Blog Tour Guest Post - Sheryl Browne

Today I am really pleased to welcome author Sheryl Browne to my blog as part of her book launch tour for A Little Bit of Madness.

Hi Lindsay! 

Thank you so much for inviting me to share a little bit about myself and my newly released book. OK, where to start? Well, today is my birthday(!) and I can’t think of a more fabulous present than having my fourth book published and out there, all wrapped up in a gorgeous cover featuring multi-talented author, Carole E Wyer, whose own books are aimed at people facing big birthdays, i.e., of a certain age, and are absolutely hilarious.  A little plug for Carol there but it does bring me to my own book, A Little Bit of Madness, which features a colourful cast of eccentric ‘older people’ who are central to bringing our main love-torn couple together.

So what inspired me to write about older people, you might ask.  Why not, would be my answer.  Has anyone not watched Downton Abbey? Would anyone deny that the wonderful Dame Maggie Smith, Dowager Countess of Grantham, was central to the plot and an absolute joy to watch? 

Quoting this fabulously talented actress, who also recently starred spectacularly in Quartet, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I think stories need to be written around older people, catering for shifting population demographics.  Readers want to read about people they identify with.  In A Little Bit of Madness, I aimed for a multigenerational read, if you like, combining younger ‘boy gets girl, despite all obstacles’ romance with the relationships, lives and loves of older people.  People of the Queen’s generation, or as Celia – our heroine – prefers to call them, her elderly independents, people who have life skills you couldn’t possibly learn from a book and who still have lives to live and something left to give.

Of course, I do have a hunky, flawed and hurting younger hero in there too. And a multi-faceted, multi-talented, feisty, yet vulnerable heroine. 

To sum up, I like to write romantic comedy because I hope to allow people a little escapism that leaves them with that all-important feel-good factor.  In my mind, a smile a day keeps the gloom away.  I do, however, like to write about real people, dealing with real life events, someone the reader identifies with and wants to get to know.  A ‘boy meets girl, boy gets girl, despite all obstacles’ story portraying characters readers can relate to and hopefully laugh with as they fall over those obstacles – because the reader is empathising with the character, because they’ve been there. 

Have I succeeded?  Well…?  Here’s a little snippet from a beautiful, heart-warming review of one of my previous books, Somebody to Love, which had me whooping. 

This author shows a true understanding and appreciation of how rewarding relationships between humans and animals can be. She writes about relationships convincingly, and has created warm, likeable, but flawed and therefore very human characters in Donna and Mark. Equally, Sheryl Browne writes with sensitivity and understanding regarding Karl, and with authority and insight as to the possibilities an autism assistance dog can offer a child's life.  I feel that this story has been written with real warmth and heart, with a wry humour at the ups and downs that life throws at people.  The Little Reader Library

Ultimately, it’s the reader who decides. Thank you, Lindsay! Thank you, too, to all those people who have purchased and reviewed my books, shared my ramblings, and offered me unstinting support. I couldn't have done it without you!  

Sheryl's book launch tour is hosted by Fiction Addiction Book Tours

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Sheryl Browne grew up in Birmingham, UK, where she studied Art & Design. A partner in her own business, a mother and a foster parent to disabled dogs, Sheryl has also been writing for many years, the road along the way often bumpy.  She was therefore thrilled beyond words when Safkhet Publishing loved her writing style and commissioned her to write her debut novel. Recipes for Disaster - combining deliciously different and fun recipes with sexilicious romantic comedy, is garnering some fabulous reviews and was shortlisted for the Innovation in Romantic Fiction Festival of Romance Award.  Sheryl has since been offered a further three-book contract under the Safkhet Publishing Soul imprint. Somebody to Love, a romantic comedy centring around a single father’s search for love and his autistic little boy, launched July 1. Warrant for Love, Blackmail, lies, adultery, entrapment - three couples in a twisting story that resolves perfectly - released August 1 and A Little Bit of Madness -White Knight in Blue rescues the Harbour Rest Home - released Valentine’s Day 2013.

Links:

Sheryl’s Website

Safkhet Publishing

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Author Facebook     

Romantic Novelists’ Association

Sheryl is a loveahappyending featured Author and Editor.

Twitter: @sherylbrowne