FEATURED AUTHOR: ROSA TEMPLE

ABOUT THE BOOK

Career minded, Natalie Spencer, had never been in love. She could never understand what all the fuss was about. But when she met Jackson Humphries during Fresher’s Week at University, that all changed.

Utterly infatuated, Natalie quickly discovers the meaning of love and, before she knows it, she's heading up the aisle – for the first time, that is.

This is a tale about four wedding dresses, a runaway groom and a girl who got so carried away, she couldn’t see true love staring her right in the face.

INTERVIEW WITH ROSA TEMPLE

Rosa, what's your favorite thing about the writing process?
It has to be the feeling of freedom it gives me when an idea comes to mind and I can just run with it and let my imagination go wild. It’s one of the best ways I have of winding down. Even if I start a story and I don’t finish, it’s okay because I had a surge of creativity and for the time I was writing I might have been anywhere in the world and meeting people (albeit on paper) I could never hope to meet. How great is that?

Pretty great! What books do you currently have published?
I have a novella called, Sleeping With You Best Friend which was published last year. Natalie’s Getting Married will be my first full length novel to be published.


Is writing your dream job?
Yes it is. It took a while to get here, but I’ve finally found the thing that makes me want to get out of bed in the morning, even though the money is awful.


How often do you tweet?
I’m a fits and starts tweeter. I’ll think I have something important to say and I’ll say it again and again on Twitter. But then I’ll go a week to ten days and never tweet at all. I think that’s bad practice but I never said I was a good tweeter. I do re-tweet as much as I can though.

What five things would you never want to live without?
Music. There is no such thing as a world without music. I listen to all kinds but my favorite is jazz and soul. Books. What would life be without some stimulating material to sink your teeth into? Chocolate. But only the good kind; dark with 80% cocoa. I’ll take Belgian or Swiss, thank you. Red wine. Need I say more? And lastly, floss. Did you know plaque can cause heart attacks?

Good to know! What’s your favorite fast food?
I’m a Londoner, so it’s good old fish and chips without a doubt. But it has to be bought in the right place. My favorite chippy is always busy on a Friday evening. I’m talking queues out the door. But please don’t get me wrong, I don’t have fish and chips every Friday – my skinny jeans wouldn’t allow it.



What do you wish you could do?
I wish I could get to grips with social media and technology. I manage to have a blog, a Twitter account and a Facebook page and that’s it. Some people have endless on-line platforms and I wonder: a) how do you even use things like Pinterest and Instagram? and b) how do you find the time?

I don’t even know how to use half the functions on my phone – any picture I take is dark and foggy. Seriously, I could have an album full of complete strangers for all the good I am at technology. Yes I wish to be more technologically minded.

What do you like to do when there’s nothing to do?
Easy. Watch terrible films on television. That’s what Channel 5 and all its sister channels were made for. A cup of tea and an awful, predictable, badly acted film with a lousy cast is somehow really refreshing to me. Do you know the type I mean? The ones that went straight to television because who in their right mind would pay good money to see them at the cinema? I go for the love story dramas, they’re the best kind. They have titles like: The Girl He Met On Line, Her Biggest Mistake or Dangerous Lessons. I’d love to be in one of those films.

Would you rather be a movie star, sports star, or rock star?
This is mean, why can’t I be all of them? Okay I choose rock star. If I were a rock star, chances are I’d be pretty fit so I looked good in music videos making the sports star option a waste of time. Also, as a rock star there’s a pretty good chance I might get asked to do a movie. Yes! I can have it all.


Brilliant! Do you procrastinate?
Oh yes! You know how many fitness regimes, healthy eating plans, learning of new languages etc I’ve put off? Only about a million. If I hadn’t procrastinated I would have been a saxophone playing, roller-blading, ballet dancer who tap dances and plays the bongos, is fluent in five different languages, and is very often seen in the lead role of the local amateur dramatics society production and has read War and Peace.

I see your point. What’s in your refrigerator right now?
Right, just had a quick check. It’s the end of the week so not much in there right now. I have a bowl of apples – should have been having an apple a day but only managed two. Chicken breasts defrosting for my casserole tomorrow. Half a punnet of blueberries for my healthy, daily smoothies – of which I managed to make one this week. Rice milk, low fat and mine; cow’s milk, full fat and everyone else’s. The dregs of some juice in a bottle – don’t know why my son couldn’t have just finished it. Garlic, ginger. Two kinds of spread, one low fat one heart attack packed. Fast acting pain relief gel and some satsumas.

What choices in life would you like to have a redo on?
This might be shallow but I wish I’d never given up piano. I don’t know why I stopped. I began taking lessons as an adult and I bought myself an electric piano. Maybe it was lack of time but my piano now sits in the corner of my writing room, gathering dust. I have lots of musician friends who come over to my place and sit and tinkle out a tune on my piano, and I’ve forgotten how. I think, somehow, it would have been a nice interlude between writing to sit and play a tune, don’t you? Maybe I’ll start again . . .

I think you should! What’s one of your favorite quotes?
I did come across some writing quotes that helped to inspire me whenever I might have been blocked or running out of steam. In particular this one struck a chord because of how tough writing can get sometimes:
“It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.” - C J Cherryh

Very true. You have a personal chef for the night. What would you ask him to prepare?
In the UK there is a program called Masterchef (probably there are versions all over the world). If I’m not too busy I’ll watch the series, and for some reason I am transfixed by people cooking in a kitchen. Why? I don’t know, but I get fascinated by cookery terms like: friccasee, compote, en croute, and jus! So my personal chef would cook a fish dish – because I never cook fish well – using any of those fancy styles. But I’d simply have to have a dessert that involved masses of chocolate, or should I say chocolat?

Describe yourself in 5 words.
Beautiful, multi-talented, super-fit, ambidextrous . . .  and a big fat liar.



Good one! What is your favorite movie?
This is hard to pin down. I always claim that this is Breakfast At Tiffany’s, but then I might watch another firm favorite, like one of the ‘Before’ Trilogy, and swear blind that this is the one. I guess the answer changes depending on what sort of mood I’m in.



Understandable. What are you working on now?
Right now my brain is working overtime on new stories I’d love to write. I’ve already started two new books. The first is an idea for a Christmas novel which came to me at (guess when?) Christmas, and I had to start scribbling away. I more or less have the whole outline mapped out in my head and just need to get it down. Alongside that, I started writing the novel I’d like to publish next year. Both are romantic comedies but with serious undertones. I was struck by comments of Natalie’s Getting Married when reviewers said they laughed and cried along with my heroine, and I’d love to re-capture those emotions in my next books.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rosa Temple began writing romantic comedies and chick lit because of her passion for what she calls the 'early chick lit films', like: Sabrina, Barefoot In the Park and Breakfast at Tiffany's. She honed her skills as a ghost writer, gaining experience writing romantic novellas, both sweet and on the slightly steamy side. In her notebooks, she constantly jotted down story ideas of her own, and she eventually completed her first novella Sleeping With Your Best Friend and now, the full length novel, Natalie's Getting Married.
Rosa Temple is a Londoner and is married with two sons. She is a reluctant keep fit fanatic and doer of housework and insists that writing keeps her away from such strenuous tasks. She spends her days creating characters and story lines while drinking herbal tea and eating chocolate biscuits.

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Buy the book:Amazon US   |  Amazon UK