Guest Post: Let It Snow!
In my novel, A ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Lovestyle’, my leading lady – Sukie McClaren – is over the moon when she arrives in Salzburg and finds there has been quite a decent snowfall earlier that day. She loves snow and, I have to confess, so do I.
There is a belief that our preferred time of the year is determined by the first six months from our birth. Now, I don’t know how much truth there is in that but, I was born in the autumn and my favourite season is, without doubt, winter.
I grew up in Scotland, and at that time, ‘climate change’ was only just about making itself known. As such, we still had four seasons: Spring – when the rain fell vertically, Summer – when the rain fell vertically but was warmer, Autumn – when the rain was horizontal due to the wind, and Winter – when the snow was up to your knees and you had to scrape the ice off the inside of the windows. Even more fun was trying to eat your breakfast cereal when the milk was still frozen inside the bottle!
All that aside, however, there was still fun to be had – such as, for example, when I attended boarding school for a time, up in the Highlands. There were no ‘snow days’ back then! If you looked out the window in the morning, and the white stuff was on the ground, then your feet were stuck in your wellies and off you went. It was during this time that I recall my very first occasion of going sledging.
There had been a particularly heavy snowfall one night and, after school, everyone was heading up to the big hill just outside the town to go sledging. Our house-mistress gave permission for me and my fellow boarders to go too. This was a BIG treat for a school night! When we arrived, the hill was bustling with people all laughing and squealing with happiness as they went up, and then down, the soft fluffy snow. As we waited for our turn on the sledges, we joined in the massive snowball fight that was also going on around us. When my turn for the sledge finally came, one of the older girls told me to aim for “that hilly bit there, it’s more fun.” What she DIDN’T tell me was that the ‘hilly bit’ dropped away to nothing on the other side and I ended up flying through the air about six feet above the ground! Luckily, being smaller and lighter, I landed further down the hill, past where the snow had become impacted and right in the middle one of the large snow drifts near the bottom. Nothing was hurt and the only bit of damage was snow down my welly boots. Now at this point, dear reader, it would be prudent of me to say that, on my next downhill trip, I made sure I took a more sensible route… Did I ‘eck as like! I aimed straight for the ‘hilly bit’ and did it all over again! Well… You’re only young once!
Another ‘snowy’ occasion that comes to mind happened a few years later. It was Christmas Eve and once again, through the night, there had been a very heavy snowfall. My mum was horrified! You see, whilst she had been very prepared and had already done ‘The Christmas Shop’ (you know, the one where your mum drags you out of bed to be at Marks & Spencer’s for silly o’clock in the morning so you can push the second trolley around because Christmas will ruined if we don’t have M&S Brussel Sprouts on the big day…) on the 23rd December, she had arranged to collect the turkey from the butchers on Christmas Eve. That would be the butchers shop two miles away. Two miles away from our house which sat at the bottom of a very steep hill that out car was never going to be able to climb up, in the snow, in a month of Sundays!
There was only one solution to the dilemma.
Send yours truly, and her best mate, to walk to the butchers, dragging her sledge behind her! Yes! I had to go on foot to collect the turkey and drag it back home on the sledge! To this day my mum still thinks this story is hilarious. Well seeing she wasn’t the one who had to walk four miles in knee-high snow!
Now, you would be forgiven for thinking that such an episode in my teenage years would have put me off snow for life but it hasn’t. You see, I love the unique atmosphere that descends when the snow is falling. Everything goes quiet. There is a very special hush that you only get when the snow falls. The streetlights have a hazy glow as they reflect off the snowflakes and the snow on the ground. The air is so pure and fresh and there is no greater feeling than taking a deep breath and feeling tiny little pin-pricks in your nose and lungs from the sharpness of the cold air. The overall feeling is one of peacefulness and serenity.
And that is why, so many times over the winter, you will find me looking out of my window and whispering “Let it snow. Please… Let it snow.”
A Rock ‘n’ Roll Lovestyle
So who exactly is Sukie McClaren?
A Christmas-loving Cat lover? A Sound of Music Fanatic? A Fiercely Independent Woman?
She is all of the above. And when she is sent to Salzburg for a business trip a few weeks before Christmas, she thinks all her dreams have come true. As she packs her suitcase, the only things on her mind are Christmas markets, lots of snow and finally seeing the Doh-Ray-Me steps. Becoming the new best friend of the world’s hottest rock-star doesn’t even get a look in.
Pete Wallace is a reclusive, reluctant, rock-star and the world’s Number One, best-selling, male solo artist. It’s been three years since his last tour and he’s now preparing to go back on the road again. A week in Salzburg, schmoozing with the music press, is one of his worst nightmares.
He can’t wait for it to be over.
When Pete and Sukie meet, it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Lonely for too long, he begins to remember how it feels to be happy and, for the first time in six years, Christmas feels special again.
Eduardo di Santo however, whose kid sister suffered life-changing injuries at a Pete Wallace concert, is all set on getting revenge. When Pete’s new tour is announced, he begins to make his plans. Plans that will culminate in Pete’s demise.
Will Pete and Sukie’s new friendship die before it has a chance to flourish?
A Christmas tale full of love, laughter, friendship and revenge.
Purchase from Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2woAAoF
About Kiltie Jackson
Kiltie grew up in Scotland, Glasgow to be precise. A very unique city with a very unique way of looking at life. When she was old enough to do so, she moved to London and then, after several years of obtaining interesting experiences -which are finding their way into her writing – she moved up to the Midlands.
She currently lives in Staffordshire with five cats and one husband. The cats kindly allow her and her husband to share their house on the condition they keeps paying the mortgage!
Her little home is known as Moggy Towers, even though despite having plenty of moggies, there are no towers!
She loves reading, watching movies, and visiting old castles. She really dislikes going to the gym!
Her biggest desire is that one day she can give up the day job and write her stories for a living.
Kiltie first began writing ‘A Rock ‘n’ Roll Lovestyle’ over ten years ago. The project was shelved on Chapter Seventeen as she felt the story wasn’t flowing as she would like it to.
In her own words “The images in my head would not come out of my fingers!” Fast forward to November 2016 when, having finished reading Lizzie’s Christmas Escape by Christie Barlow, she read more about the author and was inspired with how Christie herself came to be a best-selling author.
In that thunderbolt moment, Kiltie knew – with a deep certainty- that she needed to reacquaint herself with ‘A Rock ‘n’ Roll Lovestyle’ and begin writing again. She did this in January 2017 and found the words flowed faster than she could type them. Finally, the time was right for her to write her novel.
Her determination to finish what she had started all those years ago was absolute and the first draft was completed on Sunday 16th April 2017.
Since beginning to write again, the ideas have not stopped flowing. She has begun typing up her second book, ‘Of All the Unlikely Places’, and book three (not yet titled) has been worked out and is waiting in the wings for its turn in the spotlight.
She currently has a further ten plots and ideas stored in her file (it’s costing a fortune in USB drives as each story has its own memory stick!) and the ideas still keep on coming.
She now lives her life around the following three quotes:
“I love having weird dreams, they’re great fodder for book plots!”
“Why wait for your ship to come in when you can swim out to meet it?”
“Old enough to know better, young enough not to care!”
Website www.kiltiejackson.com
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/kiltiejackson
Twitter – https://twitter.com/KiltieJackson
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