The one where I have a little rant about the use of the word ‘predictable’ in book reviews

Jessica Redland Author14 Comments

Most of my blog posts are really positive, sharing exciting news about new releases, blog tours, milestones reached and so on. The reason for all the positivity is because I love what I do, I’m so incredibly grateful that I have a devoted readership who support my writing and enable me to write full-time, and I want to share the successes with my blog readership to show that things can change if they’re struggling at the moment. I struggled for five years but found my publishing family with Boldwood Books who changed everything for me.

Occasionally, though, I write something which isn’t quite so shiny and happy because that’s the reality of the job I do. Much as I love it, there are downsides to being an author. Readers can make an author’s day with a kind review, a message about how much a story has resonated, and excitement every time a new book is released. But readers can also (whether intentionally or not) really hurt an author.

Negative reviews come with the territory. Like so much in life, reading is very personal and what is right up one reader’s street won’t be someone else’s cup of tea. Even if a reader loves a particular genre and reads voraciously within that genre, there will be sub-genres they don’t like and authors whose voice or style doesn’t work for them. Some readers don’t like books written in the present tense and others don’t like first person narratives. And even those who love a particular author might find a specific book or even a series by that author doesn’t work for them. And all of that is fine because, let’s face it, it would be a boring old world if we all liked exactly the same thing.

While I know I’ll never be able to please all of the people all of the time, negative reviews can still hurt. With tens of thousands of positive ones across my books, they don’t hurt as much as they used to but I wanted to talk about a word that appears in many of my reviews which I find such a struggle: predictable. I swear I’m coming out in hives just thinking about it. This word isn’t just confined to the negative reviews – it slithers its way into the positive ones too so can creep up on you unawares. It isn’t just in my reviews either and it isn’t restricted to my genre of romance.

If we look at what the dictionary says, predictable is defined in the following ways – certain to happen, able to be predicted, happening in a way where you know about it before it happens, obvious in advance that it will happen – and so on. When ‘predictable’ is used in a negative review for a book, it is clearly meant as a criticism. But what about when it is given in a positive review (which is a 4 or 5-star review on Amazon who classify a 3 as negative)? Is this an insult?

I spotted a very recent 4-star review for Chasing Dreams at Hedgehog Hollow, the fifth book in the series. The review was full of positive comments about how much the reader loves my writing and how much she values the escapism but the middle of the review states, “I find them [Jessica’s books] very predictable, maybe because I’ve read a lot of books in this genre, but you can often see how the storyline is going in the first few chapters. This one is no exception, but it didn’t stop me racing through it to make sure I’d guessed correctly!”

It was lovely of this reader to leave me a 4-star review and I am so very grateful that she has read and loved my books. What I’m about to say is not a dig at her or anyone else who has left a positive review for me or any other author in which they have mentioned the word ‘predictable’. It is simply an observation about how it feels from my perspective as an author, so here comes my reaction…

When I read this review, my heart sank. I didn’t see it as a 4-star review. I took in none of the positives flanking this and could only focus on this middle bit and, even though the reader tempered this by saying she’s a voracious reader of the genre (so will be aware of the recurring themes/tropes etc), and conveyed a sense of excitement about racing through to check the accuracy of her guesses, this is what my head translated: I find Jessica’s books predictable. All of them. I’ve read loads now and they’re all the same. I don’t know why I bother reading her books because there’s nothing original about them. I only bother turning the pages because I’m hoping for some amazing plot twist which never happens and I only keep going to the end to satisfy myself that I was right and could have plotted this book out myself.

I know that’s not what it says … but it feels like it to me as the author. And, despite being 4-star review and therefore positive, it floats in that dark cloud along with the 1-star and 2-star predictable accusations, a selection of which you’ll find below along with a couple of other insults about my writing abilities (or lack of them!):

“Waste of Time – Not her best work, too formulaic and predictable. Could not hold my interest. If her remaining books in the series are this poorly written I won’t be reading them” (1-star review for All You Need is Love)

“Written for children – Predictable and long and drawn out. Utterly disappointed” (1-star review for The Secret to Happiness)

“Light reading – This story has a predictable ending… Worth a free download. I wouldn’t pay to read this book though” (2-star review for Christmas at Carly’s Cupcakes)

“Sweet but predictable story – This story was okay but pretty predictable and far too sweet and tame for me… There are 2 more books to read in this series but unless they are vastly different from this one I doubt I will bother with them” (2-star review for New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms)

They say that there are no original stories and I turn to a classic author to illustrate this point from way back. Mark Twain in Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review states, “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

This quote was published in 1906 so if Mark Twain had declared this 117 years ago, what hope is there for authors today to be completely original or, to put it another way, not to be predictable? And if Twain was thinking this back then, surely that wasn’t him sharing a lightbulb moment at the point where new ideas had run out, so how far back do we go? Could we argue that all modern plots have echoes of biblical stories? What about before then? Can we go right back to cave paintings?

