katewritesandreads
interviews … Kate Blackadder
katewritesandreads: So – today’s the day! Publication
of your first full-length novel, Stella’s
Christmas Wish.
Kate Blackadder: Yes! It’s a day I’ve
dreamed of since I used to scribble stories in old school jotters.
katewritesandreads: Can you tell us
something about Stella herself?
KB: She’s a financial whizz; for the last
fifteen months she’s been a high-flyer in a City of London office. She enjoys
her job but she’s a home-loving girl too
– and home is far from London, in Melrose in the Scottish Borders.
katewritesandreads: Is she anything like
you?
KB: Not at all – except that I spent six
years in London, the first few months in a blur of homesickness.
katewritesandreads: Aw. But Stella has no
option but to stick it out, does she?
KB: That’s right. And she misses her
younger sister, Maddie, and Alice, the granny who brought them up, so much –
but she doesn’t want to go home to Melrose because she’ll bump into her
ex-boyfriend Ross and she doesn’t know how she’d handle that. They parted on
very bad terms. So she and Alice and Maddie planned to spend
Christmas in Maddie’s flat in Edinburgh.
katewritesandreads: And then … ?
KB: That plan falls through, big time. Six
days before Christmas Alice is taken to hospital. Maddie has gone away and it
seems that Alice is the only one who knows where and why – but she’s
unconscious and can’t tell Stella anything.
katewritesandreads: A mystery … and is
Stella on her own with all this going on?
KB: Ross’s grandfather, Gray, has always
been a big part of Stella’s life. He tries to help.
katewritesandreads: I guess Stella’s not
feeling very Christmassy?
KB: She’s not, but as she walks
around Edinburgh she sees the huge glittering tree on the Mound, and the
skating rink with all the stalls round it, the big wheel and the German market
– not to mention the shop windows and the carol singers …
katewritesandreads: Christmas is hard to
avoid, isn’t it?
KB: <nods> And when she
does, reluctantly, go down to Melrose, the Border hills are all snowy, like a
Christmas card scene, and she ends up decorating the tree in her granny’s house
which brings back all sorts of memories for her. So she can’t help feeling a
little of the magic of Christmas despite everything going wrong for her.
katewritesandreads: So what does she wish
for?
KB: I will leave readers to find that out
for themselves, if you don’t mind. I’m off to have a celebratory glass of fizz.
katewritesandreads: Enjoy the rest of publication
day.
KB: Thank you. Cheers! And, lovely people, if you read Stella's Christmas Wish it would be much appreciated if you could take the time to leave a review online.
May all your Christmas wishes be granted.
Find out more about my writing here and
here.
