How amazing is this?
After reading Lisa’s novel What Kate Did Next, I said to myself. Now that’s what publishers mean when they say they’re looking for a fresh voice.
All of a sudden I get it. It’s not about being a GREAT writer. Let’s face it, we’re not all meant to be GREAT writers. In fact trying too hard to be a GREAT writer can make you not such a great writer in the end. The secret is to be different but be yourself.
To my delight, when I went snooping around Lisa’s website, I found a great article she’d posted about finding your voice. It is well worth a read. http://www.lisaheidke.com/writing-news.html In a nutshell, it’s about being real. That’s what I loved about Lisa’s Kate Cavandish. She is real. I related to her so much and I am neither wife, mother nor photographer. There is just ‘something’ about the way Lisa handles the every day, yet it still well-paced and entertaining.
I think the other thing that resonated with me as a writer is that there were no life and death moments, no obvious hero, no all-consuming love. This is a woman’s story — a real woman like so many struggling to balance work, her family and her dreams. (The best scene is actually a lustful moment Kate has that is interrupted by her young son. Absolutely gorgeous and refreshingly different! You’ll have to read the book. LOL)
What Kate Did Next is about the everyday, grounded by the ordinariness (is that a word?) of life, but lifted by its possibilities.
What I loved about this book
Kate’s sister. What a character. She made me laugh out aloud.
What I learned by reading this book
Aside from the “Oh my God, that’s what publishers mean by a fresh voice thing”, I learned that sex doesn’t have to be real to be satisfying !!!!!!! (Again, you have to read the book LOL)
It has inspired me to find that voice.
BLURB – What Kate Did Next
Meet Kate Cavendish – housewife and mother of two – as she dips her toes back into the workforce while trying to juggle kids, a work-obsessed husband, lust for her son’s soccer coach, and much, much more …
Her husband’s a workaholic, her kids are growing up – now it’s time for Kate to follow some of her own dreams …
This is the often comical but also wry account of the life of mother of two, Kate Cavendish. It seems like only yesterday that Kate was one of the most well-regarded photographers in town. So how, she wonders, did her life come to consist of so much drudgery, not to mention dealing with a recalcitrant, eye-rolling teenage daughter and an often-absentee husband. And why oh why did her young son have to score such a distractingly gorgeous soccer coach?
Find our more about Lisa and her novels http://www.lisaheidke.com/home.html