Is predictable even a bad thing? In romance fiction, we talk a lot about romantic tropes. These are elements of a plot which drive the story forward. Readers recognise these and love them and the familiarity they bring. Some readers even have their favourite tropes e.g. enemies to lovers, fake relationship, second chance at love and so on and will immediately dive into a book which promises that trope. There’s been a lot of interest about in tropes on BookTok with books now specifically being marketed by their tropes. There will therefore always be an element of predictability in whatever trope the author is using. If they are using enemies to lovers, then guess what’s going to happen?

And if we strip a romance book back to basics, they’re about boy meets girl (or boy meets boy, girl meets girl, girl means shapeshifter… but that’s a different sub genre and a whole different conversation!) Of course the reader knows the couple are going to get together by the end of the book and get their HEA (happy ever after) or perhaps their HFN (happy for now) ending. That’s the whole point of the genre. There are slight variations. I personally write women’s fiction so my stories are about wider community, friendships and families and there isn’t always a romance story driving the plot. But where there is a romance, the reader knows the couple are going to get together but what is delicious and exciting is the journey they go on to get there. What barriers are in their way? What baggage are they carrying? What misunderstandings will unfold? Will a case of bad timing catch them out? When they do get together, having overcome all of this (or at least found a way to work through it), then we feel a sense of satisfaction as readers and have our “aww” warm and fuzzy moment. Isn’t that what readers want? It’s predictable but what would unpredictable look like? They never get together? One of them dies? One of them is abducted by aliens? There’s a wedding but they’re all massacred? (Hang on a moment, were those last two plots from 1980s US soap Dynasty?)

There will always be exceptions which work well, a classic of recent times being Me Before You by JoJo Moyes which didn’t have a HEA for the couple but, in the main, romance stories will follow the familiar conventions and that does include predictable elements. But I defy anyone to say that everything in the book is predictable and this is what upsets me. I take great pride in my work, carefully constructing the plots and sub plots so that my books are NOT predictable. Chasing Dreams in Hedgehog Hollow in particular presents a mystery and I’ve had feedback from a lot of readers that it isn’t predictable. Yes, readers will know that heroine Lauren is likely to get together with a certain character and I would be happy for readers to predict that because, let’s face it, that’s why that character is there. But her backstory is not predictable and neither are several other aspects so I struggle not to be insulted by a review which uses ‘predictable’ as a blanket term. The romance? Yes, because that’s the point. Everything else? No!

The Boldwood authors are all part of a Facebook group where we ask questions and support each other and predictability has come up as a common bug-bear which crosses all genres. Author Jane Lovering made me laugh in one of the discussions, citing Basil Fawlty’s famous rant from the Fawlty Towers sitcom of the 1970s. Hotel owner Basil has taken a customer to her room and she has expressed disappointment with the view. Their exchange builds up to Basil exploding with, “Well may I ask what you expected to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain…” We wonder sometimes if this is what readers expect from our novels! And yet if we moved away from the predictable (familiar) tropes and structure and did something completely way off the mark, readers would very likely hate it.

Let me turn to another genre: crime. The predictable criticism is frequently levelled at authors of crime novels. Why? Is the book predictable because the detective or sleuth catches the murder/solves the mystery? That’s no different to saying that a romance is predictable because the boy and girl got together. The whole point is to solve it. Or is it predictable because the reader guessed who the killer was? But isn’t that the whole point of crime novels too? Isn’t part of the journey seeing if you can be the sleuth and put the clues together to solve the crime?

In the 1930s, several prolific British crime writers joined together to form the Detection Club. Members included Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Robert Knox and many others. They developed ‘Knox’s Commandments’ which were a set of guidelines around ensuring that the reader had a chance of solving the clues alongside the sleuth. These were considered to be fair-play ‘rules’ and some members like Christie adhered to them, skilfully peppering the clues for the reader. Others were less strict about this. The Detection Club is still in existence today although the members don’t necessarily follow these ‘rules’ anymore. However, most good crime writers would argue that it doesn’t make for good reading if some random person is introduced at the eleventh hour with no connection to any of the storyline so far and found guilty as the murderer. I think most readers would feel cheated if that happened. So some level of predictability exists and, with crime novels, the reader is surely trying to guess and their reward is if they were right. It doesn’t mean the book was too predictable. It simply means they happened to pull together those clues in the right way. Or they got lucky with their guess.

