My guest today is Ritu Bhathal , author of Chickpea Curry Lit – contemporary fiction with a masala twist! Ritu is going to talk to us about her writing journey and her new book. So grab yourself a cuppa, get cosy and let’s get chatting to Ritu

Author Bio

Ritu Bhathal was born in Birmingham in the mid-1970s to migrant parents from Kenya, with Indian ancestry. This colourful background has been a constant source of inspiration to her.

From childhood, she always enjoyed reading. This love of books is credited to her mother. The joy of reading inspired her to become creative in her writing, spanning fiction to poetry. Winning little writing competitions at school and locally encouraged her to continue writing.

As a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and teacher, she has drawn on inspiration from many avenues to create the poems that she writes.

A qualified teacher, having studied at Kingston University, she now teaches classes of children as a sideline to her writing.

She also writes a blog, http://www.butismileanyway.com, which combines life and creativity, thoughts and opinions. The blog was awarded first place in the Best Overall Blog category at the 2017 Annual Bloggers Bash Awards and Best Book Blog in 2019.

Ritu is happily married and living in Kent, with her Hubby Dearest, and two children, not forgetting the fur babies Sonu Singh and Minnie Kaur.

https://linktr.ee/ritubhathalwrites

Welcome to my blog, Ritu. What a fascinating background, I’m sure it’s provided lots of inspiration for stories. Can you tell us about your writing journey?

Storytelling is in the blood, with old tales and family stories passed down from generation to generation within our family. The telling grew to reading, as people became more educated, and then there was me.

I loved listening to stories and reading books. I also enjoyed reading stories to my younger family members.

Then I heard that saying, you know the one – We all have a book in us.

Way back in 2000, I decided to give writing a book a chance.

I’d had successes with my stories and essays in English at school and tried my hand at collaborating with my fellow students to write a script during my degree. It couldn’t be that much harder, could it?

Well, as I said, the start was in 2000, but it wasn’t until around 2018 that that first book idea became a completed first draft. I found out that writing a book is not a piece of cake.

What with getting married, learning how to live within another family, finding a job, and then the ups and downs of starting our own family, my Book Baby took a back seat until 2016.

I did start blogging a year before book baby began calling my name again. And through my blog, the passion was reignited to finish that one book. I posted a couple of early chapters and got some encouraging feedback.

As I mentioned, it was 2018 when I first typed ‘The End’. My Book Baby was now an adult!

I started the submission process and got some wonderfully positive rejections that spurred me on to take the bull by the horns and investigate self-publishing.

And that is how, in February 2020, I became a published author, all on my own, with the support and encouragement of the writing community I had fostered through my blog. Marriage Unarranged, my Book Baby, was born!

However, you are also aware of what happened in 2020. Covid.

I had events planned that didn’t materialise; however, my book was well received, and suddenly the characters in it decided they didn’t want to be laid to rest. And so, book 2 started.

As I began to think about publishing this second story, I was contacted by a publisher. A small independent publisher, Spellbound Books, which is woman-centric and diverse. Their founder had read my book and heard, through the grapevine, that there might be more to come, and they offered me a three-book contract, including the republishing of Marriage Unarranged.

Under them, I released the second book, Straight As A Jalebi, and the third, In God’s Hands.

All three books are part of the series, The Rishtay Series, which translates to Relationships. Each book is connected to the others as the three stories all centre around one of three siblings in the Gill family, a British Sikh family, exploring life in an East/West mixed environment, as well as specific cultural taboos.

I like to call my genre Chickpea Curry Lit – British fiction with an Indian twist!

Chickpea curry Lit – I love that! Your books sound fascinating, Ritu. Thank you for sharing your writing journey with us. Wishing you lots more writing success.

Ritu’s Latest Book

In God’s Hands Blurb

Blurb

They kept hearing, “When will we celebrate your good news?”

The perfect partner, the perfect job, mostly perfect in-laws.

Bali and Kiran had it all.
Except for that baby.

After a few years of marriage, the natural step of starting a family beckoned, but nothing was simple or natural.

Constant whispers, superstitions, and rumours cause havoc in what was a solid relationship, and Kiran struggles to face the possibility that her dream may not come true.

Pregnancies and babies all around her. Why not hers?
All she can say is, “It’s in God’s Hands.”

Purchase Link : https://mybook.to/InGodsHands

More about The Rishtay Series

This heartwarming and beautifully vibrant series, sensitively (with a good dash of humour !) explores everyday issues facing British Asians everywhere including , the “shame” of a broken engagement for asian girls , ” forbidden” love and the stigma of infertility within a culture where a woman’s identity can still be judged by her ability to produce children .