Today I’d like to introduce you to Elaine Pettigrew. Elaine has now become one of my faithful Twitter posse – helping me spread the word and generally being a good mate. Elaine is from Scotland, is eligible and likes to take short breaks to exotic places. She is currently visiting Leeds.
Over to you, Elaine…
It must have been about February last year when I heard of this new all singing, all dancing social networking site called Twitter. Of course I signed up immediately, being the inquisitive (some might say, nosy) type. Fairly soon after that I made the acquaintance of one Mr Gary William Murning. I honestly can’t remember how it came about, but I’d hazard a guess that I saw an RT [retweet] pop up in my time line! But enough about that, and let’s get down to why I’m writing this blog.
A year ago, Gary’s debut novel, If I Never, hit the shelves and the airwaves, and as I’ve always enjoyed a good read and as the hubbub surrounding the launch kicked into full gear, I was looking forward to the delivery of said book.
Then it arrived, and the doubts kicked in.
What if it was awful? What if it was boring? What if the pre-publication excerpts were the best bits… Suffice to say there were quite a few ‘what ifs’ in my head. I cannot continue reading a book if I’m not totally gripped by the first few pages, and I’m not good at BSing to hide my true feelings, so I hope you can understand my feelings of trepidation. Thankfully, though I need not have worried one little bit, because as soon as I delved in I was immediately captured and drawn into the story of Price and George , and I found I really cared about the characters (yes, all the characters) and what happened to them.
In the unlikely event that there is one person who has not yet read If I Never, I don’t want to write about the ins and outs of the story; that journey is best made in your own head, and apart from that that there are other more qualified people to do so.
I’d also like to thank Gary for sharing the whole process with us. Of course I know that books just don’t appear on the shelves fully formed in their shiny new jackets, but seeing it from the author’s point of view has been fascinating, and being involved in even the teensiest way by sending the odd RT every now and again has been a pleasure and a privilege, and I look forward to doing it all again for the next one!
I also want to on the VIP guest list for the movie premier of If I Never…
Two sample chapters of If I Never can be read here.
To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.
Also, UK Kindle users can now buy If I Never here. (US Kindle users here.)
