Books for Company: Melanie Rose Interview + Giveaway

10.1.11

Melanie Rose Interview + Giveaway

I was recommended Melanie's first book called 'Could it Be Magic' by a friend and l found myself totally GRIPPED! After finishing it l straight away looked to see if Melanie had any other books out and without a doubt will be buying any book Melanie brings out!
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Interview
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions Melanie. I had a great time reading your answers and finding out about the experiences you have had while gaining knowledge about the things you include in your books.
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Hi Melanie! Thank you for joining us, please tell us a bit about yourself?

I’m Melanie Rose and the author of Could it Be Magic? (Released in the US as Life As I Know It)
My second book, Coming Home is already out in the UK and is to be released in the US by Bantam publishing on 25^th Jan 2011 as Finding Home.

My latest book Down to Earth was published in the UK in October 2010 and is getting great reviews!

I’m married and live in Surrey with our four sons a cat and four guinea-pigs. Before I left work to bring up our sons I worked with children in care and also on the children’s ward of the Royal Marsden Hospital in Surrey. When I’m not writing I enjoy walking, cycling and skiing and I also volunteer at our local hospital one day a week.

How long have you been writing and what inspired you to start writing?
I’ve been writing since I was old enough to hold a pen, starting with school essays and graduating to short stories, magazine and newspaper articles. In 2005 I wrote a book aimed at children from 10 years up, called Green Ice. It’s written under M R Rose and is still available on Amazon. Though only a small print run, it got great reviews from the teenagers who managed to get hold of it! I’ve always had a head full of wild ideas; I find our world and everyone in it fascinating and love to learn new things. I constantly find myself wondering, ‘what if?’

So far you have written 3 books, which has been your personal favourite?
Out of my three recent books I think Coming Home/Finding Home is my favourite, although I am very attached to them all. The reasons behind this are because the wonderful character Kitty who appears to our heroine when she is hypnotised is based on my own paternal grandmother, who when I was a child, regaled me with stories of her youth over cups of tea and fruit cake. There is so much of Kitty’s real life in the story. She really did meet my grandfather whilst skipping in the school yard where her mother really did run a ‘Dame school’, she really did have relatives by the sea and she and her siblings really did almost fall from the cliffs when they scrambled from the beach at high tide. The second reason I love Coming Home/Finding Home is because the farm and the area our heroine finds herself in is based on the area where I grew up. Lots of the book is fiction, though I did actually undergo hypnosis to see how it was done and what it felt like.

Where do you get your ideas for the books you have written and are any characters based on real people you know?

The ideas for my books come from real life and from dreams. My first book Could it Be Magic?/Life As I Know It began after I woke from a very real seeming dream where I’d actually imagined myself as another person living with a different family. It all seemed so real I fell to wondering, what if this life I was living now was the dream and that had been real life? What if when I slept I was one person and when I was awake I was another?

Good research is very important. Down to Earth is about a woman who does a charity parachute jump, is blown off course by an eerie wind and on landing, finds everything about her life is different as she has apparently been missing for six and a half years! I explored all possible scientific reasons for her disappearance and reappearance plus more down to earth explanations. And I actually did a static line parachute jump myself so I knew exactly how scary it was.

Do you enjoy reading as well as writing and if so do you have a favourite authors?
I love reading and wish I had more time to enjoy all the amazing books out there. I love historical novels by brilliant authors like Bernard Cornwell and Philippa Gregory - and the classics. As a child I loved Enid Blyton books and I adore the all time favourite, Little Women by Louisa M Alcott.

Finally, do you have any current projects your working on?
I’ve just finished writing a book which is a little darker than my usual books. It is written in the third person, so slightly different from the first three. It is with my agent while I write the fourth of the present series. Writing is as important to me as eating and breathing so there are plenty more ideas in my head and lots more books to come.

Thank you for joining me at Books for Company, Melanie! Your answers are great to read and l can't wait to read your new book when its out!

More About Melanie
Official Site
Goodreads
Amazon (UK)
Amazon (USA)
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Giveaway

I am giving away Melanie Rose's personal favourite book (of hers) called 'Coming Home'.
-If you are tweeting please copy and tweet this -
' International giveaway! @booksforcompany - http://tinyurl.com/5uvwwbj '
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Form is here!

Rules

Only one entry per a person.

You must be a follower to enter

This is international as long as the Book Despository delivers to your country.

This giveaway will end on 7th February*

*Could change, sooner or later.

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