Author Interview: Isabella May

Author Interview: Isabella May

Today I am pleased to welcome Isabella May on to the blog with a quick interview! She’s come up with some fascinating answers!

Q&A

What is your favourite thing about writing books?
That empty page waiting for you to fill it with magic and adventure, new ways of looking at the world, brand new characters who have never been heard or seen.

Who is your favourite character in your book and why?
River Jackson from The Cocktail Bar (my second novel) is my current favourite. I love the way he turned his back on the things that were no longer meaningful. Despite all the animosity facing him, he walked headfirst into his dream of setting up a cocktail bar in a town vehemently opposed to it – Glastonbury is either working class pubs or the completely whacky type of unconventional… no space for the exotic tipple – and refused to be swayed by the naysayers. I think there’s a lesson or two for all of us in that fictional man!

What is your favourite drink to consume while writing?
A big fat Spanish café sombra (I live on the Costa del Sol!) to get those ideas flowing.

Do you have any bad habits while you’re writing?
I don’t consider it a bad habit as it’s the only way I can write: I polish up and edit as I go along. However, I know many a writing guru would spit feathers at the very notion!

How do you research your books?
The Cocktail Bar was a lot of fun to research. Essentially, it involved a lot of delving into the history of the cocktail, which was fascinating and had so many twists and turns, it was like a novel itself. I also wanted River’s bar to feature unusual mixes… not just the bog standard mojito, and so that was a lot of fun to research, and really whet my appetite to try some exciting new things.
For my debut novel, Oh! What a Pavlova, which was released in October, although I had been through domestic violence myself, I needed to read up a lot around the subject to give as accurate a portrayal as I could through my writing.
And for my third novel, Costa del Churros, which will be published in September this year, I had quite a bit of homework to do surrounding the subject of flamenco!

Are you a plotter or a pantser?
100% pantser. I can’t see that ever changing…

If you could live in any fictional world, which would you choose and why?
I adored Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers as a child. I think it would be quite a giggle to dwell there for a while.

If you could befriend any fictional character, who would you choose and why?
The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of a Window. What a scream he’d be!

About the book

Rock star, River Jackson, is back in his hometown of Glastonbury to open a cocktail bar… and the locals aren’t impressed.

Seductive Georgina is proving too hot to handle; band mate, Angelic Alice, is messing with his heart and his head; his mum is a hippie-dippy liability; his school friends have resorted to violence – oh, and his band manager, Lennie, AND the media are on his trail.

But River is armed with a magical Mexican elixir which will change the lives of the Three Chosen Ones. Once the Mexican wave of joy takes a hold of the town, he’s glad he didn’t lose his proverbial bottle.

Pity he hasn’t taken better care of the real one.

About the Author

Isabella May lives in (mostly) sunny Andalucia, Spain with her husband, daughter and son, creatively inspired by the sea and the mountains. When she isn’t having her cake and eating it, sampling a new cocktail on the beach, or ferrying her children to and from after school activities, she can usually be found writing.

As a co-founder and a former contributing writer for the popular online women’s magazine, The Glass House Girls – www.theglasshousegirls.com – she has also been lucky enough to subject the digital world to her other favourite pastimes, travel, the Law of Attraction, and Prince (The Purple One).

She has recently become a Book Fairy, and is having lots of fun with her imaginative ‘drops’!

The Cocktail Bar is her second novel with Crooked Cat Books, following on from the hit sensation, Oh! What a Pavlova, published in 2017. Her third novel, Costa del Churros will be published in September 2018.

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Would you want to live in the Mallory Towers?