiculously massive people-carrier with tinted windows (mix-up at hire car place) and drove to Charleston, Savannah and other points in between. Atlanta was weird and sprawling and fun; we went to the World Of Coca Cola where they show you a film about the joy of Coke that was so expertly manipulative it actually had us both wiping away a tear. And then we went to the Center for Civil and Human Rights for something genuinely moving. Charleston and Savannah were just as gorgeous and draped in Spanish moss and steeped in history as you would expect from the films, though, boy were they busy with tourists. We tried to eat dinner in Charleston on a Sunday and Monday nights without reservations …. and were told, everywhere, that it would be at least an hour’s wait; on the Monday we managed to get into a very fancy restaurant, basically because it was housed in a sort of haunted mansion on the quieter side of town. In Savannah we went to Bonaventure Cemetery (as seen in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) – no ghosts (that we saw) but a billion mosquitoes.

What else? We drove up into the Blue Ridge mountains and saw the crazy ‘Alpine’ town of Helen and hiked around Tallulah Gorge … we canoed around a swamp with cypresses and alligators, and we explored the remains of a Native American city that reminded me of Newgrange, and we had fried green tomatoes at the Whistle Stop cafe. My favourite place that we visited was actually Athens – a college town with a bit of a hipster vibe, home of REM, the B-52s and of course the Georgia Bulldogs. Go Dawgs!

All the cliches were true: everyone was super-friendly and called us ‘y’all’ and served us a choice of ‘sweet or un-sweet’ ice tea, and we drove past loads of little churches with Bible quotes on letter boards outside, and miles of neon strips full of Sleep Motels and Chick-Fil-As. We went to restaurants where everything was deep-fried, and others where it was all ‘farm-to-fork’  and sustainable and seasonal – my absolute favourite was The National in Athens; it was a bit like Moro in London but half the price. We stayed in Holiday Inns, charming historic Inns, and in a weird bed and breakfast where the owner joined us for breakfast (I know some people love this about bed and breakfasts but we’ve decided we don’t). And all we brought back were: a souvenir mug from the Coffee Fox, a T-shirt from the best diner in Atlanta (Ria’s Bluebird), some Reese’s Peanut things (gross) and some dodgy photos. Enjoy!