Author Karen Swan Guest Post - Christmas At Tiffany's

Today is my stop on Karen Swan's Christmas at Tiffany's Blog Tour. Please enjoy her guest post as she tell us something every discriminating reader wants to know about the authors they read.
How I Decide What To Write
Enjoy!

• ISBN-13: 9780062364104
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 10/28/2014
• Pages: 592

Overview

In the wake of a heartbreaking betrayal, a young woman leaves the Scottish countryside to find her destiny in three of the most exciting cities in the world—New York, Paris, and London—in this funny and triumphant tale of fulfillment, friendship, and love.

How I Decide What to Write

If anyone reading this has followed my career chronologically, from the publication of my first book Players through to Christmas At Tiffanys, they may well know the answer to this question already: in every book I write, I hit upon a kernel of another idea - it may only be as much as a passing sentence in the book, but something about it will snag in my mind, so that when I come to think about the next story, there’s already something there.

So for example, in Christmas At Tiffanys, the padlock –which is such a key motif in the story – got me thinking about jewellery in general and how it can be used not just as decoration but to tell personal stories. Obviously most people are familiar with charm bracelets, but when I thought a little deeper about personalized jewellery, I struck upon the idea for my next character Laura, in The Perfect Present. She works as an ‘interpretative’ jeweler and is commissioned by a businessman to make a charm necklace for his wife Cat’s birthday; Laura interviews the most important people in Cat’s life, in order to choose and design a charm for each one that represents their relationship with her, and in the process, she stumbles across a secret…

Equally, in my most recent book (in the UK) Christmas In The Snow, I put in a throwaway line about a video ‘going viral’ on Youtube. Directly as a consequence of that, I’m about to start writing my newest book based on a character who achieves a level of fame for that very reason and starts to live her life in a way that sustains it.

It’s a daisy chain of inspirations. One book leads to another in the most unpredictable of ways.

About the Book

In the wake of a heartbreaking betrayal, a young woman leaves the Scottish countryside to find her destiny in three of the most exciting cities in the world—New York, Paris, and London—in this funny and triumphant tale of fulfillment, friendship, and love.

Ten years ago, a young and naïve Cassie married her first serious boyfriend, believing he would be with her forever. Now, her marriage is in tatters and Cassie has no career or home of her own. Though she feels betrayed and confused, Cassie isn’t giving up. She’s going to take control of her life. But first she has to find out where she belongs . . . and who she wants to be.

Over the course of one year, Cassie leaves her sheltered life in rural Scotland to stay with her best friends living in the most glamorous cities in the world: New York, Paris, and London. Exchanging comfort food and mousy hair for a low-carb diet and a gorgeous new look, Cassie tries each city on for size as she searches for the life she’s meant to have . . . and the man she’s meant to love.

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Biography

Karen Swan began her career in fashion journalism before giving it all up to raise her three children and an ADHD puppy, and to pursue her ambition of becoming a writer. She lives in the forest in Sussex, writing her books in a treehouse overlooking the Downs. Her first novel, Players, was published in 2010, followed by Prima Donna and Christmas at Tiffany's in 2011.

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Release date 11-6-14

   

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