My guest today is women’s fiction author, Nancy Barone. Nancy is going to talk to us about her writing journey, and her latest book. So grab yourself a cuppa, get cosy and let’s get chatting to Nancy. ☺️

Bio:

Nancy Barone is an author of Romcom and Humorous Women’s Fiction. Her very first novel, The Husband Diet, published by Bookouture, reached no. 7 on Amazon’s top 100 bestsellers. With Aria Fiction, an imprint of Head Of Zeus, she has published her Little Cornish series, uplifting village novels set in Cornwall, and The Husband Diet series set in Tuscany with a larger than life heroine, Erica Cantelli. Her work is available in paperback, e-book, and audiobook.

Nancy has a degree in English and French Literature from the University of Pisa, Tuscany. A former Torontonian, Nancy has also lived in Tuscany and England. She now lives in the Sicilian countryside near the sea with her husband and their two dogs.

Welcome to my blog, Nancy. Your books sound wonderful. I’m eager to learn about your journey to publication.

Hello All and thank you Karen for having me!

My writing journey was fraught with rejections and the call actually came quite out of the blue.

As most writers, I had been dreaming of publishing a book since I was a child doodling at the back of my classroom in Toronto. My Creative Writing teacher had said I had a flair for writing, but I never did anything about it, especially as my family moved to Italy when I was almost thirteen.

I had written scripts for school plays and similar and even wrote a fan-fic episode of The X-files long before the internet was a huge thing.

My first novella, Timeless, was published by an American publishing company in 2010. But I wanted more. I wanted to publish in the UK, my husband’s native country. But I had no idea how to go about it. I was well and truly in a rut.

One day, while surfing the net for inspiration, I stumbled upon the WFF, Women’s Fiction Festival in Matera, that featured female authors from around the world writing in English. And it was the next day, only an hour away by plane!

While I packed, my husband booked my flight and twenty-four hours later I was having dinner with famous authors, just like that! I felt like a right fraud as I had only published one tiny novella, and yet they wanted to know my story? Had I died and gone to writers’ heaven?

Oh my goodness, what an amazing experience for you!

Determined more than ever to ‘make it’, I listened in awe to all the best advice from the experts. And then, during a brainstorming workshop, I was invited onto the stage for a thirty-second pitch for my next book. The only problem was that I didn’t have a next book in me! I was barely finding my feet!

And yet, as the audience watched me, in the space of two seconds (the force of desperation) a story came to me. It was a humorous Women’s Fiction about a woman, Erica Cantelli, a hotel manager who is brilliant at her job but fears she is failing at home both as a wife and a mother.

That story was the germ of The Husband Diet, published by Bookouture in 2013 and subsequently re-published by Aria Fiction/ Bloomsbury. It became a trilogy with My Big Fat Italian Breakup and Storm in a D-cup, both set in my beloved Tuscany. Erica, snarky and vulnerable at the same time, had been in my sub-conscious all my life, and when given the chance, she shone, making me laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time, while pounding away on my keyboard. She kept me company for years. Erica Cantelli is, at one point or another, ALL of us. She has our same hopes, fears, weak moments and epiphanies of self-worth.

I have to say that I’m identifying with Erica! ☺️

I find that I’m missing Erica’s crazy antics and her raw honesty and self-effacing humour, so she and her tribe will probably make another appearance in the near future!

I have also written One Summer In Sicily and of course my beloved Little Cornish series, of which the sixth book, The Little Cottage by the Cornish Sea, is out July 3^rd.

We each have our own journey as authors, but I’m grateful that mine wasn’t all that easy. Self-doubt and rejections are what kept me grounded and determined to be a writer and when I’m in slacker-mode, I simply remember how badly I wanted this. So thank you to my lovely publishers, my amazing agent Lorella Belli and my readers who made all this happen for me! And thank you, Karen, for featuring me here today! I hope I gave an aspiring author some hope!

Nancy Barone x

It’s a pleasure, Nancy. Thank you for dropping by and sharing your publication journey with us today.

You can follow Nancy here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nancybaronewythe/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/nancybarone.author?locale=it_IT

Nancy’s latest book

Life doesn’t always go to plan . . .
After a messy breakup and a nightmare boss, Kate swaps the chaos of London for the calm of Starry Cove-the charming seaside village she loved as a child. She arrives hoping for peace and a fresh start. But life has other plans: Kate soon discovers she’s going to be a mother.

As she navigates small-town life (and morning sickness), Kate finds friendship in the ‘coastal girls’-a warm, welcoming group who help her land a job with Piers, the reclusive owner of the local manor. He’s guarded, grumpy and impossible to read… but there’s more to him than meets the eye.

As feelings grow and secrets slowly come to light, Kate must decide if she’s ready to open her heart again-and whether Starry Cove could be the home she’s been searching for all along.

Buy Link for Nancy’s books: Amazon