Greetings!

I am happy to report that I have sent off a ginormous Microsoft Word file to my editor of my third adult book. I'm even happier to report that I'm just about to put my teenage head back on and start writing my umpteenth (I've actually lost count) YA novel, Adorkable, which I'm so excited about, especially as I'm planning a Juno [DVD] [2007] and Whip It! [DVD] [2009] double feature to get me in the mood.

So, this blog post is all about books, because I write them and I read them and I talk about them a lot. Like, really a lot. I recently did a great event called The Firestation Bookswap, which is now available as a podcast in ITunes, but it's free, which I can't bear to listen to but you might find it amusing. The book I took to swap was a copy of The Dud Avocado (Virago Modern Classics) only because I found a very old Penguin edition in a charity shop so I decided to give away my other copy with a less aesthetically pleasing cover. The Dud Avocado is definitely in my all-time Top Ten Favourite Books and why wouldn't it be when it's set in 1950′s Paris and tells the giddy, chaotic take of Sally Joy Gorce, an American ingenue who goes to breaakfast in an evening gown because all her other clothes are at the laundry, dyes her hair pink and gets embroiled in schemes with louche, disreputable men. I implore you all to read it!

And while I'm talking about books, I wanted to rec a teen book by my friend, Anna Carey. Though I'm not reccing the book just because I know Anna, but because it's a really good teen book. The Real Rebecca is funny, really funny and tells the story of 14-year-old Rebecca from Dublin whose life sucks because her mother, a best-selling author, writes a teen book based on her and her sister so everyone at her school can mock her and if that wasn't bad enough she has a crush on Paperboy, even though she doesn't know his name and has to call him Paperboy and it's little wonder that Rebecca and her friends form a band so she can take all her aggression out on her new drumkit. What I really loved about this book was that it wasn't set somewhere in England or somewhere in America but is definitely set in Ireland and is full of slang and reference points that didn't crop up in the last episode of Glee. Please read it and then nag Anna to write a sequel.

I have yet more friends who have written amazing books! Erin McKean is the coolest woman I know. She's a lexicographer by profession, roller-skates in her spare time, writes the wonderful A Dress A Day blog and had written an amazing novel The Secret Lives of Dresses which you'll love if you've ever worn a vintage dress or thought that maybe you might want to wear a vintage dress or you like smart, perceptive stories so beautifully written that they make you sigh longingly when you get to the last page.

And finally the last book I want to bang on about by a person I actually know in real life is The Girls' Guide to Homemaking and is an utterly sweet novel about a girl who turns to her grandmother's 1950′s home-making manuals for advice on how to mend her broken heart.

Right, enough of all this plugging other peoples' book, let's talk about me now, shall we? I am doing an event on March 31st. Girls' Night In is part of the Stevenage and North Herts Lit Fest and I'll be appearing with fellow author Jo Carnegie at Stevenage Central Library. All the relevant details are here.

Also, if you were a winner of my Chrismukkah blog competition (if you can even remember that far back,) you should have been notified and may even have received your prize and I will be publishing the winning questions and my answers to them sometime this week. Sorry for the delay but book deadlines always take precedence and some of those questions are HARD.

So, I'll be back soon and if you can't wait that long, you can always follow me on Twitter.

Live on,

Sarra x