Something I’ve learnt about blogging & social media 4 years in

14th Oct 2023 ~ melreviewsherbooks ~ 2 Comments

Something I’ve learnt about blogging and social media in the 3-4 years that I’ve been posting on melreviewsherbooks instagram & blog is that, for me, I cannot post for the sake of posting.

I think that posting for the sake of posting is something that people who are blogging as a business would possibly disagree with, however for me who is creating something for pleasure, I only post when I have something to say, share or have found a creative piece that resonates with me.

As you can see, my social media growth is not something I’m chasing, but more so a long term goal and something I’m moving towards as my content becomes more real, connectable and honest.

But you know what, I know who my true readers and engagers are on social media and the fact that I can still have my closest book friends message me on social media means the connection I love is still there – and that is important to me! For some, once your social media grows larger, that common true connection can become limited.

To try and explain myself a little more, in person I say to my friends and family, “I post when the feeling is there.” For me, creativity is a feeling and it comes in waves. I write creatively when I have a feeling, I cook when I have a feeling, I make changes in my like based off feelings.

Consistency is something I find hard, and that’s okay because I work a full time job Monday-Friday, I’m getting a book festival off the ground and I value time with family and friends. Sometimes ‘hussle culture’ isn’t awfully healthy for creatives because the flip side is I’d be running myself ragged to post blog posts, pictures and art that I don’t feel connected too – and you’d be able to tell!!

So in summary, I guess what I’m trying to suggest is post and create content that sparks joy and movement in you. Find a topic that you’re passionate about and go for it. Don’t pay close attention and compare yourself to other content creators in your community because you are you for a reason. And your beautiful mind is one of a kind, so why not share it 💖

💫 Mini Review 💫

9th Oct 20239th Oct 2023 ~ melreviewsherbooks ~ Leave a comment

Small town florist Annie, or Sweet Annie, as her family calls her, is desperate to have a successful date. She just wants to fall in love, keep life simple and keep her path linear.

Enter, Will Griffin. Temporarily back in Annie’s small town to protect her soon to be sister in law & pop super star as her body guard.

These two have tension and the spicy kind of tension that has you wondering just how long it will take before their lives come crashing into one another!

Annie believes that Will could be the perfect teacher of ‘what not to do’ on first dates because her track record is looking pretty poor. Will is looking for any opportunity he can to be around Annie, but he is determined – do not fall in love! Will even struggles to identify what love is and this is an interesting aspect to his character.

Not falling in love with Annie … what a good joke Will 😉

Practice Makes Perfect was a great, chummy weekend read for me! I am writing this in retrospect as a few months have passed since finishing it and I can still feel the smile pulling on my face thinking of Will and Annie’s storyline.

To buy your own copy, click here!

Author Talks with Emma Grey

7th Oct 20236th Oct 2023 ~ melreviewsherbooks ~ Leave a comment

📸 Australian Author, Emma Grey, holding her most recent novel The Last Love Note

Emma is a novelist, feature writer, photographer, professional speaker and accountability coach. She is also 100% fabulous, of which I can confirm because we’ve now met twice in person 💖 Emma has such a kind soul and her clever, compassionate and open ability to connect with readers really does makes her one of a kind.

Welcome Emma, to Mel Reviews Her Books 💫

Emma, you have created a uniquely beautiful romantic novel. Grief is a topic and emotion that you bravely speak openly about in person and on your social media streams. Was it daunting for you to send The Last Love Note into the world?

It was very daunting. I think I spent the two weeks leading up to the January release in a ball of anxiety, wanting to hide from the world. It was all the usual doubts authors have – what if people don’t like the story or the writing? But it was also, ‘What if people criticise the portrayal of grief?’ Because that part was very real. I even worried my character, Kate, would be criticised for falling in love again after losing her husband. While the new love story was fictional, real life judgement in grief is unfortunately very real.

In addition to all of that, I also felt an element of ’survivor guilt’. This book exists because my husband died. And here I am, being published here and overseas, going on book tours, meeting amazing Wagga booksellers and bloggers … none of that would have happened if my real-life story had been different. I’ve had to remind myself that Jeff would have thoroughly embraced all of this for me, and that it was my own hard work that led to these things – not just the circumstances that inspired the novel.

Gosh, what a complicated answer! I was also really excited about launching the book, once I ploughed through those other emotions 😊

You’ve just been to the USA on an author journey ahead of the November launch! What are you most excited about, seeing The Last Love Note on American bookshelves and in the hands of American readers?

The story has a strong connection to New York. I’m from Australia, but my husband was president of the Society of Military History, based in the US. Six years ago, I was flown there for a memorial conference, just a few months after he died.