I absolutely love the TV series Vera based on the books by Ann Cleeves. We watch it as a family and try to guess whodunnit. We’re rarely correct or, if we do guess, our reasoning is wrong. But on the rare occasion we get it, it’s lucky. We’d pat ourselves on the back but we’d never, ever say, “Oh, that was predictable”. Because it wasn’t. The only things we can predict are that Vera is probably going to help herself to someone else’s food at some point, and that’s part of the fun too.

What do you think? As a reader, do you like books that are ‘predictable’? Perhaps ‘familiar’ should be a better word? If you’re an author, how do you feel when you see the word ‘predictable’ in a review? Can it be meant in a positive way? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

That’s my rant over for now. I’m off to write another predictable story 😉

Big hugs
Jessica xx

(Or maybe I shouldn’t end it like that because that’s predictable too!)

The one where I celebrate a book birthday for Seashell Cottage and All You Need is Love

Jessica Redland Author10 Comments

This month, I’m celebrating two book birthdays.

Today – 12th March – is three years since the final book in the Welcome to Whitsborough Bay series came out, freshly edited and re-released by Boldwood Books. As all the books in this series were released in quick succession over a two-month period, it’s really a celebration for all of them.

This rapid release was a game-changer for me as it helped build a readership with a thirst for the next part which was quickly satisfied. Making Wishes at Bay View was released on 14th January 2020 with both New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms and Finding Hope at Lighthouse Cove out on 20th February, concluding with Coming Home to Seashell Cottage on 12th March.

Less than two weeks later, the UK went into the first Covid lockdown. I don’t know about you, but it still feels like some strange dream looking back at that time. I find myself thinking, “Did that really happen?” Such peculiar times.

I’m convinced that going into lockdown massively helped the sale of this series because readers were seeking escapism and non-readers were turning to books for the same reason. New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms went into Prime reading in the May and shot up the Kindle chart, peaking at #14 and staying in the Top 100 for roughly four months. To this day, this remains my highest position in the UK chart across all my books. Still hoping one day for a UK Top 10. Pretty please!

Three years on, the four books continue to sell steadily. All of them have exceeded 50k of sales with the bestseller, as you’d probably expect, being the first in the series although there are only 5,000 sales separating book 1 and book 4 which makes me so happy as it means that readers have typically gone on to read all four books rather than reading one and not going any further.

I have to pinch myself that the books I’ve written have managed to hit sales levels like this, especially after such a tricky start. I was originally with a publisher who struggled to make an impact and ceased trading after book 4 was released. The sales figures I had with them were:

  • Book 1 – 379 in 18 months (was a novella at the time but is now a full-length novel)
  • Book 2 – 1,316 in 18 months
  • Book 3 – 699 in 6 months
  • Book 4 – 72 in 3 months

Bit different, eh? I then released them as an indie author and sold very few so I still do a double take and count my blessings big time every time I get my sales figures. I’m eternally grateful to my amazing publisher, Boldwood Books, for completely turning things around for me.

The reviews/ratings never cease to amaze me and I am so thankful for readers who take the time to share the book love, whether that’s in review format or just a rating. It makes a massive difference to authors in making a book more visible, and the written reviews can be such a boost of encouragement when self-doubt sets in … which it frequently does for all authors I know!

Across Amazon and Audible, reviews/ratings have passed 21,000 (16.5k on Amazon and approaching 5k on Audible).

New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms will always be a very special book to me because it’s the first book I wrote. It was inspired by something that happened in my personal life which I thought would make a great premise for a story and got me writing. The main character, Sarah, needed two friends and as soon as they started to develop, I realised they had stories of their own to tell and a trilogy was born. Then my original publisher asked me to write a short story to give away for free before we released the first book. I’m not good at writing ‘short’ so a prequel novella came out. When I was an indie author, I felt there was more story to tell and wrote a sequel. The two were then combined to make one full-length novel.

Although Seaside Blooms is really special to me, my favourite book in the series is Coming Home to Seashell Cottage. It’s full of twists and turns and is also more emotional than the others in the series. While writing that book, I felt as though I’d truly found my voice and the type of author I wanted to be. I’m very proud of that book.

And, of course, the setting of Whitsborough Bay opened a flood of ideas and my twelfth book set in this fictional coastal town is out next month with plenty more still to come.

The first book after the Welcome to Whitsborough Bay series celebrated a birthday yesterday too but I actually forgot about it because it was also my husband’s and dog’s birthdays so it had slipped my mind that there was also a book birthday. And, as I’ve mentioned the dog, here she is yesterday with one of her birthday gifts.

All You Need is Love was my first brand new indie release and, after a fresh edit through Boldwood, came out on 11th March 2021 so happy 2nd birthday to that story.

