I am so excited to be able to reveal the gorgeous cover for The Secret to Happiness. Isn’t it pretty? A massive thanks and big hug to the team at Boldwood Books for everything about it from the title to the tagline to the artwork.
The fictional North Yorkshire coastal setting of Whitsborough Bay is modelled predominantly on my hometown of Scarborough (with nods to a couple of the other coastal resorts). It’s therefore wonderful to see the actual beach huts from Scarborough’s North Bay on the cover.
The beach huts in Scarborough’s North Bay, painted bright red, yellow, orange, lime-green and sky-blue, really stand out and they feature in all of my Whitsborough Bay books. The ones on the cover are at the top of a hill and have grass in front of them but grass doesn’t shout ‘seaside’ does it? The designer therefore took the sand right up to the huts and the cover looks much better for it.
In the background you can just see Scarborough Castle, which is Whitsborough Bay Castle in my books.
Whenever I say to someone that I live in Scarborough, they often smile and say “I used to love going there as a kid”. It has such fond memories for so many people and I’m very proud to have called it my home for the past 15 years. Such an inspiring setting for my stories.
If you’d like to grab yourself an eBook pre-order on Kindle, it’s only £1. What a bargain! Here’s the link.
And here’s the blurb to whet your appetite…
Everyone deserves a chance at happiness…
Danniella is running from her past, so when she arrives at the beautiful seaside resort of Whitsborough Bay, the last thing on her mind is making friends. After all, they might find out her secrets…
Alison is fun, caring and doesn’t take herself too seriously. But beneath the front, she is a lost soul, stuck in a terrible relationship, with body confidence issues and no family to support her. All she really needs is a friend.
Karen’s romance has taken a back seat to her fitness business. But she doesn’t want to give up on love quite yet. If only those mysterious texts would stop coming through …
When the women meet at their local bootcamp, a deep friendship blossoms. And soon they realise that the secret to happiness is where they least expected to find it…
An uplifting story of friendship and finding the strength to come to terms with the past. Perfect for fans of Tilly Tennant and Cathy Bramley.
Have a lovely weekend.
Jessica xx
June was yet another crazy-busy month. The big writing news was my publishing deal. Yay! At 10am on Tuesday 18thJune, the secret I’d been keeping for three months could be shared and I spent the day on social media with a big grin on my face as the congratulations messages came in. I was quite overwhelmed with some of the support I had from friends, family and also fellow-writers, but also from those I didn’t know on Facebook and Twitter. How lovely are some people?
On other writing news, I’m on the final stretch with my MA in Creative Writing. I have the first 15k words of a novel to write for my final assignment and a 3k commentary about the learnings in relation to it. I’m writing a time slip novel which is something completely different for me. The 15k words are almost finished which now means I need to start on the commentary which needs submitting in three weeks’ time. We were able to submit the first 2.5k words from the novel as a formative assignment this month and got the feedback on this last week. I submitted two chapters, one of which saw the lead-up to my protagonist going back in time and the other being her reactions to discovering it had happened because I was keen to get feedback on whether the time slip element actually worked. Thankfully my tutor was very positive about both chapters. The second one was spot on but there were a few tweaks suggested for the first which I completely agree with and have actioned already. I’m quite excited about the way it’s shaping up. I have no idea whether Boldwood will be interested in a time slip but I will definitely finish it as it doesn’t make sense to have to write 15k words of a full-length novel and not see it through to the end.
We had a few family events in June. On my husband’s side of the family, our eldest nephew got married and it was a lovely day with perfect weather. After a church service, we went to the reception at Ravenhall Hotel in Ravenscar which is perched on top of the cliffs overlooking the North Yorkshire Coast with the most stunning of views. We’d love to live in that area as it really is beautiful. A couple of months back, our youngest nephew became a dad but baby Winnie was premature and poorly. In and out of different hospitals, we didn’t have a chance to meet her so it was great to finally have cuddles once she was settled at home and the whole family were invited round to say hello. As I knew she probably would, the munchkin started nagging us about giving her a brother or a sister. No way! One was plenty.
On my side of the family, I went to York at the weekend with my mum and my sisters-in-law. We do this every so often and always have a lovely day shopping, eating and chatting. Ooh, and wine is consumed although it was super hot this weekend so a jug of Pimms went down very nicely too.
Jessica Redland Author 