It was while I was away that I had my ‘Byron Bay moment’ – the space to really let my grief unravel without my little boy around. I plunged to the depths of grief in an American hotel room … but then I visited New York.

That’s a city that has experienced grief en masse. Yet the show goes on. The city is so endlessly vibrant and lit up. While I was there, I caught a glimpse of that vibrance for my own future. I believed for the first time that perhaps I, too, still had a life ahead of me.

That’s when I decided to start writing this book. I took myself to the New York Public Library and wrote some paragraphs, just to make a symbolic start. They appear in the novel as the excerpt from my character Kate’s book.

It’s why it feels so ‘full circle’ for me to be returning to the US now with a New York publisher, Zibby Owens. I feel like I’m on the way to creating the exciting future that city promised me all those years ago…

What’s next for you Emma? In your author life, in your writing life, in your journey?

I’m excited about touring America at the end of the year, including speaking at the Miami Book Fair, and celebrating my first Thanksgiving ever in the Hamptons.

My new book, PICTURES OF YOU, will be published by Penguin Random House and Zibby Books in April 2024. It’s a romance, with a dash of psychological thriller.

I’ve got some exciting plans to stage the musical I co-wrote with composer Sally Whitwell, based on my teen novel UNREQUITED. Our show, DEADPAN ANTI-FAN, is a story written for my then 14-year-old non-reader, who loved Harry Styles, to show her reading could be fun!

A widowed friend who is a comedian has floated the idea of working together on WIDOWED: THE MUSICAL, which would be an amazing project. I’m also keen to work with a producer and composer on a TV documentary about the dementia choir my parents belonged to before my mum’s death.

In less glamorous, but important news, I’m working with a colleague to put together some awareness-raising programs to help companies and services deal more kindly and sensibly with grieving customers.

Then there are the new book ideas … I’m hoping to keep up with the release a book each year.

Of course, I squeeze all of this around my copywriting work for government departments and other clients, and I’m also an accountability coach, so there’s always a lot happening.

Emma, thank you so much for your time and answers! It has been an absolute pleasure to have you on the blog and a chat over on Mel Reviews Her Books Instagram 🎤

Author Talks with Clare Fletcher

23rd Sep 202323rd Sep 2023 ~ melreviewsherbooks ~ Leave a comment

Australian Country Romance Author, *Clare Fletcher* 📸 by James Alcock

Clare Fletcher is an Australian novelist who has studied journalism, spent time freelancing and discovering different parts of the world. Yet, her stories continue to come back to the wonderful setting of rural Australia.

Clare and I had the pleasure of meeting in person this past July, to talk about Five Bush Weddings, her first novel, on a panel with talented romance/love authors.

Love Match is Clare’s second novel. It follows Sarah as she navigates dating in the small rural town of South Star after a recent breakup & Mabel, as she reminisces on her pieces of beautiful wardrobe, remembering the loving stories that come with each stunning outfit

What and where inspired you to set both of your books, Five Bush Weddings and Love Match in small rural towns?

I grew up in regional Queensland, in a town called St George. Even though I’ve lived away from there for many years – I went to boarding school, then uni in Brisbane, moved to Sydney to work, and even lived in New York for a while – my writing has often returned to those small town roots.

In Five Bush Weddings I wove in a lot of experiences of the country parties and weddings my friends and I would drive vast distances for. I hadn’t seen that part of Queensland on the page before, and so it felt right to keep real place names as a little gift to people from home. So many of the rural-set books published today are dark crime stories, so I wanted to celebrate the joy and resilience and creativity and complexity of regional Australia.

South Star is entirely fictional. With Love Match I wanted to get deep into small town dynamics, the richness and claustrophobia of a place where everyone knows everyone’s business, so I couldn’t use a real town. I didn’t want readers to be distracted by errors in geographic detail or by trying to guess who characters are based on. It’s all made up!

Love Match follows the dual storylines of Mabel and Sarah, which is so fun and funny to read! When writing Five Bush Weddings, did you know that Mabel and Sarah would reappear in Love Match? And what do you feel made these two connecting characters?

I wish I had been smart enough to plan ahead, but I had finished 5BW when I decided to write a second book around Mabel and Sarah. My mentor Emily Maguire asked what happened to Sarah after 5BW, and the idea came to me pretty quickly – I wanted to explore someone discovering their queer identity under the small town microscope. I thought it would be powerful to mirror that journey with someone in an earlier time, and Mabel was so much fun to write. Once I started researching the period when she would have been a coming of age (1960s deb balls, country dances, the Miss Queensland Quest) I knew there was something special there.

