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Sunday, May 22, 2011

Author Interview: Sibel Hodge

Allow me to introduce Sibel Hodge, the author of  Be Careful What You Wish For


Sibel Hodge has dual British/Turkish Cypriot nationality, dividing her time between Hertfordshire and North Cyprus. She is a qualified personal trainer, sports and massage therapist, and writes freelance feature articles on health, fitness, and various lifetyle subjects. Prior to this, she also worked for Hertfordshire Constabulary for ten years.

Her first novel, Fourteen Days Later, was short listed for the Harry Bowling Prize 2008 and received a highly commended by the Yeovil Literary Prize 2009. It is a romantic comedy with a unique infusion of British and Turkish Cypriot culture. Written in a similar style to Sophie Kinsella and Marian Keyes, Fourteen Days Later is My Big Fat Greek Wedding meets Bridget Jones. My Perfect Wedding is the sequel to Fourteen Days Later, although it can be read as a standalone novel.

The Fashion Police is her second novel and was a runner up in the Chapter One Promotions Novel Competition 2010 and nominated Best Novel with Romantic Elements 2010 by The Romance Reviews. It is a screwball comedy-mystery, combining murder and mayhem with romance and chick-lit - the first in a series featuring insurance investigator, Amber Fox. Written in a similar style to Janet Evanovich and Harlan Coben, The Fashion Police is Stephanie Plum meets Myron Bolitar.Be Careful What You Wish For is the second Amber Fox mystery.

 Now that you know a little more about her, let's get to the questions!

1. Amber Fox is a sassy, wise-cracking investigator with wild hair.  Is she anything like you at all? Oh, yes! She's got a lot of her in me but I'm not telling you exactly which bits for fear I might incriminate myself!

2. What was your favorite part of Be Careful What you Wish For? Ooh, that's sooo hard! It's my baby so it's all my favourite. I love the fact that it's got a solid mystery combined with a lot of humor, wit, and romance. Probably typing The End is my favourite part - then you know that all the ideas in your head have finally come together.

3. Will we get to read more about Amber Fox in the future? Oh, yes! Amber loves to talk so she'll definitely back to tell another story. Just try and shut her up!

4. How do you come up with ideas for your books? It's all the voices in my head that make me do it. I write so I won't have to be medicated!

5. What do you do when you have Writer's Block? Drink a bottle of wine and throw ideas around with my husband. Well, that's my excuse for cracking the wine open anyway!

6. What's your favorite thing to snack on while writing? Nuts.

7. As most authors are big readers, what are you reading now? I've just finished Burn Out by Traci Hohenstein - a fab thriller.

8. Would you tell us a bit about what you're writing now? I'm working on some new ideas for my next chicklit novel which will be called The Hen Party. it's about a group of girls who go to Vegas for...yes, you've guessed it, a hen party. But they end up getting much more than they bargained for.

9. If you could go back in time and have a conversation with yourself, when would you go and what would you tell yourself? I'd go back to when to when I left school and tell myself that I should follow my passion to write.

10. What do you do besides write? Promotion takes up a lot of my time, but it's lovely to interact with other readers and authors. I swim, do yoga, walk, read. Oh yes...and the occasional bottle of wine!

11. What one question have you always wanted to be asked, but never were.  Tell us the question and then answer it. Question:  What was the last thing that made you laugh? Answer: I've just come back from holiday in Turkey and we booked a trip to look at Thermossos, a ruined city at the top of a mountain. When we booked it they said we'd need good walking shoes but all I had with me were flip flops so I had to borrow my husband's size 9 trainers! As I've got size 6 feet I looked like Charlie Chaplin!

So there it is!  I think we can tell exactly where Amber Fox gets her feistiness from!  We're glad to hear that there will be more Amber Fox adventures in the future.
Thanks, Sibel!

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