Author Lisa Jewell on her new novel - Before I Met You

Lisa Jewell is on a blog tour. Here, for Book Club Mum, she explains her inspiration for the '90s section of her latest book - Brit Pop London, a world just before the internet and mobile phones.... 

Lisa Jewell

My novel, Before I Met You, is a dual time frame novel set in both the mid nineties and the early 1920s. But when I started writing it, way back in 2010, I’d intended it to be a simple love story set in the Brit pop years. I hadn't written a romance for years and I really wanted to see if I could still do it.

The – very tenuous – inspiration for the romance was actually the story of Meg Mathews who left the island of Guernsey back in the early 90s and by 1995 was married to Noel Gallagher and living it up with a phalanx of gossip-column celebrity mates in a huge house in Primrose Hill called Supernova Heights. I loved the arc of her life and the concept of leaving a tiny, compact island for the sprawling mess of London and finding yourself slap bang in the middle of the zeitgeist.

Author Lisa Jewell is heading this way on a blog tour....

Before I Met You is the latest novel by  Lisa Jewell, author of The House We Grew Up In and After The Party. It's a love story set in bustling, grungy '90s Soho, and 1920s bohemian London. Lisa will be sharing her inspiration for the 1990s section of the book with a guest blog here at Book Club Mum this Friday. So don't forget to drop by for a blast from the past - Cool Britannia, the Primrose Hill set and the time when telephone numbers were still exchanged on pieces of paper... 

A letter to Kate and a case of hypochondria

Latest column - a severe case of hypochondria, page 6, and a letter to Kate Middleton about those first few weeks of motherhood, page 8.

From the sick badge to Looks of Envy.....

Look at this jewellery. Gorgeous, isn't it?

In terms of accessories, I’ve been wearing the same brooch for the last few months. I say brooch, it’s really more of a badge. A badge of honour for parents of babies with reflux.

It’s so versatile – I’ve worn it with absolutely everything since Ben was born. Though I find it really sets off a manky old fleece particularly well.
Here's a picture:

BOOK CLUB REVIEW: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I don’t normally do this, but with a smash hit thriller so famously full of twists and turns, I’m going to include SPOILERS. How exciting! I’ll give you good warning when they’re about to kick in...

Nick and Amy Dunne are preparing to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary, but things aren’t good with their marriage. The couple, in their late 30s, have moved to his home town in Missouri after they both lost magazine jobs in New York, victims of the recession which looms as a motif in this unsettled world.

Before any anniversary celebrations can begin, Amy disappears in mysterious circumstances. There are signs of a struggle at the Dunnes’ home, but things don’t add up.

Gripping to the end, what happened to Amy is revealed to us in first person narrative by both Nick and Amy alternately.

Healthy Chocolate: Three worthy ways to use your Easter eggs....

Truly scrumptious: chocolate flapjack

Strictly speaking, I don’t suppose a nutritionist would agree that the three chocolate recipes I’m about to share are actually health foods. However, I’m going to build my argument like the very best hot-shot barrister I know - AKA my son in the toy bit of Asda - as to why I think they are at least a worthy way of using up your Easter chocolate....

Guest post by author Janey Fraser - plus chance to win a copy of her new book, Happy Families

I'm delighted to welcome Janey Fraser, author of The Playgroup and The Au Pair, as she stops by on the blog tour for her new novel, Happy Families. Here, she asks: Am I the only one who embarrasses my kids? 
Happy Families is out on Thursday. There are three copies up for grabs, simply post a comment for a chance to win.* 

I don’t mean to do it – well, not all the time – but I do seem to have an unhappy knack for putting my foot in it. Take the other day when one of my children did something which made me so cross that I gave her a sound telling off. In front of half a dozen of her (gob-smacked) friends.

So what happened? Instead of apologising to me for doing what she shouldn’t have, my offspring turned the tables and told me off instead. ‘What will my friends think ?’ she demanded. ‘You’re so embarrassing!’

Oh but I can do better. There was the time I drove one of them to school, still in my dressing gown because, despite getting up at 6am, I’d run out of time to get dressed. Unfortunately, one of the teachers at school came up for a word…... My son, squirming in the front seat, has never let me forget that one.