It's all in the cover...

Notting Hill Press
2016

Like most readers I am intrigued by the variation in book cover design from one country to another and have often wondered what makes one cover work better than another. This is a recent case in point with the US cover of  Michele Gorman's  latest novel, Match Me If  You Can.

It’s interesting to see how the same book is marketed differently depending on where its fans are based. Michele Gorman’s Match Me If You Can is published by Avon (Harper Collins) in the UK and by Notting Hill Press in the US. Avon took the lead in designing the marketing package for Michele’s UK chick lit fans, with a pretty teal cover, fun font and firm focus on the online dating/romance storylines in the book.

Avon
2016

Meet best friends Catherine, Rachel and Sarah. Yet to find Mr Right, they’ve been settling for Mr Right Now. But when Catherine, London’s finest matchmaker, gets the girls to join her dating site where they can rate and recommend their ex-boyfriends, they soon realise that anything could happen… There’s someone for everyone, right? These best friends are about to find out!

To complement the UK cover, we at Notting Hill Press designed the US cover using the same fonts and heart motif. But something started to bother us. Match Me If You Can is also about strong women. It’s funny, cheeky, poignant and realistic. The women join the dating website and recycle their exes but their lives – their friendship, families and careers – are at the heart of the book. And while both British and American fans are definitely romantics, American readers are also really partial to a feisty story about friends.

We had to admit it: our hot pink cover didn’t seem quite right for Michele’s US fans. So we had a rethink about it, and here’s the result!

Meet best friends, Catherine, Rachel and Sarah. They’re fun, smart and successful, and haven’t had a date worth booking a wax appointment for in ages.

Catherine runs London’s most successful matchmaking business with her silent partner and ex-husband, Richard, who’s just announced that he’s marrying his twenty-three year-old girlfriend. Catherine has bras that are older than Magda, and now she’s barging in on their business with her meddlesome demands and wedding plans.

Architect Rachel’s got problems of her own. At work she’s competing against her ex-boyfriend, James, to win their biggest project and the promotion that comes with it. So when she joins Catherine’s website, RecycLove.com, where everyone brings an ex to recycle for the chance of an upgrade, she knows just who she’s going to trade in.

Homebody baker, Sarah, is in a rut thanks to family demands over the last few years. Reluctantly she joins RecycLove.com, where she’s convinced that some minor adjustments will improve her chances. But as minor adjustments turn into a complete overhaul and dates start falling at her newly-pedicured feet, will her popularity be worth the sacrifices she’s making?


A warm, funny story of friendship, strong women and self-discovery. Match us if you can, guys, but if not then please step aside and we’ll get on with being fabulous.

We hope you love the new cover and blurb as much as we do !

Notting Hill Press

Michele Gorman

Amazon UK
Amazon US


My Review of Match Me If You Can is here

My thanks To Notting Hill Press for  inviting me to share this feature about Book covers

Fascinating , isn't it?

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Michele Gorman's Festive Feast...

I know that it's a way off Christmas but it's never too early to start planning your Festive Reads

Michele Gorman has delighted romcom fans with her Christmas novellas, and this year all three will be available in a single feel-good collection: 

Michele Gorman’s FESTIVE FEAST is out today

Notting Hill Press
7 October 2015

 FESTIVE FEAST ~ Three Deliciously Funny RomCom Christmas Novellas

The collection includes:


THE RELUCTANT ELF – Meet Britain’s Worst Innkeeper


CHRISTMAS CAROL – One winter wedding, two happy couples, three ex-boyfriends. And a very uncomfortable weekend


TWELVE DAYS TO CHRISTMAS – What if his proposal had an expiration date?

FESTIVE FEAST is available now from Amazon UK  or Amazon.com


Special price the FESTIVE FEAST eBook collection at $3.99/£2.49 (each novella is $2.99/£1.99 when bought individually)

About the Author

Twitter: @MicheleGormanUK
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MicheleGormanBooks
Instagram: @michelegormanuk

Blog: www.michelegormanwriter.blogspot.com
Website: www.michelegorman.co.uk

~**Happy Festive Reading**~

Review ~ The Curvy Girls Baby Club by Michele Gorman

Notting Hill Press

August 2015

LOVE, LIFE AND A CHRISTMAS DUE DATE

Ellie is fresh back from her honeymoon and can't wait to share her news with her best friends Katie and Jane. To everyone's surprise, mother-of-two Jane has news of her own... The women are due a day apart and Katie can't wait to be an honorary auntie to the babies.

But it's hard to keep your sense of humour, not to mention your self-esteem, in the face of hemorrhoids and elasticated waistbands. Add a clingy mother-in-law, a career in cardiac arrest and a sex life that makes Mother Theresa look lusty, and soon their lives are as out of control as their bodies.

As the co-founders of The Curvy Girls Club, where loving yourself is the only rule, will the friends be able to practice what they preach?

Amazon UK

Amazon.com

Barnes and Noble

My thoughts:

I read The Curvy Girls Club last year and really enjoyed the introduction into the lives of Ellie, Kate and Jess. In this latest novella, we meet up with the girls again, but this time they have rather more on their minds than their Curvy Girls support group. With two out of the three friends expecting their first babies, Katie can't help but feel left out, until the fickle finger of fate intervenes.

As always, the story is really fun to read, whilst at the same time it covers some fairly serious topics, like what happens to couples when a baby starts to loom on the horizon,  how clingy mother-in-laws can be more of  a hindrance than a help, and of how pregnant women are viewed in the work place.