Although these books (using different titles) are officially older than this, I made a decision to use the Boldwood re-release dates for book birthday celebrations rather than the original release dates because those are the ones that had the impact. All the books floundered before Boldwood came along.

This is also a really special book to me and remains one of my favourites of all the books I’ve written. It was the first time I wrote a dual perspective story and I really loved the challenge of that. I’ve written another eight dual perspective stories since then and even one with three points of view – The Secret to Happiness.

If you’ve read any of these books, I hope you’ve enjoyed them. Do you have a personal favourite?

Thank you and enormous grateful hugs to Boldwood and all the amazing readers and listeners who have supported these books.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Big hugs
Jessica xx

The one where Bumblebee Barn goes into Prime Reading, SC3 is up for pre-order and HH6 is on a Kindle Daily Deal in Australia

Jessica Redland AuthorLeave a comment

Hi everyone, hope you’re well and not too chilly if you’re in the UK surrounded by snow right now! In Scarborough (aka Whitsborough Bay), we had a white-over on Tuesday this week which cleared fairly quickly. This morning it was another white-over but even less snow which quickly turned to slush and went. My parents who are inland have it quite heavily, though. I was hoping to go across to see them today but the snow at their end has prevented that, especially as there’s a steep bank mid-way which is closed due to the weather. I’ll bob across next week instead.

I’ve had an extremely busy start to March. I had a submission deadline for book 20 – the first in my Lake District series – on Tuesday this week and I should have had plenty of time to write it but I lost a week early on due to illness. I suspect it was another Covid hit and it wiped me out which meant I was way behind so put in some exhausting hours catching up. I love the story, though, and am eagerly awaiting my editor’s feedback next week.

I’ve also started running a one-month online course so needed to record my training videos and get that all set up. I’m now pausing for breath and picking up the many balls I had to drop over the past few weeks.

One of these balls is letting you know that Healing Hearts at Bumblebee Barn went into into Prime Reading at the start of the month and will be there for at least 12 weeks.

It didn’t move up the charts much at first, but seems to have taken traction today and is loitering just outside the UK Kindle Top 100 so I’m hopeful of it dipping just inside again. Go on, little book, buzz on up that chart please!

If you haven’t already read it, here’s the blurb to entice you…

Welcome to Bumblebee Barn, home to wonderful animals, stunning views and spectacular sunsets – and resident young farmer, Barney.

While Barney loves his life at Bumblebee Barn – a farm that has been in his family for generations – he’s struggling to find someone to share it with. The early mornings quad biking through muddy fields and the long hours looking after the crops and animals are proving to be a deterrent to finding love.

So when his sister, Fizz – desperate for Barney to find his soulmate – sees an advert for Love on the Farm, a new reality TV show to help farmers find love, he has nothing to lose by applying. After all, he isn’t meeting anyone suitable down the traditional route and surely he won’t be picked anyway…?

Thrown into the chaos of reality TV, Barney could never have expected that his whole life would be turned upside down, with buried secrets to be uncovered and his heart on the line. With his family and friends rooting for him, could the magic of Bumblebee Barn heal his broken heart and help him find love on the farm?

Join top 10 bestseller Jessica Redland for a brand new standalone novel of love, family and second chances.

Readers are loving Bumblebee Barn and I’m so chuffed that it went past the 1,000 reviews/ratings on Amazon at the start of the week so a huge thank you to everyone who has shared the book love.

In other news, it’s just under 4 weeks until my next release. My nineteenth book, Summer Nights at The Starfish Café is out on 6th April. It’s available for per-order on Kindle UK here and Kindle US here.

It has also gone up for pre-order on Audible. The full details aren’t there at the time of writing e.g. it hasn’t got a running time yet and it says the narrator is Kitty Kelly. That’s correct but Kitty is the guest narrator, telling Kerry’s story. Hollie’s chapters are still narrated by the amazing Lucy Brownhill who has narrated the other two audiobooks in the series – Snowflakes Over The Starfish Café and Spring Tides at The Starfish Café.

You can find pre-order the Audible UK version here and the Audible US version here.

Can you read or listen to this book as a standalone? Yes, but I say that with significant hesitation. Kerry’s story is new although she did appear as a minor character in book 2. Hollie and Jake’s story starts in book 1 and develops across the series and I really don’t think you will get the full reading enjoyment if you start with book 3. A couple of the plot points in this third book don’t really make sense in isolation. Well, they do because I give the back story needed as a reminder to those who have had a gap between reading the books, but there’s a much richer reading experience to be had by starting at the beginning.

If you’re interested in a print version, the large print version and the hardback are up for pre-order at the moment. You can tell they’re special versions due to the price. The paperback will retail at £12.99 and may go up for pre-order or be available on the day. If anyone wants a signed copy, please do comment or contact me on social media as I have stock which will be £14 including p&p in the UK.

