In which I offer a shout out to a Girl in Trouble

My excellent writing chum Rhoda Baxter has a shiny new book out today. Here’s what it’s all about: Grown up tomboy Olivia doesn’t need a man to complete her. Judging by her absent father, men aren’t that reliable anyway. She’s got a successful career, good friends and can evict spiders from the bath herself, so she doesn’t need to settle down, thanks.
Walter’s ex is moving his daughter to America and Walter feels like he’s losing his family. When his friend-with-benefits, Olivia, discovers she’s pregnant by her douchebag ex, Walter sees the perfect chance to be part of a family with a woman he loves. But how can Walter persuade the most independent woman he’s ever met to accept his help, let alone his heart?
Girl In Trouble is the third book in the award nominated Smart Girls series by Rhoda Baxter. If you like charming heroes, alpha heroines and sparkling dialogue, you’ll love this series. Ideal for fans of Sarah Morgan, Lindsey Kelk or Meg Cabot’s Boy books. Buy now and meet your new favourite heroine today.

So obviously you should all run along and buy it. Off you go (and then come back and read the rest of my witterings).

*drums fingers*

*waits*

*Looks at a picture of Rhoda’s lovely cover to pass the time*

OK. Hopefully you’ve all done your buying and are back now for the wittering. Rhoda has thoughtfully handed out prompts to steer the book-celebratory blogging. Which is good. At the very least it should stop me from becoming distracted and talking about cheese. Mmmmmm cheese.

So here goes:

In Girl in Trouble the characters experience changes that they thing are bad, but turn out to be positive. Have you ever had a blessing in disguise?

Erm. Probably. *thinks hard*

It’s easy to think that probably change is bad. Favourite restaurants declaring a New Menu is always, absolutely and without exception bad. Pretty much all forms of political upheaval at the moment seem to tend towards the horrendous, horrible, terrible nightmare end of the spectrum. My favourite boots have a hole in – I am already pretty much 100% sure that whatever new boots I end up with will not be as good.

But current perfect favourite new boots were once the replacement for previous perfect favourite boots. Favourite burger place closing and being replaced by a plethora of trendy hipster* burger places, can lead to the perfection of the perfect burger in one’s own kitchen. And America electing an orange-skinned idiot show that…. No, sorry. On that one I’ve got nothing.

What is definitely true though is that change will happen. Old things break and fade away. Some of them we miss; some we’re delighted to see the back of. And that can be a useful thought to hold onto on days when everything just seems a bit too miserablist. This too shall pass, as a wise person once said.** And sometimes the really great things from the past come back and they’re better because you’ve had time to miss them. The Paddington movie, ballroom dancing on telly, actual left-wing politics – all things we might have thought we’d left behind, and all back retooled and reworked for the 21st Century. Now we just need to add simple burgers (bun, burger, slice of tomato, sad piece of lettuce, cheese, bacon maybe if you’re feeling fancy) to that list and life truly will be good again.

In the meantime, go read Girl in Trouble. There’s a good sausage.

*Trendiness has no place in relation to burgers. Some things exist beyond fashion. Having a trendy burger is like having a trendy roof. It just makes no sense to anyone attempting to claim any level of sanity.

** A wise Persian person apparently according to Wikipedia. Who knew?

Author: Alison May

Writer. Creative writing teacher. Freelance trainer in the voluntary sector. Anything to avoid getting a real job... Aiming to have one of the most eclectic blogs around, because being interested in just one thing suggests a serious breakdown in curiousity. View all posts by Alison May