Skip to main content

2017 in Review

On the final day of 2017 I'm going to shout about some of the things that have brought me joy over the past twelve months. 

Personally, I had a pretty great year, and I'm hugely thankful to end the year in remission from Crohn's Disease.  Good health allowed me to have a productive writing year, with the publication of 'The Café in Fir Tree Park' in May and 'Joe and Clara's Christmas Countdown' in October.  I gained a friend and agent in Julia Silk in June and drafted the first book in a series, which I'm currently in the process of editing - it's due to go out on submission to publishers in early 2018.  I became a vegan.  I walked a lot.  I spent quality time with family and friends.


As a fan of live music I saw (amongst others) old favourites (Take That, Frank Turner) and little-known gems (Charlie Barnes, Felix Hagan and the Family); world-wide megastars (Blondie, Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles) and hot new talent (Declan McKenna).  I also listened to a lot of Blossoms, Bastille and Man Made this year and would love to see them live during 2018.

I enjoyed fabulous musical theatre, seeing 'The Girls' in London and touring productions of 'Rent', 'Grease', 'The Addams Family' and 'The Band' and am looking forward to more toe-tapping in theatres around the country in 2018.

Although I read less this year than usual, what I did read was incredibly satisfying.  I loved heart-warming stories of friendship and community from Kat French (The Bed and Breakfast on the Beach) and Cressida McLaughlin (The Once in a Blue Moon Guesthouse), and a chilling thriller (Then She Was Gone) from Lisa Jewell.  Top notch non-fiction came in the form of Johnny Marr's autobiography 'Set the Boy Free', surprise bestseller 'The Secret Lives of Colour' by Kassia St.Clair and Daniel Gray's love letter to football 'Saturday, 3pm'; and humour via Mary Jayne Baker's 'Meet Me at the Lighthouse', and Keris Stainton's 'If You Could See Me Now'.  'Radio Silence' (Alice Oseman), 'So This is Permanence' (Ian Curtis), 'Everywoman' (Jess Phillips), 'The State of Grace' (Rachael Lucas), 'Moxie' (Jennifer Mathieu), 'All That She Can See' (Carrie Hope Fletcher) and 'My Not-So Perfect Life' (Sophie Kinsella) were my other favourite reads.  I also fell completely back in love with the Sweet Valley books I adored in my teens, and looked forward to Fridays when my copy of trade magazine 'The Bookseller' arrived.

I discovered podcasts, devouring every episode of The Debrief, Hey, It's OK, Happy Mum, Happy Baby and Get It Off Your Breasts alongside any Sweet Valley themed podcast I could download.

Pleasure came in many other forms, too.  Sleepy cream from Lush.  Fluffy slipper socks.  Cake at Steel City Cakes on Sheffield's Abbeydale Road.  Crate digging at Spinning Discs record shop.  Meeting with a friend to watch favourite Disney films.  Booja Booja ice cream (and Booja Booja chocolate). 

Thank you, 2017.  Thank you.

I'd love to hear about the things you've loved in 2017 - tweet me @katey5678 or comment below!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Real Life Film Stars v Aaron Halliday...

As Aaron Halliday the leading man in One Night in Los Angeles is a Hollywood star, I thought it'd be fun to talk to fellow authors and book bloggers about their favourite actors and actresses.  One of the reasons I loved writing Aaron was because the perception of him generated by the media was quite different to the man Abbi gets to know.  Let's see what makes the following household names so popular...       One Night in Madrid and One Night in Pamplona author  JD Martins  admires Kate Winslet "because she's not only an amazing actor, but she's beautiful and unafraid of going places in her acting that others might not go and showing the raw emotions. It's a bit like those writers who are brave enough to write erotica, to expose the raw emotions of our stories that it takes us some years to build up the courage to write, for fear of what our friends and family might think. Kate does it in every film and has done it since her earliest film."
9 comments
Read more

I Won't Act My Age - Should Age Influence Hobbies?

Following on from a fabulous weekend watching Take That in Hyde Park with my best friend (you can read a bit about that here) , I spent my Tuesday morning waiting outside a local radio station to meet Olly Murs on his 'You Don't Know Love' radio tour.  I had fun talking to others in the queue (there were maybe 60-80 of us there in all) and the time passed pretty quickly.  Luckily the rain held off and it was neither too hot or too cold - pretty much perfect weather for waiting outside.  Olly arrived just before midday and the staff at the station invited fans in to watch his live stream being filmed, so we all crammed into the foyer to hear him share how proud he is of his forthcoming album and that there will be a tour next year.  Meeting Olly, 12.07.2016 When the interview was over we were all ushered outside and politely reformed the queue to each have our moment with Olly.  It really was nothing more than a moment - his schedule for the radio tour is incredibly
5 comments
Read more

The Boy in the Bookshop

I have something to admit.    I've been sitting on a pretty massive secret for the past six months.   I'm sorry!  But I'm over the moon to be able to share the big news with you all today.    Harper Impulse, the digital-first romance imprint at publishing giant Harper Collins, are publishing The Meet Cute series!  This series of romantic short stories is perfect for commuters, coffee break readers or anyone who feels they don't get enough free time to read a full length book.  Each story focuses on the moment a couple get together for the first time, or as I like to say it's the 'once upon a time' before the 'happily ever after'.   So without further ado, let me share the absolutely stunning cover with you!         Cover artist Stuart Bache created the perfect design for this one, I couldn't have asked for more.  I can't stop staring at it!   The Boy in the Bookshop  is the first instalment of The Meet Cute se
4 comments
Read more