Here’s what this book is all about…

Welcome back to The Starfish Café for a glorious summer, but with a few dark clouds on the horizon…

A new beginning…

As her summer wedding to Jake approaches, Hollie is excited for their new beginning as a family. But when some unexpected news threatens the future she and Jake had hoped for, Hollie will need to find the strength to overcome heartache once more.

A fragile heart….

Single mum, Kerry, loves her job at The Starfish Café, but behind the brave smiles and laughter with customers there is a sadness deep within. So when someone from her past re-appears in her life, Kerry can either hide away or face her demons and try to finally move on from her heartbreak.

A summer to remember…

For Hollie and Kerry it promises to be an emotional rollercoaster of a summer, but the community at The Starfish Café will always be there to help them through – after all, with courage nothing is impossible…

Join top 10 bestseller Jessica Redland for a wonderful summer at the seaside, full of love, friendship and community spirit.

And my final offer for today is on Kindle Australia where the final book in the Hedgehog Hollow series – Christmas Miracles at Hedgehog Hollow – is on a Kindle daily deal. This is on Saturday 11th March and, as it’s already Saturday in Australia, this offer has now kicked in. Readers can pick it up for the bargain price of $1.19 on SATURDAY ONLY. You can find it here.

With it being the final book of six, you can probably guess what I’m going to say here? NOT a standalone book. Yes, you can pick it up and read it as it’s a complete story but there are so many characters who have been building up across the entire series and so many threads tying together that I wouldn’t. I really would encourage readers to go back to the start and enjoy the whole journey. But, you might want to add this to your Kindle while it’s on the daily deal and add the others to it later.

The blurb if you haven’t read this one yet…

It’s the countdown to Christmas at Hedgehog Hollow Wildlife Rescue Centre, and everyone is gearing up for a festive season to remember…

It should be the most wonderful time of the year for Samantha and Josh as they prepare for the arrival of their first baby. But life at Hedgehog Hollow rarely goes to plan and the pair are faced with adversaries, old and new, and unexpected challenges to overcome.

Fizz’s job at the heart of the rescue centre is a dream come true but her personal life is more like a nightmare. With her love life a disaster and her past about to dramatically catch up with her, she needs the love and support of her Hedgehog Hollow family more than ever.

As the snow falls over Hedgehog Hollow, will Samantha and Fizz find the Christmas miracle they need to overcome their heartache and find happiness?

Top 10 bestseller Jessica Redland welcomes you back to Hedgehog Hollow this Christmas for the final time in this series for a heartfelt story of love, family, friendship – and hedgehogs of course!

That’s it from me for now. Wishing you a fabulous weekend. It’s my husband’s birthday tomorrow and also our dog’s but, due to the weather, we’re having a quiet day at home rather than attempting to go out and about, with a Chinese takeaway for tea and a family film.

Big hugs
Jessica xx

INTERVIEW: Jessica Redland

Jessica Redland Author2 Comments

Thank you to the lovely Karen Louise Hollis, author and reviewer, for this interview which I’m re-blogging on my website x

I Heart Books

Jessica Redland is one of my favourite authors. Her books are so real that you feel you are in the settings and the characters are your friends. I was thrilled when she agreed to answer some questions for me. I hope you enjoy reading her answers as much as I did.

Which childhood books and authors were your favourites? Do you think they influenced you in wanting to become an author?

I was a massive Enid Blyton fan and particularly devoured the Faraway Tree series, Malory Towers and the Famous Five. I also read a couple of books by Sheila Lavelle called My Best Fiend and The Fiend Next Door. They’re amazing stories of Charlie and her best friend Angela who constantly gets her into trouble and is therefore more of an enemy than a friend, hence the use of ‘fiend’ in the title.

When I was thirteen, a…

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The one where I have a Valentine’s Day plea for everyone to #RespectRomFic

Jessica Redland Author7 Comments

Today is Valentine’s Day and I have a special Valentine’s Day wish this year. It’s not a wish for me personally but one for the genre in which I write and it’s a two part wish.

My first part is that I would wish for everyone who reads and loves this genre to declare it loudly and proudly. Many already do. They champion romance from the rooftops, they share their love for romantic books with anyone who will listen, and they (quite rightly) unashamedly immerse themselves in the genre for which I thank you so much. But there are those who see romantic fiction as a ‘guilty pleasure’. Please don’t! There is nothing whatsoever to feel guilty about when reading a genre that brings so much joy. Just see it quite simply for what it is – an absolute pleasure.

