Single in the City

So it’s customary for Unedited to always have a few fabulous people on the blog throughout the year. I’d hate to short you right off the bat so I’ve scheduled someone fabulous for today!

Michele Gorman. For all you young adult lovers out there I’m afraid this one will have to have you step out of your YA shoes and step foot into your Adult ones. To make things a little more fun I’ll be GIVING AWAY a copy of this fabulous tale!!! Make sure to comment below for your chance at this little gem!

Single in the City is a Contemporary Fiction novel that will sweep you off your feet! Here’s a little blurb to get you excited…

Recipe for changing your life: Take one twenty six year old American, add to one two thousand year old city, add a big dose of culture clash and stir.

To think Hannah ever believed that Americans differed from Brits mainly in pronunciation, sophistication and dentistry. That’s been the understatement of a lifetime.

She lands upon England’s gentle shores with no job, no friends and no idea how she’s supposed to build the new life she’s dreaming of.

How is supposed to make new friends when she has no idea about the rules of engagement?

How can she win over her poisonous boss when she’s not even trusted to arrange the paperclips?

And could her nationality give her an exotic edge in the dating game over Britain’s home-grown lovelies?

Armed with little more than her enthusiasm, she charges headlong into London, baffling the locals in her pursuit of a new life, new love and sense of herself.

Of course I’m not going to leave you without some of the famous Unedited question and answers! So without further ado, I give you Michele!
We want details!

What was the first thing you learned when you moved to the UK?

I learned that I didn’t, in fact, speak English. From simple directions to different meanings for common words, this realization struck me at every turn… literally, sometimes! For instance, being raised in the US, I was used to directions that went something like “To get from A to B, you go straight/left/right for a certain number of blocks”. English directions are very descriptive, without ever giving me the information I need: “Come out of the Tube station and you’ll see a Waitrose, go past that until you come to the off-license, go along a bit more until you get to a set of lights, then go over the road.” I haven’t successfully followed directions here since 1998.

Most people know about some of the American/English word differences, but a few are big, Big mistakes, as I found out when I announced to my office that I need a good fanny pack. What is a polite way to refer to one’s backside to Americans is the c-word to Brits.

What dream did you follow that led you to London?

It’s the age-old story … I followed my heart. I’d met a sweet, fun man who lived 5 time zones away, and having to book a flight to kiss gets old after awhile. So I took the plunge after I finished graduate school and moved to London where he was working. The man is long gone but I fell in love with London instantly, and very quickly felt like it was home. In 2006 I became a UK citizen so now I have two passports.

Worst job you ever had? What made you stay as long as you did?

Well, I hold the record in my family for being fired the most times, so I didn’t really stay very long at any of them! To give you a flavour (though I wasn’t fired from all of these): I once worked at a paper factory, counting sheets of paper. Pallets would be fork-lifted in, I’d count 15 sheets at a time and put them in a box. Repeat. I worked in a sandwich-making factory. If you ever wondered where those sandwiches that come out of machines are born, I can tell you all about it. I worked as an office clerk for an insane plumber who constantly accused me of ‘ruining his filing system’. The filing system consisted of piles of paper on the floor. I worked in two restaurants as a very bad waitress. I was also a very bad auditor and a very bad secretary… Is it any wonder I’m a writer?

What’s the hardest thing about moving out of the country? Making new friends? Learning a new language?

I think the hardest thing for me was remembering that I’m in another culture and things are going to be different. It was very tempting when I first moved to London to compare the way things are done here with the way they are done in the US. And yet the whole point of living in a new country is that it is new. Getting out of that mindset takes awhile and until you do, it’s hard to appreciate where you’re living for its own sake.

And of course, as I’ve mentioned, learning a new language hasn’t been a piece of cake either!

If given a choice, who would you like your work to be compared to? What author?

I’d love to have my chick lit compared to Sophie Kinsella because she makes writing seem effortless. Her main character Becky in the Shopaholic series was winsomely ditzy, unerringly funny and the story galloped along, making me want to read it from cover to cover in a single sitting. She knew that women like to read happy, very funny women’s fiction, without the need for “issues” to be addressed. It would be a big compliment for me to hear that I’ve made women guffaw unattractively in public places.

One word answer, cupcake!
Heels or flats – heels
Cupcakes or cookie – cupcakes
Educational show or Trash TV – educational show
Kitty or Puppy – Technically my one word answer would be ‘both’, but in the spirit of the question: puppy
Polka-dots or Stripes – stripes

Thank you so much for stopping in! Isn’t Michele fabulous?

Be sure to stop by her website, twitter, and facebook and introduce yourself! To buy a copy of her novel visit here (Amazon) or here (Barnes & Noble)! She’s a doll! Don’t forget to leave your thoughts and email for an entry into the giveaway!