My Guest - Mandy Baggot

With three books already published, Mandy Baggot is busy burning the midnight oil as her fourth book will be published in November 2011. Okay Mandy, take it away....

"Hi everyone and thanks so much to Pauline for inviting me onto her fab blog! Along with all her other guests I am also jealous of her location and feel I must invite myself over for some sunkissed inspiration sometime - charging it to business expenses of course!
Well, about me - I'm a married mother of two girls (6 and almost 4) and I write contemporary romantic fiction/chicklit. I had my first novel published in 2008 under a scheme set up by Youwriteon.com to get new writers into the marketplace and that chance couldn't have come at a better time for me. I had written my first two novels on my maternity leaves with my girls and I was keen to explore the possibility of making a real go of writing as a career. I've been writing since school, mainly endless ongoing soap opera style stories involving my school friends and the popular hunks of the time but although I loved writing I knew how difficult it was to get into and never really considered it as a career. But a passion you have and a compulsion to keep on writing no matter what can't be ignored so after publishing Breaking the Ice I chucked in my job and became a full time author! How scary is that? And its the hard work I thought it would be. A lot of my time is spent writing proposal letters to agents and publishers, marketing and publicising my novels and making people realise I am out there, because if people don't know you're there they can't buy your books! But even though its hard work I still absolutely love it and have no doubt this is what I was destined to do!

 Excess All Areas was my first novel and it tells the story of Freya (a feisty size 20 photographer with more than a few skeletons in her closet) and Hollywood heartthrob Nicholas Kaden (who despite his perfections is keeping a shocking secret himself). I set this in the gorgeous village of Kassiopi on the island of Corfu, a place I have visited many times. This is a feel-good beach read which I hope pulls at a few heart strings along the way.



Breaking the Ice is my Dirty Dancing meets Dancing on Ice novel. Box office assistant Samantha is nervy and neurotic and has panic attacks over the slightest thing. Jimmy Lloyd is a star skater and recovering alcholic. They are thrown together when touring show 'Skating on Broadway' comes to the Woolston Civic Hall. Can they find common ground in their bid to save the hall from closure or do opposites not attract after all?


Knowing Me Knowing You is my latest release and is set around a fictional gameshow rather like Mr and Mrs meets The Generation Game. Lawyer Kate is forced to employ a male escort for her plus one at a work function but her bitchy boss has set her up and soon they are taking part in a relationship contest. A bit tricky when you've only met that night! Thrown into the mix is a tarot card reading childminder, a nasty ex-husband and a foot stamping devil child called Cyrus. Can Kate win the contest and the love of the right man.



I am delighted to be a featured author on a terrific new website Loveahappyending.com which launched on 29 June 2011. It hopes to give readers a chance to support new published/unpublished authors with books that promise the 'feel good factor'. We are all hoping that supporting and promoting each other will boost both our sales and our profiles and make readers take a chance on an unfamiliar name in writing and see the quality that lies there.

At the moment I am doing final edits to my next release Strings Attached which should be released in November time this year - hoping to bag some pre-Christmas sales! And then I have a couple of other novels simmering away in the background all demanding my attention!
I blog at least twice weekly and am always looking for new members for my website to join in the conversation! We chat about all sorts from your opinion on heroes and book covers to mashed potato and Vanilla Ice - there's always something mad going on! Pop along and have a look here http://www.mandybaggot.webs.com/

So that's me, Mandy Baggot - keeping love alive - well, trying to!
Mandy
Knowing Me Knowing You
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Knowing-Me-You-Mandy-Baggot/dp/1908147601/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309083198&sr=8-1

Excess All Areas
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Excess-All-Areas-ebook/dp/B0051WRSDY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1309083198&sr=8-2

Breaking The Ice
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Breaking-the-Ice-ebook/dp/B0053CZKHS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1309083198&sr=8-4