My second part is that I wish for those who haven’t tried this genre – possibly because of preconceived ideas as to what they’re getting or a negative experience with a book that wasn’t for them many moons ago – to give it a try. Because they might just be very surprised.

The romance genre is so incredibly diverse and there’s something in here for absolutely everyone. Whether you want to laugh until your sides hurt, immerse yourself in the world of billionaires, make an erotic connection with a shapeshifter or find hope and belief from a character going through the same life challenges as you, this is your genre.

Romance books, love stories, women’s fiction or whatever label you want to use are essentially stories of relationships – of love, friendship, family and community – and are therefore something we can all relate to.

What I find odd is that this genre is disregarded by so many yet stories which explore relationships are not unique to romance fiction. Pick up any book from any genre and, at its heart, it will be a book about relationships. Even in a gangland crime book, you’ll find love, friendship, family and community in among the drugs and violence. Our relationships are what make us human. Sometimes they’re amazing but quite often they can be messy, complicated and even toxic and romantic fiction explores this. It explores real life.

I’m immensely proud of what I write but I have, sadly, experienced looks of disgust and expressions of disinterest when I’ve shared my genre. ‘Urgh,’ said someone I met in a bookshop when signing copies of my latest release, ‘I can’t stand romance.’ I had the same reaction in a library when helping to promote my audio provider’s library app. I don’t understand this reaction. There are genres that don’t personally interest me as a reader, but I’d never be so dismissive or disrespectful of those who write them. I’d know the same care, attention, thought, research and effort has gone into writing them as has gone into writing mine.

Writing a book isn’t easy. I can’t compare genres because I’ve only ever written romance but I do stacks of research for every book I write and I feel every emotion my characters experience. As my books tend to be emotional ones, I go through a stack of tissues and paracetamol with each one, and it takes it out of me emotionally as well as mentally. I do this because it makes a difference to my readers. They connect to the characters because they feel what they’re feeling … because I felt it when I wrote it. Every time I read a review or receive a message from a reader thanking me for covering a particular subject which has personally resonated with them, lifted them, given them hope, it’s encouragement to keep going. This genre is wanted, needed and it genuinely makes a difference to readers. It can even change lives.

Romance fiction is about life. It’s about everything we experience every day. It’s escapism. It takes readers away from all that is bad in the world. It doesn’t avoid the bad stuff but it shows that there is hope. I couldn’t be more proud to write it and to read it.

A movement has started calling out the snobbery which dismisses romance books as somehow inferior using the hashtag #RespectRomFic It was started by Sara-Jade Virtue, Brand Development Director at Simon & Schuster UK and is championed by publishers and the Romantic Novelists’ Association. It’s gaining increasing momentum with support from so many who love this genre. We’re not saying it’s for everyone but why dismiss something you haven’t tried? You might discover that this is the genre you’ve been missing all your life!

Big Valentine’s Day hugs
Jessica xx

The one where I thank everyone for the Bumblebee Barn Blog Tour

Jessica Redland AuthorLeave a comment

I’m soooooo late with this post but better late than never.

The blog tour for my latest release Healing Hearts at Bumblebee Barn was a whopper with 48 stops scheduled across 16 days. There were a couple of no-shows but I was thrilled with the 46 lovely reviews.

It was lovely to see familiar faces but also great to see some new readers for my books and hear their thoughts on my writing as a new-to-them author. This was overwhelmingly positive with only one new reviewer giving it a lower rating because she doesn’t enjoy slow-burn romances and this particular story happens to be a slow-burn but not all books are going to be for everyone and I’m delighted that most loved this new story and new setting.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the blog tour, to the fabulous Rachel Gilbey of Rachel’s Random Resources for organising it, and for anyone who commented/shared the review posts.

I’ve shared a selection of quotes below, trying to pick on a range of different points. Thank you for all the book love.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you!

Big hugs
Jessica xx

Monday Merry Meets: Jessica Redland

Jessica Redland AuthorLeave a comment

I had a very special cuppa and chat with the team at The Enchanted Emporium. Here’s what we discussed in our Monday Merry Meets…

The Enchanted Emporium Bookshelf

Welcome to our next Monday Merry Meet where we celebrate author’s who write romantic fiction. We’re excited to chat to Jessica Redland who has written many bestseller novels based in our beloved North Yorkshire and the Wolds.

Grab a cuppa and relax for five minutes while you discover what she has to say about her books, writing, the romance genre and of course, spells.

