The Blurb
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?
My Review
Being a Rock Chick at heart, I immediately leaped at the chance to bag myself a place on the blog tour for this book based on the title itself.
You can tell the author enjoyed writing this book - her enthusiam shows through on every page.
The main protagonist, Suki, is a strong, feisty woman with a very independent streak. She gets on the wrong side of another guest at the hotel she's staying at, with some interesting repercussions. I found her to be a quite cold character to start with, but her slow-burning friendship with Pete starts to melt her heart.
Pete is relaunching his career as a rock star after three years in hiding. He's drawn to Suki, whose no nonsense, plain talking nature is the perfect panacea to all the media people he has to suck up to. He is a real sweetie. He may be a rock star, but heroes are human too.
There's a couple of interesting sub-plots; one of them rather dramatic, but it adds interest to the story.
I found the book on the whole enjoyable, if a little slow and wordy in places, but the author is certainly good at describing the setting, Salzburg, making you feel as if you are there with them.
A good debut.
About the Author
Kiltie grew up in Scotland, Glasgow to be precise. A very unique city wit
h 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.
h 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
