Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Guest Post by Peter Perrin & His Debut Book ~ Grace's Turmoil


Hello, L.A., Thank you for having me as a guest on your blog. 

A few years ago, my then fourteen-year-old granddaughter self-published two novels on Amazon. Inspired by this I thought I should have a go myself. After all they do say everyone has a book in them. I thought that at the very least it would be a good mental exercise for my then sixty-nine-year-old brain, and might help with my failing memory.

How much mental exercise it would entail I could never have imagined. Sadly, I’m not sure it has helped the memory much, but it has given me a new skill to learn and I’m told there’s a certain joie de vivre about me nowadays, so that must be good.

I believed the younger generation thought most people over the age of sixty had one foot in the grave, and were just killing time until the grim reaper claimed them. But, I knew that wasn’t the case for many people, so I looked for a way to write something to show them in a positive light.

The way I came up with was to write a romance with the hero and heroine being over sixty. I certainly managed that as I ended up with the heroine being aged sixty-eight and the hero even older, at seventy-one.

And, I came up with the idea of my characters being residents at a retirement village that was pretty much a private 5* hotel. My only concern was that the environment might prove restrictive to me as a writer or put readers off. But I found there was a lot of scope for activities and relationships and the idea seemed to work.

Unfortunately, I had virtually no previous writing experience or training and no idea about planning, outlining, plotting etc. It seems I am a natural ‘pantser’ i.e. I just let the book develop, rather than planning it out. So, the book started off as a series of conversations, and developed slowly from there. Sadly, my inexperience meant that a lot of what I wrote wasn’t very good, and I had to throw away quite a bit of material as the book developed and the story just didn’t work properly. This meant the book took a lot longer than I had initially expected it to.

I submitted a sample chapter to a publisher to see if it fitted with the sort of work they published, and it did. But, they said the chapters—at an average of 4,000 words each—were way too long. So, I chopped them all in half and started to tidy them up. After a year of rewriting and polishing the manuscript I submitted it and ten months ago I won a publishing contract. Now, at the age of seventy-three, my debut novel, ‘Grace’s Turmoil’ has recently been published as Book One of a series called ‘Not Too Old for Love.’ Initially, the deal with my publisher was just for an eBook, with the possibility of a paperback version if sales were good enough, quick enough. But now I know that once it is on Amazon—any day now—it will also be available from them in paperback form.

It seems that over recent years more and more readers of romance have become frustrated that all the heroines they read about were aged about twenty, whilst they themselves were on average at least ten years older. Now it seems that there are a growing number of authors writing for this new market, which seems to be being referred to as Seasoned Romance, Second Chance Romance, and the like. I’m proud to be a part of that growing band of authors trying to respond to this demand.

Blurb:
Divorced and emotionally damaged, artist Grace Stollery wants nothing more than to spend her semi-retirement painting and let time heal her emotional scars.

But when dashing widower Alfred Nobel moves into her retirement village he turns her life upside down and her heart inside out by awakening feelings she wants to keep dormant.

Alfred quickly sets out to woo Grace and slowly she warms to him. But the village’s resident femme fatale wants him for herself. Will she succeed in driving a wedge between Alfred and Grace?

Buy: 

Bio:
Peter Perrin writes sweet, seasoned romances involving larger-than-life mature characters who will make you rethink your views on older people in a positive way. His characters are mature in age but not necessarily in their behaviour. They may not be in the first flush of youth but that doesn’t stop some of them acting like hormonal teenagers.

Peter was born in Romford, in the county of Essex, near London, England. For nearly twenty years he has lived with his wife of almost forty years in a quiet suburb of Swindon, in the county of Wiltshire, in England. He is a father and grandfather.
He is a former member of The Royal Air Force who has served in the UK, and in Madagascar, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia. He was also stationed for two years in Aden—which nowadays is part of Yemen.

For almost fifteen-years’ service in The Royal Air Force, Peter worked in Engineering, Quality Control, and Procurement Management, not to mention myriad smaller jobs in between those careers.

Now retired Peter’s interests are Writing, Carp Fishing, and (despite being in his early seventies) PC and PlayStation games.

His favourite quote is “Youth passes, but with luck, immaturity can last a lifetime.”

Find Peter:






2 comments:

  1. Hi, Peter,
    How is it on your side of the pond? I’m intrigued to read your book as romaance and love is need at all ages.
    Hugs, L.A.

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  2. Hi Peter, nice to see you on my good friend Leslie's blog. I look forward to reading your book

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