The story is warm and witty and filled with such a sense of joie de vivre that you can't help but be pulled into this charming story of impending motherhood. The characters are nicely portrayed without ever becoming caricatures and infuse such a sense of friendship , that you end up wishing you had such a group of friends to rely on.

The novella is really easy to read in one sitting, it's a real feel good story that will bring a smile to your face, and that for me,  is what fiction is sometimes all about.

About the Author

 The Curvy Girls Baby Club officially launches this week

Here are #13 Reasons to Love Yourself More

 Click here to download your own copy of Reasons to Love Yourself more





My thanks to Michele and Notting Hill Press for sharing this novella with me

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UK Launch ~ The Curvy Girls Club by Michele Gorman

The Curvy Girls Club made its American debut in June, becoming a USA Today bestseller, 

called “a laugh-out-loud and heart-warming tale” by Publishers Weekly 

and "witty and engaging" by Sophie Kinsella. 

January 15th 2015  is its UK Launch Date

Published by AVON 

January 2015

Pixie, Ellie, Katie and Jane have been best friends since meeting at Slimming Zone. Tired of being judged on the number of calories they consume, they decide to form a different kind of club. The fun evenings they spend together, not worrying about their size, make them happier than they've been for years!

But the club doesn’t stop real life from getting in the way and together the girls have to address some much bigger issues than just their weight…

Will Pixie ever be brave enough to leave her abusive husband Trevor? Can Jane ever regain her confidence and go back to work as a TV presenter? Will Katie always carry a torch for the office lothario? And what if Ellie lets her all-consuming jealousy destroy her relationship with ‘The One’?

***

The Curvy Girls Club is available in all ebook formats and paperback from 15th January in the UK

Amazon UK
Amazon US

My Review of The Curvy Girls Club

Enjoying life rather than counting calories forms the basis of this story which looks at the way society views body image but which does so in a way that most of us can relate to. Katie Winterbottom and her friends become disillusioned with attending a weekly slimming club, only to find that the pounds they lost in weight the week before have been mysteriously added back on. Determined to enjoy themselves they form The Curvy Girls Club which becomes, almost overnight, an instant success. What then follows is a heartfelt look at how female friendship evolves and of how all too often, the expectations of society unfortunately define the person we are, rather than the person we want to be.

I enjoy Michele Gorman’s novels. She manages to get right into the heart of the novel and captures with a light and easy style of writing the very essence of female friendship. Her characters literally bounce of the page and very quickly you become immersed in their story, which will have you laughing out loud one minute and fighting tears the next.

The Curvy Girls Club is a warm and witty look at a topic, that of body image, which all too often we shy away from, and yet, this novel shows that size really doesn’t matter,  but good writing does, and this delivers fine writing in abundance.

My thanks to Michele Gorman and Notting Hill Press for sharing this book with me.

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Review ~ The Reluctant Elf by Michele Gorman

Notting Hill Press
13 November 2014

Single mother and extremely undomestic goddess, Lottie, has five days to become the ultimate B&B hostess to save her beloved Aunt Kate’s livelihood.

When Aunt Kate ends up in the hospital, Lottie and her seven-year-old daughter are called to rural Wales to stand in at the B&B. Without the faintest idea how to run a hotel (she can barely run her own life), Lottie must impress the picky hotel reviewer and his dysfunctional family who are coming to stay over Christmas. Without the rating only he can bestow, Aunt Kate will lose her livelihood.

But will Danny, the local taxi driver who she hires to help her, really be Santa’s little helper, or the Grinch who stole Christmas?

Amazon UK

Amazon US

A ramshackle B&B in rural Wales is the setting for this delightful Christmas read. Following a devastating accident to her aunt Kate, Lottie and her seven year old daughter Mabel, arrive in Wales, ostensibly to take over running their aunt’s guest house, however, they are dismayed to find that the B&B, far from being a rural retreat, turns out to be something from a hammer horror film. The faded elegance and shabby chic of this rural idyll and the way in which Lottie enlists the help of local taxi driver Danny to help her turn the business around, forms the basis of the story.

From the beginning I loved the story, the setting, and the characters, who made me, laugh out loud. It has a wonderful light hearted charm and whilst it’s a quick read, I read it in one sitting over the course of a rainy afternoon; it really helped to lighten my mood and provided great escapism.

So, if you want something to cheer you up on a cold wintery day – put the kettle on, grab a cup of tea, and a packet of chocolate hob nobs, and immerse yourself in The Reluctant Elf.

Lovely.

Watch the You Tube Video 

Here 

About the Author

My thanks to Notting Hill Press for my review copy of this book.

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Launch Day ~ Perfect Girl by Michele Gorman

Notting Hill Press 

is very pleased to announce the publication 

of

Notting Hill Press

14 October 2014

Cinderella meets Falling Down in this wickedly funny tale about having it all

Carol is perfect… at least that’s what everyone thinks. In reality she’s sinking fast – her family treats her like their personal assistant and her boyfriend is so busy with work that he’s got her single-handedly running their relationship. Not that her job is any easier. As the only woman on the bank’s trading floor she spends twelve-hour days trying not to get sworn at or felt up by colleagues who put the "W" in banker.

How long can she go on pleasing everyone else before she snaps and loses it all?

With humour and empathy, Perfect Girl lays bare the balancing act that working women face in a man's world.

PERFECT GIRL is available on Amazon now, and will also be on iBooks, Kobo and Barnes and Noble.

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/YdCAuW

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/WfGNN4

Watch the trailer  here 

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