Sport was another thing I wanted to incorporate. I think women often write off sport as something that’s not for them, but my own experience playing footy as an adult was really special. There’s a lot for women to gain from community sport, not just physically but socially, psychologically. And as a storyteller sport offers a lot of rich territory to mine.

After Love Match, I thought I was done with South Star. But now there are more stories I want to tell and I’m just using my own books as elaborate writing prompts! It’s all the side characters I have the most fun writing, so it’s quite fun thinking about how to use people in new ways in new stories.

Love, dating and connection are such strong themes in both your novels! Is this an element of writing that you always knew you’d incorporate or did it happen by chance?

For a long time, I was a bit of a literary snob. Only when I realised I was writing a rom-com did I start reading a lot more in the genre; but of course I had always loved reading and watching rom-coms, I just didn’t think they were as ‘important’ as more high brow culture. It felt liberating, energising and so joyful to realise there were so many talented women writing romance and rom-coms, and that I wanted to be one of them! I was a very romantic kid (in my head – no one wanted to kiss me until I was almost finished high school) so it feels inevitable in a way.

Sometimes I think dating men from Queensland trained me to be a good romance writer. With these blokes who are often quite reticent, if not emotionally constipated, you have to get quite good at finding romance and tenderness in small gestures! Being able to dial up the romance in a perfectly-made cup of tea or a dropped pie I think is more relatable than grand declarations of love from a bush bloke. That said, I love writing male characters and I find giving them strong women in their life helps shape them into realistic men who respect and treasure the women they fall for.Five Bush Weddings was very much about the fact that people falling in love is critical to bush communities surviving and thriving. Love Match goes deeper into the relationships and institutions that hold small towns together and, I hope, makes a case for building a beautiful life there even if sometimes the gossip and lack of privacy might be challenging. I poke a bit of fun at small towns, but it comes from a place of love.

Clare, thank you so much for joining me on Author Talks and spending the time chatting on our Instagram Live. It has been an absolute pleasure to host you and meet in person! You’re now a staple in my growing library and I cannot wait to fill a shelf with your novels one day 📚⭐️

Click on the titles of Five Bush Weddings & Love Match throughout this interview, to purchase your own copies from Booktopia 💚

Sundays in bed with ‘The Hummingbird Effect’

10th Sep 202310th Sep 2023 ~ melreviewsherbooks ~ Leave a comment

This book has got me in with both hands and I’ve been immediately immerse.

Kate Mildenhall’s writing has taken me by surprise, I must admit. I was definitely not expecting to be reading a novel that has me physically cringing, squirming and churning my stomach as I’m reading. And I cannot stop!

Last night while I was inhaling this novel, I had the thought “I don’t think a novel has ever made me feel like this.” And by ‘this’, I mean such physical reactions.

To give some reference, The Hummingbird Effect is set in 4 different times in our society. Those being; 1933; 2020; 2031; and 2181. As you move through the book, you’re seeing little snippets of how our society is changing and becoming more reliant on mechanical, technological and alternative devices to limit our man power & skillsets. It is eery. It is scary. And it is real. Even though this is a work of fiction, you can feel so much history and research in its pages.

Kate’s ability to describe all aspects of an environment in which she places the reader, such as sound, smell and texture that all interconnects to the scene we’re reading – is just phenomenal!

I am looking forward to spending more time reading this afternoon & hopefully having this book finished before next weekend, where I’m listening to Kate in person at Write Around the Murray book festival ⭐️📚🎤

A visit to Two Brown Cats Bookshop

9th Sep 20239th Sep 2023 ~ melreviewsherbooks ~ Leave a comment

My heart sings each and every time I set foot in Two Brown Cats Bookshop 💖

Kate, owner of this hidden gem of preloved books, is one of the most knowledgeable bookaholic’s I know! Kate’s passion for preloved books started back in 2004 and her ability to source quality, perfectly curated and selective books has only grown with time.

Walking into Two Brown Cats Bookshop, located inside Little Triffads Florist, is like walking into a warm home library. As you look up towards the back of the shop, you’re greeted with the vision of timber top bookshelves, covered in plants and collectable books. The level of care and love is immediately evident, I can assure you.

As you wander down (because how can you not?!) you will find a variety of genres that are cleverly placed for your movement around the shelves. Kate’s fiction section, cooking and gardening sections cease to amaze me. It’s as if you’re looking at all the books you have on your wishlist that you’ve continually told yourself ‘one day’. Kate holds classic modern fictions from authors such as; Trent Dalton; Kate Grenville; Helen Garner; Garry Disher; Zadie Smith; and Jane Harper. She also hold beautiful children’s classics, both modern and collectable editions of; Winnie the Pooh; Peter Pan; Enid Blyton; and more.