Monday Merry Meets: Jessica Redland

Vincent looking grumpy in a pink frame with love is in the air wording
Love from Vincent

Willow: Welcome Jessica, have a seat. We’re thrilled to have you this month to celebrate romance books to coincide with Valentine’s Day. While the Enchanted Bookshelf has oodles of fantasy and paranormal books, Rosa’s Box of Romance is full of romantic novels, including yours. Talking of romance, I apologise if Vincent, our Maine coon, is extra affectionate. The catnip we’ve used in some of our love potions has made him high. Amber has cast a no stick spell…

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The one with a heads up on some dates for your diary

Jessica Redland Author2 Comments

I should be writing today but I’ve got the lurgy and am feeling sorry for myself so I’m having an admin day while I’m too fuzzy-headed to create. I swear I’ve cracked all my ribs from coughing so much!

Today’s post is just a quickie with some dates for your diary if you’re in the North Yorkshire/Teesside area or could be later this year. None of these events have tickets for sale just yet as it’s too early for that, so this is very much just a dates notification.

CROSSING THE TEES FESTIVAL

I’m thrilled to be involved in two events at the 2023 Crossing the Tees Festival which is a week of events run collaboratively by Stockton, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, Darlington, and Redcar & Cleveland Library Services. You can check out their website here although the programme and tickets won’t appear until late April.

SETTINGS WORKSHOP

My first event is a workshop for writers/aspiring writers as follows:

  • Saturday 10th June 2023
  • 10am-12pm
  • Guisborough Library

This interactive workshop will explore how to create a memorable setting for your writing which will leave readers wanting to come back for future visits. It is best suited to those wishing to write a novel or series rather than those writing short stories.

I was particularly excited when they confirmed the local of this workshop as I was raised in Guisborough and, in the days before the Internet, spent a lot of time in Guisborough Library conducting research for my school homework, as well as being a borrower of fiction.

ROMANCE AUTHOR PANEL

My second event is participating in a Romance Author Panel as follows:

  • Sunday 11th June 2023
  • 2pm-3.30pm
  • Ormesby Library, Middlesborough

I’ll be joined on the panel by fellow Boldwood authors Jane Lovering and Lisa Hobman and we’re really looking forward to being interviewed by one of the library team.

RICHMOND WALKING AND BOOK FESTIVAL

This is a ten-day event with a range of book-related and walking activities. The programme for this festival won’t appear until the spring (at which point tickets will be available) but you can look at their website here.

Last year, I was excited to be secured as a speaker in what would have been my very first festival appearance. Unfortunately my slot clashed with the Queen’s funeral and needed to be cancelled but I’m so pleased to have been invited back this year.

  • Thursday 21st September 2023
  • 11am-12pm
  • The Station, Richmond, North Yorkshire

I’ll post with further details when the programmes for both events are released.

Big hugs
Jessica xx

The one where a decision 4 years ago changed my life

Jessica Redland AuthorLeave a comment

Today is a special day because it’s the four-year anniversary of the first day of business for Boldwood Books, marked by them opening up for submissions.

Back in early 2019, my dream of being able to write full-time wasn’t looking good. My original publisher had ceased trading eighteen months after the release of my first book through them. Four books had sold less than 2,500 during that time and, with my rights back, I’d been even less successful as an indie author. Each new book released failed to have the impact I’d hoped and I wondered if it was time to call it a day. I’d written a new story – at the time called Wish I Could Tell You Goodbye – and I thought it might be my best yet … but the small number of publishers I’d already submitted it to didn’t agree and had passed on it.

I remember seeing the adverts for Boldwood Books in January and wondering whether I should submit. The idea of joining a brand new publisher made me a little nervous as doing that hadn’t served me well before but, as soon as I clicked onto Boldwood’s website, I could see a massive difference. This was a forward-thinking company with impressive credentials who were looking to do things differently and they immediately felt like home.

So I stayed up until midnight to be the first with a submission in their inbox on 1st February 2019 … then panicked later that morning when I saw a message on Twitter that they were now officially open for business and accepting submissions. Might mine have been too early and disappeared into the tech underworld? So I submitted again just to be sure.

Best decision I ever made.

I was so thrilled to be taken on as one of Boldwood’s first twenty authors, offered a nine-book deal for five of my backlist and four new titles (later extended to twelve books to add in the rest of my backlist). Wish I Could Tell You Goodbye was renamed as The Secret to Happiness and released in September 2019.

On the four-year anniversary of submitting this manuscript, I’m thrilled to announce that it has sold 75,000 copies across all formats. Woo hoo!

This was my second bestselling title behind Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow for quite a long time but Snowflakes Over The Starfish Café has now passed it and pushed it into third place.

It remains one of my favourite stories and is the only one told with three perspectives and the only one written in third person.

Four years on from first submitting to Boldwood, I’m more than halfway through my second twelve-book contract and couldn’t imagine ever wanting to leave the fabulous Boldwood family.

