Today, I am thrilled to be involved in the Blog Tour for Being Netta Wilde and author Hazel Ward has written a special guest post for Carole's Book Corner all about the joys of plundering the past
An uplifting story of love, loss and second chances that celebrates friendship and human connections.
Netta Wilde was all the things Annette Grey isn’t. Netta Wilde was raw, unchecked and just a little bit rebellious. She loved The Clash and she loved being Netta Wilde.
Annette Grey is an empty, broken woman who hardly knows her own children. Of course, it’s her own fault. She’s a bad mother. An unnatural mother. At least, that’s what her ex-husband tells her.
The one thing she is good at …
the one thing that stops her from falling …
is her job.
When the unthinkable happens, Annette makes a decision that sets her on a journey of self-discovery and reinvention. Along the way, her life is filled with friends, family, dogs, and jam. Lots of jam.
Suddenly anything seems possible. Even being Netta Wilde again.
But, is she brave enough to take that final step when the secrets she keeps locked inside are never too far away?
Purchase Links
UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Being-Netta-Wilde-Hazel-Ward-ebook/dp/B0947351XQ
US - https://www.amazon.com/Being-Netta-Wilde-Hazel-Ward-ebook/dp/B0947351XQ
The joys of plundering the past.
These days, I find myself increasingly interested in history. Especially the last century. Actually, let me clarify that. I find myself increasingly interested in the people who lived through that time. Of course, I lived through some of that era so, I’m part of the history too. Perhaps that’s why I like to include it in my stories.
Most of Being Netta Wilde takes place just a year or two ago but there are a couple times when the main character, Annette Grey, remembers key events that happened in the eighties and the early noughties. Having lived through those eras myself, I thought I’d be able to remember them pretty well but I was surprised by how much fact checking I had to do, just to make sure I’d remembered correctly. Unsurprisingly, I found one or two failures of memory, particularly with the timing of pop music that was around in the eighties.
Researching those years wasn’t too difficult because it didn’t take up a large part of the book. But, what if all of your story takes place in the past? Being Netta Wilde is the first book in the ‘Netta Wilde’ series. A companion novella, Being Doogie Chambers, is already available, free to members of my Readers’ Club. Doogie was Netta’s first serious boyfriend. The novella tells the story of some of those events from his point of view and takes place entirely in those times.
So many more chapters to cover and so much more research but how lovely to get back into the mind-set of being young in the 1980s when mobiles, social media and emails weren’t a way of life. When you agreed a time and place to meet someone and that was it. When you left a hastily scribbled note on the door to tell someone where to find you if you didn’t want to miss them. Music features a lot in Doogie’s story and, being a bit of a music lover myself, it was wonderful to be reminded of the thrill of buying actual records rather than downloading them. Happy days.
The next book in the series, Finding Edith Pinsent, goes back much further. It’s about Edie, the elderly spinster who lived in the house before Annette. In book one, Edie has already died so we only get to know her through her diary entries and what other people say about her. This time we meet her from a young age and, as her story unfolds, we discover the real Edie.
Her story begins in the middle of World War Two which is most definitely before my time. So, extensive research has been necessary. I’ve read a number of books about that era, fiction and non-fiction, and have done more than my fair share of online research on all sorts of things from WAAF operations to the fashions, music and films of the time.
Although it starts in the 1940s, it moves on through the proceeding decades. It’s been fascinating following everyday life through those years but I’ve had to pull myself out of it now so that I can get the book written. Its official publication date is 1st March 2022 but I’m hoping to bring it forward to autumn/ winter of this year. That’s if I can stop myself from sliding back into the past on the pretence of double checking just one more little detail. It’s hard to stop when it’s such a joy.
By the way, if you want to get hold of a copy of Being Doogie Chambers you can do so here. Finding Edith Pinsent is now available on pre-order.
Hazel Ward was born in a back-to-back house in inner city Birmingham. By the time the council knocked the house flat and packed her family off to the suburbs, she was already something of a feral child who loved adventures. Swapping derelict houses and bomb pecks for green fields and gardens was a bit of a culture shock but she rose to the occasion admirably and grew up loving outdoor spaces and animals. Especially dogs, cats and horses.
Strangely, for someone who couldn’t sit still, she also developed a ferocious reading habit and a love of words. She wrote her first novel at fifteen, along with a lot of angsty poems, and was absolutely sure she wanted to be a writer. Sadly, it all came crashing down when her seventeen-year-old self walked out of school after a spot of bother and was either too stubborn or too embarrassed to go back. It’s too long ago to remember which. What followed was a series of mind-numbingly dull jobs that paid the bills but did little to quell the restlessness inside.
Always a bit of a smart-arse, she eventually managed to talk herself into a successful corporate career that lasted over twenty years until, with the bills paid and the children grown up, she was able to wave it all goodbye and do the thing she’d always wanted to do. While taking a fiction writing course she wrote a short story about a lonely woman who was being made redundant. The story eventually became her debut novel Being Netta Wilde.
Hazel still lives in Birmingham and that’s where she does most of her writing. When she’s not there, she and her partner can be found in their holiday home in Shropshire or gadding about the country in an old motorhome. Not quite feral anymore but still up for adventures.
Social Media Links –
https://www.facebook.com/hazelwardauthor
https://www.instagram.com/hazel.ward
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrmdeA7DKEXhrj6nO6l2gJw
Thanks for allowing me to guest on your lovely blog, Carole. I hope your readers enjoy the post as much as I enjoyed writing it. Hazel
ReplyDeleteGreat feature Carole. Hazel Ward’s books sound great. I will be checking them out.
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