As part of the blog tour for Just Friends, I’m delighted to share a Q&A with debut author Holly McCulloch with you today. Thank you as always to Anne Cater and the publisher for inviting me to take part in the tour and for giving me the opportunity to share my love of books with you all.
About the book:
Laugh-out-loud and moving, Just Friends is a feel-good ‘will they, won’t they’ love story perfect for reading by the pool or on a rainy afternoon from an exciting new voice in women’s fiction.
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It’s easy to put someone in the friend zone. But what happens if you change your mind?
Bea isn’t happy. Desperate for a change, she looks to her friends for inspiration. Every single one of them is paired off, perhaps that’s what she needs too.
So, she starts dating again. But everywhere she goes – amid the hilarious and scarring dates – there’s Peter. Good old, oddball Peter, her closest friend from university. He’s always been firmly in the friend zone but something’s happened lately – he seems taller, more handsome and suddenly making him smile is Bea’s favourite thing.
But how can Bea possibly risk their friendship? And how do you even go about taking someone out of the friend zone? What if Bea and Peter were only ever meant to be just friends…
About the author:
Holly McCulloch lives in Oxfordshire and bakes beautiful (and delicious) cakes for a living. Just Friends is her debut novel.
Q&A with debut author Holly McCulloch:
Q&A with Holly McCulloch, author of the hilarious and moving rom-com, Just Friends.
Just Friends is a feel-good ‘will they, won’t they’ love story centred around Bea who is single and looking for a change. What came first, the characters or the plot?
Bea’s character definitely came first. I could see her so clearly in my mind – so clearly that it’s sometimes kind of weird to think that she doesn’t exist! But I would also say that she didn’t fully come to life until I started imagining her living and until I started plotting out the book.
This is your debut novel. Did you always want to be a writer?
Always! But for a long time, the only thing I wrote were emails and PowerPoint
presentations. Writing a book always seemed like something only other people would be
capable of. But, as ever, the thing you haven’t started always seems less scary once you’ve actually begun…
What encouraged you to start writing Just Friends?
It was a mixture of a few things – but the main thing was frustration! Frustration at myself for putting off doing something that I always wanted to try. And once I started, I couldn’t stop.
What was the most challenging aspect of the writing process?
The rewriting! So. Much. Rewriting.
What does your daily writing routine look like?
I’m a morning person – so when I’m writing, I get up, make coffee (and grab a couple of
cookies to dunk), and start writing as soon as I can.
Before the morning is over, I normally have a second cup of coffee (accompanied by another couple of cookies), and then take a break at lunch. I write sitting down, so by lunch time, I need to move. I am NOT a runner, so I usually go for a walk and pet all the dogs.
My afternoons are a lot less regimented than my mornings. If I have already hit my daily target (normally 2,000 words), I’ll do something different in the afternoon that requires less concentration or is more interactive. But if I haven’t hit my target, I’ll usually procrastinate quite a bit and bounce between different things, before settling down and taking a really long time to write 100 words.
And finally, what do you like to read?
I read most genres, although I am much more likely to pick up fiction. My favourite genre to read is fantasy (Philip Pullman, Terry Pratchett, Leigh Bardugo, Samantha Shannon, SJ Maas), but of course I am also a big fan of a rom-com (Beth O’Leary, Mhairi McFarlane, Marian Keyes, Jojo Moyes), or a mystery (I would tell you which ones, but then they would no longer be…a mystery).
A huge thank you to Holly for taking the time to share her thoughts with us today!
Just Friends by Holly McCulloch is available to purchase now: Amazon UK
Check out what these other fab bloggers have to say about this book:
Cal Turner Reviews 
Thanks so much for supporting the blog tour Cal xx
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