Happy anniversary, Boldwood Books. Without you, I’m not sure I’d still be writing. Thanks to you, that dream of writing full-time has happened… with interest.

Big hugs
Jessica xx

The one where you could join my one-month course about writing in a coastal or country setting

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Something a little bit different for the blog today…

  • Are you an aspiring writer?
  • Are you a writer who is looking to change the type of setting you use in your books?
  • Do you currently write in coastal or country settings but would like more guidance?

If you can answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then you might be interested in joining my one-month course all about writing a novel or a series in a coastal or country setting … something I might have a smidge of experience in doing myself!

I ran this course for the first time last year through the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA) who run an RNA Learning programme. I loved running it, using my skills again from my former life as a trainer and coach, and the feedback was so good that I was thrilled to be invited back again this year.

Do I have to be a member of the RNA to take part?

No, anyone can take part. As you might expect, the cost is more for non-members but this is still way, way, way less than what you might expect to pay elsewhere. It’s £75 for members and £150 for non-members.

Do I need to be a romance writer?

No. I write contemporary women’s fiction under the overall umbrella of ‘romance’ so I will be drawing on my experience of this genre when giving examples. However, the learnings are transferrable across all genres. I have also drawn on the experiences of other author friends and not all of them are romance authors.

When is it?

The course runs across the duration of March 2023. Delegates will be given access to an online learning portal on the morning of 1st March and access will disappear late evening on 31st March. The portal can only be accessed during March but delegates will be able to download materials to refer to beyond that time.

How is the course structured?

The big emphasis is on flexible learning so it’s ideal for anyone who works and/or has family responsibilities. I’ve divided the learning into four units:

  1. Before you start
  2. Building your setting
  3. The characters in your setting
  4. Your plot and what happens next?

Each week will be a mixture of:

  • Pre-recorded training sessions (1-2 hours of input per subject)
  • Some exercises for you to do at home
  • Feedback given on those exercises, should you choose to share them in the portal (very much encouraged in order to get feedback but not mandatory if you prefer not to)
  • A 1-hour Zoom meeting (held on Monday evenings) which will be recorded for those unable to attend

Because the emphasis is on flexibility, you can choose when you watch the materials and undertake the exercises. The first week will be available when you enter the portal and all weeks will be available by the mid-month point. The reason I don’t upload everything right from the start is that I do want to encourage delegates to take some time to do the exercises rather than race through everything at once without doing any exercises or taking the time to reflect on the learnings.

If you can’t make Monday evenings for the Zooms, please don’t be put off. It would be impossible to find a day that suits everyone which is why they’re recorded and available for catching up. They’re an opportunity to ask questions about the materials and exercises as well as asking me any general questions about writing. If I can help, I will! I have some small bitesize presentations that I can run too. If anyone has questions they’d want to pose in the Zoom but aren’t able to attend, they can ask them in the portal and I’ll answer them in the Zoom.

What have previous delegates said about this course?

I was blown away with the phenomenal feedback last year and here are a few of the feedback comments received:

  • “Jessica went above and beyond in her content and I am extremely grateful for all the hard work she must have put in”
  • “It exceeded my expectations”
  • “Jessica has given me so much knowledge about the writing process that I feel in a much better position now to develop my novel”
  • “Jessica’s feedback was excellent and inspiring”
  • “All the learning materials were very helpful giving many different insights into various aspects of writing a novel or series in a coastal or country setting. The breadth and range of the coverage was brilliant and the exercises really made me think about how to develop and write my novel. Jessica’s feedback on the exercises was given quickly so that Icould make the most of it and her feedback was knowledgable, kind, constructive and thoughtful. In a nutshell the learning materials and Jessica’s feedback and her response to questions was really excellent”
  • “The discussion forums were great -it was daunting at first to put your work up but it was a great confidence builder”
  • “The weekly training sessions – prerecorded ones – were very easy to take info from and put it into the homework. The homework was a gamechanger – if we were not challenged to put what we learnt into action, I would not of got as much out of the course”
  • “Jessica is a gem. She was helpful, encouraging and lifted my confidence”
  • “Best tutor I’ve ever experienced”
  • “Jessica’s willingness to share her own experiences,good and bad,made it more realistic than making it look like ‘this is easy, everybody can do it'”
  • “On the 1st of March I Started this course with no clue about writing and where to begin – I now have a plan of a novel with a setting, specicic setting, characters, plot and possible material for a series. I am as proud as punch”

I’m interested! What do I do now?

There’s some really helpful information about the RNA Learning Workshops on their website here.

You can specifically click in for more about my course here. You can also book your space through Eventbrite from this page.

If this isn’t for you but you know somebody who might be interested, please do pass them the details. Thank you.

Big hugs
Jessica xx