Title | Secrets & Fries at the Starlight Diner
Author | Helen Cox
Publisher | HarperCollins
Purchase | Amazon UK
Pages | 270 Pages
About The Book
What brings Bonnie Brooks to The Starlight Diner? And why is she on the run?
As the front-woman in a band, Bonnie is used to being in the spotlight, but now she must hide in the shadows.
Bonnie only has one person who she can turn to: her friend Esther Knight, who waitresses at the Fifties-themed diner. There, retro songs play on the jukebox as fries and sundaes are served to satisfied customers. But where has Esther gone?
Alone in New York City, Bonnie breaks down in front of arrogant news reporter, and diner regular, Jimmy Boyle. Jimmy offers to help her. Can she trust him?
When the kindly owner of the Starlight Diner offers Bonnie work, and she meets charming security officer Nick Moloney, she dares to hope that her luck has changed. Is there a blossoming romance on the cards? And can Bonnie rebuild her life with the help of her Starlight Diner friends?
Guest Post - Author Take Over
Today, as part of the blog tour I am handing it over to Helen Cox who has a great guest post for you all. I hope you enjoy!
Who
doesn’t love a good writing metaphor? To most people who put pen to paper, New
Year is a time where the year ahead feels much like a blank page. We can almost
smell the freshness of the paper, like when your teacher used to give you a new
exercise book at school.
It’s
that sense of possibility that ignites a passion in us. The blank page is an
adventure that hasn’t yet happened, and that idea is insanely inspiring.
The fact
that we’ll have doodled and scrawled all over the cover in an unsightly fashion
by the time term ends is irrelevant. The fact that there’ll be crossings out
and spelling errors and prose that is so pretentious you want to poke your eyes
out with your own pen when you read it back… who cares?
Because
right now, anything can happen on that untouched blank page.
My New
Year’s Writing Resolution is to embrace that sense of possibility not just at
the beginning of January, but for 365 days of the year. To imbue my daily life
with the magic of the written word as much as is humanly possible (told you –
pretentious prose and I’m not even half way through January yet).
I’ve
chosen this particular resolution because, to be honest, I’m a firm believer in
living in the moment. Living by this principle means that it’s not just the
next year that’s a blank page, but every day, every hour, every minute. Every
sunrise can be a fresh start. Every chime of the clock, a bell heralding an
unexpected and delightful plot twist.
Let’s
face it, you have no idea what I’m going to write in the next few seconds. You
could make some guesses but I could write any word in the entirety of the
English language. Or I could make one up just to confuse you.
My
giraffe is wearing a top hat.
See.
You
didn’t know that was coming.
Which
means it might have made you smile and if it did I’m chalking that up as a win.
For me,
it’s important to keep a sense of excitement about what I’m writing. If the
author is, in any way, weary or disgruntled I’m fairly sure the reader will
sense it somehow. That kind of feeling is more contagious than any of us would
like.
Treating
each day like a blank page also helps us overleap one of the biggest obstacles
we face with major writing projects: how daunting they seem at the beginning.
When writing a novel, eighty thousand usable words seems a long way away when
I’ve only written ten words in total. Seven of which will probably be edited
out of the final draft.
Taking
writing projects minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, is a prudent way
of managing the self-doubt that can so easily creep in. It will also ensure
that writing becomes a daily practise. And it doesn’t matter whether you only
add a line of poetry to your body of work today, or whether you write a five
thousand word short story in less than two hours. Every word you write is a
triumph. Every word you write is filling the void before you with meaning of
some kind.
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