Upon this visit, Kate recommended a gritty, rock and roll read in Lily Brett’s Lola Bensky. It was also incredibly hard not to walk away with this special edition of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaiden’s Tale. It is a hardback edition with red edges and an awesome indented dust jacket.

Kate has also encouraged me to add The Spare Room by Helen Garner to my TBR! Her recommendations are always spot on ⭐️

Make sure you visit this hidden gem sometime soon 💎

Chocolate Weetie Bickies

3rd Sep 2023 ~ melreviewsherbooks ~ Leave a comment

I’ve always played with this biscuit recipe that my dear friend Georgie passed on to me years ago. I remember her saying it was from an old Marie Claire cookbook – remember those in a home kitchen!! Waaayyy back in the day 💫

The Chocolate Weetie Bickies has that OG biscuit base and then I added my little tweaks purely because I was missing one ingredient! Are you a baker who starts experimenting when you’re missing one or two ingredients? Comment below if you are ⏬

INGREDIENTS:

125g of melted butter *I tend to use salt reduced

1 cup of Brown Sugar

1 egg

1 tsp of Vanilla Essence or paste

1 cup of SR flour

1 cup of Plain flour

1/2 cup of crushed Weetbix

3 tsp of Cocoa

1 block of dark Cadbury or Nestlé baking chocolate, chopped roughly

METHOD:

Preheat your fan-forced oven to 170 degrees celsius.
Melt butter in the microwave or on stovetop, then mix through brown sugar.
Add 1 egg and vanilla then stir through until it makes a golden paste.
At the same time, add in both flours, Weetbix & cocoa. This is the stage where instead of Weetbix and cocoa, you’d usually add 1 cup of dedicated coconut 🥥 (OG Marie Claire recipe) but I didn’t have this handy so I experimented! (I don’t even sieve my flour and cocoa because I’m usually in a rush to make these but they always turn out great!)
Mix all together 🥄 It’s going to look pretty dry but trust the process. It will come together to make the perfect consistency for bickies.
Prepare a large baking tray with non-stick paper.
Divide bickies into whatever size you like! I tend to enjoy a large, chunky and gooey bickie. I make around 12 or 16 depending on guests and/or my planned baked good delivery for friends.
Bake for 20 minutes (*hint* I’ve found from years of watching Crumbs & Doilies – she’s EPIC, that biscuits actually keep baking after you’ve gotten then out of the oven and they need that time to set the outside crust to become gooey on the inside. So if you like a nice soft biscuit, get them out just a touch sooner than them going brown on top!)
Allow to cool (as per previous *hint*) and serve once warmish. These are also epic with icecream … just saying 🍪🍦

Author Talks with Michael Thompson

2nd Sep 20232nd Sep 2023 ~ melreviewsherbooks ~ Leave a comment

Debut Australian Author, Michael Thompson 📸 by Sally Flegg Photography

Michael Thompson has been a journalist, producer and media executive for the last fifteen years. He is a savvy business podcaster and digital talent! Michael was one of the most humble, genuinely connecting and open authors I’ve met in person. How to be Remembered is Michael’s debut novel 💫

Michael, your debut novel ‘How to be Remembered’ is so unique, heartfelt and perfectly-paced. I loved Tommy as the main character! How did the idea of Tommy’s diverse life come to you?

The idea for the novel – this concept of a boy being forgotten every year on his birthday – came from two places. The first was social media, and the sometimes stupid things people post online. Those posts usually end up deleted, but it forms part of their digital footprint – it’s probably still there, somewhere, floating around in cyberspace. It made me wonder how many people would like to just have that footprint wiped, to be forgotten entirely. And I went from that to the opposite – what about somebody who just wanted to be remembered, and something was preventing that. The other inspiration for the novel came from the situation I found myself in when I started to write. I’d just finished at one company, having worked there for more than a decade. When I left, I was sure I’d be missed. But the business moved on, somebody replaced me, and I was forgotten (in a professional sense, at least).
With that basic idea, I then started writing about Tommy – and the rest of his life just seemed to flow. I really wanted to focus on the ordinary things that we take for granted – having friends, relationships, a job. Because a year is long enough to build those relationships and those connections, and then to lose them on his birthday every year seemed like it had plenty of potential.

I feel like I’ll never forget the date of January 5th because of Tommy! Why in particular did you choose the date of January 5th? Why not any other date?

