So today, the 4th April 2017 (awesome date, don't you think), the second of my full length novels, Taming the Tango Champion hits the digital book shelves.
And I'm really excited about it.
I have been wondering what to blog about in honour of its birth into the publishing world, and I thought that in order to do it justice, it should be something, yanno, big. Dare I say it, personal. And I never Get Personal.
But today, I do.
In honour of Ava, and Mathias, and heck, all single mums everywhere.
It ties in with my favourite scene, the risotto scene (no, it's not salacious--I tend to leave food out of my sex scenes ;) ).
Ava is a single mum, and this scene follows one of the two park scenes where her daughter meets her dad for the first time, unaware he is her dad. For the first time since discovering she's pregnant, Ava is with the only person in the world jointly responsible for her child.
Taming the Tango Champion was written at a time when I discovered myself to be a single mum. Writing it was very cathartic, although it's only now in hindsight I realise that--and even more, realise that a lot of my emotions were channelled through Ava. I remember looking at my three-month old on the floor, with her two-year old sister in the garden and this great big chasm opening right in front of me. A chasm of oh-my-god how on earth can I do this. Scrabbling back from that chasm in fear of falling in, doing my best to fill it in so I could pretend it wasn't there anymore.
Didn't work. Ta-daa, a single mum was born.
And so I got on with it as from that day forward, the great boulder that that chasm calved? It settled squarely on my shoulders. Only my shoulders.
That park scene, with Ava, Mathias and Bella? That was me, on a rare day when my ex-husband spent it with us. We were in the park, my eldest ran off whilst my youngest was feeding and my ex went after her. I remember thinking 'this is what happens when there are two of you involved, it's so much easier'. For that afternoon, that boulder broke. But then when it re-assembled? Bigger and heavier than ever, for now I knew what nuclear families had.
It's really tough being a single Mum, needing to make decisions on your own for the best of your little family, trying to hold it together when things go pear shaped but you don't want your children to notice and so the brave face goes on, the excuses for wet eyes get trotted out (oh, I have an eye infection; the wind is too cold against my eyes; I read a sad scene in a book) hoping that your ever-more-perceptive children don't notice the wobble in your voice because you know if they hug you or kiss you, you'll just melt into a puddle of upset.
Tango is close to my heart for that single reason. I got on with my life and didn't let these realisations knock me back because I was lucky and could put them all in a book...all those hurt emotions could go somewhere, and not sit and stagnate in me. Don't get me wrong though, there's a lot of joy in the book too, a quite a lot of passion, and dancing and pretty clothes and hair and makeup and lots of deliciously girly stuff.
So for all the single mums out there, I raise my cup of coffee to you! It's a tough job, but ultimately highly rewarding. And what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right.
Like Ava, my life has moved on and I am no longer a single mum (don't know what you'd call me now...hmm maybe I need to write a book to figure it out ;) ) but happy ever afters do exist.
Thanks for reading...and I hope you enjoy Taming the Tango Champion <3
Buy link for Tango
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