FREE: VALENTINE GIVEAWAY!
Yes - even the love hearts are included!
A signed copy of Isabella will be winging its way to ONE of you!
It's an amazing debut novel by Ruth Leigh. I honestly couldn't put it down and stayed up very late one night, greedily consuming, laughing, crying ...
even the love hearts are included! Thank you, Ruth!
Ruth says,
"Isabella, when we first meet her, looks on love as something she deserves. Valentines to her is an opportunity for her husband to shower her with gifts. By the end of the novel, she is just starting to get an inkling of God's unchanging, grace-filled love which is very different from the kind she has known."
The diary is hilarious, poignant, of-the-moment - complete with hashtags, descriptions of selfies, playground problems and village life. Isabella is at last living her perfect dream life - or is she? Life isn't what it seems on the surface.
AND just to warn you: it finishes on a jaw-dropping cliff hanger. Ruth assure me part two is coming!
I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of the usual Christian fiction; but this one is really good.
Ruth says,
"What if I invented a person who made their living by posting aspirational content across social media platforms? Someone who was an expert at angles, lighting, content and strategy? Someone, in fact, who was the opposite of me. What would she be called? I thought hard. She would be smug and therefore her name would have to reflect that. A rich, posh woman – Isabella. Yes, that was a good name and gave me the, “I” in “I Am Smug.” Middle name Mary. Last name Smug. “Isabella M Smug.” I pondered it. It didn’t look quite right. Suddenly, I typed two extra letters and suddenly, there she was. Isabella M Smugge, as in Bruges.
My imaginary woman was musing on her perfect life, her weed-free garden, her gigantic Georgian house, her glittering writing career. I grinned ...."
Ruth Leigh is a novelist and freelance writer, who describes herself a recovering over-achiever. She's based in East Suffolk with three children, one husband, four budgies, six quail, eight chickens and a kitten. She has abnormally narrow sinuses and a morbid fear of raw tomatoes, but has decided not to let this get in the way of a meaningful life.
“A Christian version of Bridget Jones’s Diary. As her apparently perfect life starts to unravel, Isabella starts to ponder more deeply on the meaning of life. Her initial baffled observations of Christian subculture are also very funny. A very entertaining novel, but also, by the end, a moving one.” - Philippa Linton
‘The Diary of Isabella M Smugge,’ published by Instant Apostle, comes out on 19th February 2021.
HOW TO ENTER
sign up on the pop-up on this website
to be part of my newsletter group
2. then
Email me here.
3. comment on anything in this blogpost,
and then tell me why you'd like to be the winner!
REPLY by Wednesday 17th and you'll be entered into the randomly selected draw.
(mainland UK only - apologies to overseas readers)
If you’ve been following my social media posts and/or reading my blog posts this year so far, you’ll know that I’m concentrating on HOPE - the THRILL OF HOPE and choosing to PITCH MY TENT IN THE LAND OF HOPE.
If you missed the posts, here’s part one, One thing I know for certain
and part two , choosing to pitch your tent
and some resources on finding hope even in this pandemically challenging season
An original handpainted HOPE by @aartvani is in the mail to me from India! Exciting!
IN NEED OF SOME FUN AND SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO?
How are you feeling after 250 months of 2021? Oh - is it really only February? Month 2?!
Haven’t we been in Lockdown FOR EVER?
I don’t know about you, but I need something to look forward to. Something different, exciting.
Maybe a bit challenging too.
Because aren’t we all feeling stir crazy, cabin feverish, frazzled?
Several pounds heavier after snacking through lockdown?
Anxious and uncertain?
Grieving the loss of things we didn’t know we could lose?
You need time out to reset your soul and your body.
Here is a great way to do exactly that.
FUN AND FROLICS!
MAY 21 - 28, 2021
CELTIC PILGRIMAGE
( only 45 miles!)
Walk from the furthest west to the furthest south of England - Land’s End to the Lizard with a group of like-minded women. ONLY THREE SPACES STILL AVAILABLE.
