Book Review!

Curse my temperamental internet that never allows me to post when I really want to. I have had this problem for the past two weeks, and I only have a small window of opportunity that lets me blog, so here is a short one.

Here is a great review of the Bollywood Breakup Agency by the lovely people at Trashionista

After the first review, it was nice to read some positive thoughts on the book.



And in other news, my next post before Christmas will be a picture post   :D

See you on the other side.

Good Week, Bad Week

Hello all,

It's been a mixed week in terms of the book.

Good Week: 
Here's me being interviewed at Trashionista

Bad Week:
And here is a very bad review (with spoilers) at Chicklitplus

Happy December

I thought I would do a different post today, something that has nothing to do with the book for a change, as I have been doing a lot of that lately.


Things I am looking forward to ...

• Ice Skating 
• Winter Wonderland
• Christmas lights
• Christmas Carols
• Snow (providing I don't have to travel anywhere)

What I am not looking forward to ...
December just reminds me of when I used to work in retail, and as soon as the first of the month hit us, all we would hear was Christmas music. I am no Scrooge, I like this time of year, but there is only so many times I can hear the same songs over and over again, and I only used to work part time.
Not only that, every year we are bombarded with adverts for CDs that contain the same songs, and every year they tell us it is the 'only Christmas album you'll ever need'. So why oh why do they sell that same CD every year with the same songs on it? Surely the people who would have wanted to buy the music would have bought the music by now.


So tell me ... What are you and aren't you looking forward to this December?

Tweet for Me!

"The Bollywood Breakup Agency out today http://tinyurl.com/d8cz78e Retweet & win free ebook http://tinyurl.com/ctxrebj if Bollywood makes Kindle Top 100"

 The book is out today yaaaay!!!

Tweet the phrase above, put it at the end of your blog posts, or even just repost it on your Facebooks and 'like' Prospera Publishing and you'll win a complimentary ebook of Naked in Knightsbridge.



And if you're blogging .... here's the blurb


When party-loving Neela Solanki rejects yet another loser in the long line of potential suitors who keep turning up in the ‘good’ room, her traditional Indian parents finally take decisive action. Fed up with her persistent refusal to provide them with a son-in-law and grandchild, the Solankis confiscate the phone, car and credit cards they pay for, and give her one last chance to comply before she is kicked out of the house.

Desperate for cash, Neela starts up a secret business breaking up the engagements of those trapped in the unstoppable force that is an Indian marriage arrangement. Add to that an addiction to Indian soap operas, being stalked by the latest loser’s father, a jilted ex and a love interest from an unlikely source, and Neela finds life is about to take a turn she never expected.

To all you wonderful people out there, PLEASE take the message and pass it on!!! 

Let me know when you do it!

The Waiting Game

It's a very strange feeling knowing your books are in the hands of the reviewers.

Now they are all reading my story and looking at its good and bad points, sizing it up and deciding their ratings, and I can't do anything but sit here and twiddle my thumbs. I hope my nightmare of a few posts down doesn't come true, and someone out there will enjoy the book.

The waiting game is awful, because now that it is out there, there is nothing I can do. I no longer have any control over my work that I have slaved over all this time. And it's those reviews that will ultimately help people decide whether or not to buy the book.

If you are interested in reviewing, contact Prospera Publishing for more details.

BIG NEWS!!!!

I write this with joint pain, headache and a sore throat.

I went to sleep after taking flu pills, woke up and....


THE BOLLYWOOD BREAKUP AGENCY IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW!!!!!!

If you are interested in reviewing the book, contact the wonderful people at Prospera Publishing for more details.

How exciting!!!

A New Addition

I am truly sorry about my lack of blogging. It's been all change here in the Gupta household, and so I have had less and less time to spend in front of my laptop and blog, and catch up on all your blogposts.

The main reason is that there has been a new addition to the family, and no I have not had a baby. My brother who was married earlier this year, now has his wife living with us. I think that it's important that I spend more time with her, since this is a new place for her to live and just make her feel more welcome with us, as opposed to feeling lonely in her new environment. She has moved far away from her family, and I feel bad for her because I can never imagine being so far away from my own family.

Actually, I had a near miss when I was going through the edits of the book. She walked into my room and nearly read a part of it. I locked my screen so fast and thanked the Gods that she wasn't wearing her glasses. Speaking of the book, I think I am finally nearing the editing stage, so I am now prepared to be scared when those review copies go out.

Hope you are all doing great, and now I am going to catch up on all of your posts.

WISHING ALL OF YOU A HAPPY DIWALI

AND A VERY PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR

Edits Edits and more Edits

Sorry I've done a disappearing act on you guys. I have been up to my eyeballs in edits. I have gone through it once, and now I am just going through it again, just to make sure it is all consistent.

I haven't abandoned you, and once I send it off to my editor I'll be back with a proper update, and I'll catch up on all your blogs.

See you on the other side!

Thank you

I just wanted to say thank you for all of your wonderful words in the last post. It is just fantastic to have you guys around being supportive during this time, because I know that you guys are empathetic. You have all been there, or are there at the moment. And since I cannot talk to anyone in my real life about all these fears, the only way to get support is through your kindness. So once again I wanted to thank you so much. You are such a wonderful group of people.

I know that the worst part of that bad dream was the typos and the fact that the book became a mini-book with size 16 writing. You can slave over your edits for days on end, but that one typo in the finished piece is the one that will bug you for days. I'm currently going through a round of edits at the moment, so we can only wait and see.