Good question! I needed a date that was in the school holidays (when Tommy was a child). I thought the Reset (which is what Tommy calls it) would be a lot easier to write around if he wasn’t at school. I also wanted it to be in that dead zone around Christmas / New Year, where all the days start to blend together. I landed on January 5, and stuck with it!

Every time I explain the premise of How to be Remembered to friends, SO many say, ‘I hope that it becomes a movie!”. If you could choose a main character to play Tommy on screen, who would it be and why?

Fingers crossed it becomes a movie! The film rights have been picked up by a Hollywood production company, so there’s a chance, but a lot of books get optioned and that’s as far as they go. If it was to make it to the big screen, I think I’d be okay with pretty much anyone playing Tommy – it would just be such a thrill to see it happen. Having said all that, Tom Holland would be terrific, or Austen Butler (who played Elvis). Tommy’s story covers quite a broad age range, up to his mid/late 30s, and I think either of these actors have the right look for Tommy. Tommy is kind, naive, optimistic, resilient – and I think either of these actors could do it well. Clearly I’m aiming high here, just picking out A-list names!

Michael, thank you so much for joining me on Author Talks 🎤 It has been an absolute pleasure to host you and meet in person! I cannot wait to see what your writing future holds, oh and watch How to be Remembered on the big screen someday 😉💫

You can find Michael’s novel, How to be Remembered via this link: https://booktopia.kh4ffx.net/q4m2Kq

Book Review: ‘How to be Remembered’ by Michael Thompson

31st Aug 202331st Aug 2023 ~ melreviewsherbooks ~ Leave a comment

Tommy Llewellyn is like no other character I’ve read before and I can honestly say that his story is one that has stuck with me.

How to be Remembered starts off much like Harry Potter (stay with me here!) and funnily enough, when I actually posed this to Michael upon our meeting at Collins Booksellers Wagga, where I hosted him for some of our local readers, he admitted that nobody had ever recognised that before.

Now I’m not saying Tommy is a wizard, that is not where this is going BUT Tommy is special. He is born with the unfortunate gift of not being remembered by those around him, the world, the universe.

On the 5th of January, Tommy’s Birthday, he is forgotten. All evidence of his life; who he was; a birth certificate; any clothing that is not on his body; a memory; pictures with him in it; they either disappear or alter to not have Tommy in them. So like Harry Potter, he’s a little bit alone in the world and figuring out how to navigate his life without a parent because (heart wrenchingly 💔) they don’t remember him.

I loved the fact that we didn’t miss one part of Tommy’s childhood. We really saw it all, year by year and written perfectly so we felt so utterly helpless knowing that nobody will remember Tommy’s first steps in a foster home, his tender relationship with Miss Michelle, making friends, learning skills, attending school and of course, meeting Carey.

Carey is a young girl living in the foster home as well. Of course, she like everyone else, doesn’t remember Tommy reappearing every year having only been there less than 24 hours before the 5th of January. Carey is troubled and has a history of events in her young life that have shaped the way she sees the world, people and relationships. Most children in this particular environment are, which is particularly why I think Tommy also found a place here.

Carey and Tommy’s friendship was sweet from the beginning and I just adored watching the two of their lives intertwine year, after year, after year. The persistent drive in Tommy to find a loop in the ‘Reset’ as he called in, was incredibly intriguing and had me guessing. I had no idea how or where this story would end (and I must say, I adored the ending!)

Tommy’s story isn’t one just about love, its about resilience, knowledge, not giving up on your friends, courage and compassion. Tommy is also just so genuinely sweet and empathetic that he even though he knows people won’t remember him in the future, what he does right now will benefit someone else in the long run. And in some ways, I think that’s a beautiful way to live.

Join Michael Thompson and I to discuss How to be Remembered over on my Instagram for a LIVE book chat this Saturday the 2nd of September @ 10am AEST. AND … keep you eyes peeled over on the Author Talks tab for an interview with Michael Thompson 🎤

The best kind of clicheś

22nd Aug 2023 ~ melreviewsherbooks ~ Leave a comment

So … I finished Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros last night and I don’t even have the ability to put words into a review yet – let alone how I got through the DAY without telling every second person to READ THIS BOOK!

I have not felt that kind of rushing, need to know and absolute addictive feeling for a book in a long time. If you haven’t read Fourth Wing yet, this is your sign! Pick. It. Up.

PS. There may be something exciting happening soon with a particular copy of Fourth Wing over on @melreviewherbooks INSTA & @melreviewsherbooks FB 😉 Go follow and keep your eyes peeled …