While bad reviews are inevitable and I know it will feel bad to read someone slamming my story, I know it is just part and parcel of what I was doing. If it wasn't worth it then I would have given up by now. I know I am not going to be on the next big author or anything like that, but I am happy with what I have done, and I hope that some people out there will be too.

The Nightmares have started

How many of you have had the 'Book will be Awful' nightmare?

This morning I had to wake myself up from a bad dream that I was having about my book. The following things happened ...

~All that work that I put into writing the story, and it turned out to be an 82 page mini-book with giant writing to fill up the space.
~Every five seconds someone would come up to me and tell me that I got another bad review online - I looked at the websites and saw that they were all so evil.
~ I looked through the book and it was littered with typos.
~Everything about it had been edited so heavily that it wasn't my story anymore.
~Everyone I know found out it was me who wrote the book getting awful reviews online.

If I could be anyone I'd be ....

To celebrate the launch of Talli Roland's new book 'Watching Willow Watts', I'm taking part in her websplash.

So without further ado...

If I could be anyone I'd be...

Image from Fanpop

Why you ask? Because he's cool. We all love the idea that if we are stuck in some mundane job, something will sweep into our lives and make it just that much more exciting. In the case of Chuck, he is inadvertently sent an email which imprints government secrets into his brain, and the CIA have to take care of him in order to gain access to the information, and protect him from the enemies who also want the secrets. He becomes a spy for the CIA, despite still having to work as a tech guy in the 'Nerd Herd' section of 'Buymore.'
I think Chuck is one of those underrated shows. It is so funny and edge-of-your-seat exciting, with fantastic characters as well. 

About Watching Willow Watts

For Willow Watts, life has settled into a predictably dull routine: days behind the counter at her father's antique shop and nights watching TV, as the pension-aged residents of Britain's Ugliest Village bed down for yet another early night. But everything changes when a YouTube video of Willow's epically embarrassing Marilyn Monroe impersonation gets millions of hits after a viewer spots Marilyn's ghostly image in a frame.

Instantly, Willow's town is overrun with fans flocking to see the 'new Marilyn'. Egged on by the villagers -- whose shops and businesses are cashing in -- Willow embraces her new identity, dying her hair platinum and ramming herself full of cakes to achieve Marilyn's legendary curves.

But when a former flame returns seeking the old Willow, Willow must decide: can she risk her stardom and her village's newfound fortune on love, or is being Marilyn her ticket to happiness?

My First Suitor - The 'Surprise' Technique

Well well well, with my book being about arranged marriages, I couldn't let this opportunity go by. I must write a post about some people who came to my house for ... well ... me.

While I am not completely opposed to arranged marriages, I don't think it will ever be something for me. However, a family member informed my family that we were having some guests over to our house. I thought, 'oh that's good, I like these people and it would be nice to see them.' It all went well and we all had a very pleasant afternoon.

After they left, I was informed, as well as my parents (who had no idea what the purpose of the visit was either - they would have, and would've made me, dress up for such an occasion), they had come to visit me to see whether I would be interested in their relative's son. Oh dear.

Safe to say I was a little blindsided by the whole thing. If I knew that was why they were coming, I would have made a lot more effort to have gone out that day. I told my parents that I wasn't ready to start looking for a husband, I am still young and I want to live a bit more of my life before I have to settle down, OK well I didn't say that last bit. I think they know all that anyway, but they were just happy that someone was thinking of us.

Luckily, that match possibility is now off, we called them and said we weren't interested and I never have to worry about that family or their nephew again.

News!

The Bollywood Break-up Agency is well on it's way!

At the moment it is going through the editors' scrutiny.

And for those of you who are eager for a taste, you will be able to see a preview of the first chapter in the next few weeks. Yay!


Finally, hello to my new followers! Lovely to meet you.

Bonjour!

I really wish I wasn't a flake with blogging. I am such a terrible blogging friend.

Anyhow my Paris trip.

Paris was fantastic. I am such a city girl, as you know from my previous 'I Love London' posts. When you go out at night, and just immerse yourself in the lights and walk along the cobbled streets, visiting all those cafes and bars and restaurants and watching the world go by, visiting all those amazing buildings - it is just ... indescribable. And who can complain when you find a place that sells pastry and cake on every corner? I also totally re-earned my A in French speaking I got 8 years ago. Damn has it been 8 years? I feel old.

If there is one piece of advice that I could give you, it would be to buy the Paris book from Talli Roland's '24 HOURS' non-fiction range. I took it with me and it was because of that, that I decided to visit the Basilique of Saint Denis. It is the cathedral where nearly all the Kings and Queens of France have been buried. It is outside of the main city area, and because of that, or maybe few people are aware of it, you aren't surrounded by as many tourists. I don't mean that in a hipster-I-knew-everything-before-they-were-mainstream kind of a way. I mean when you go to places like Notre Dame - which is a beautiful place as well - because there are so many people, you get intimidated by the queue outside and you end up following the masses around the makeshift path they are all walking through because everyone is following the person in front. ANYWAY, there are not as many people in Saint Denis, so you have more time to walk around, see and appreciate the building and everything in it.

Back to my original point, get 24hours Paris, there are so many places in there that you wouldn't have thought of going to, and you will be so glad when you do.

Another piece of advice - get an ice cream cone from the Gardens at the Palace of Versailles. They are tasty.