One of my favourite authors is stepping into the Festive Spotlight today to talk about her latest festive release and her Christmas favourites. I loved both Kirsty Ferry’s earlier books set in Padcock and was excited to read Flora’s Christmas of New Beginnings this year. I loved that one too! You’ll find my review here: Flora’s Christmas of New Beginnings.
First of all, would you tell my blog readers a little about yourself?
I live in the North East of England with my husband and son and my elderly Yorkie, and have a day job in a local University. I won the English Heritage/Belsay Hall National Creative Writing competition in 2009 and have had many articles and short stories published in various magazines and anthologies since then. Now, I write for Choc Lit and their sister company Ruby Fiction, and I also like to mix things up by writing different sorts of stories. I love writing timeslips, but I also enjoy the fun that comes with romantic comedies and contemporary work – and Flora’s Christmas of New Beginnings comes into the latter category.
In a nutshell, what is your Christmas book about?
It’s the third book in my new Padcock series. Padcock is a lovely, quirky village I created in lockdown when I wanted to write something uplifting, and I absolutely adore Padcock and the people who inhabit it. This book focuses on a girl called Flora who books a pre-Christmas getaway for herself and her partner Paul in a holiday cottage in Padcock, but she discovers it’s maybe not the romance of the century after all. Paul is more interested in a media-hungry WAG, and, left to her own devices, Flora finds fun and company amongst the Padcock locals, and she especially enjoys spending time with Geraint, a musician whose sister owns the local tea shop and craft shop.
How did you come up with the title for your book?
It was originally called Flora’s Festive Christmas because I wanted a bit of alliteration in there! However, as the other two books are called Christmas of New Beginnings and Edie’s Summer of New Beginnings, the publisher and I decided that Flora’s Christmas of New Beginnings was a good one to go with.
How do you plan to celebrate Christmas this year?
I’m hoping that we can see friends and family. For the last few years, we have missed out on our Christmas Eve carol service at the local church, thanks to lockdowns and the pandemic. We’ve been going with a group of friends since our children were all very small, and we love to embarrass them by taking photos of them in the same place every year. This year our youngest member of the group will be 18, and the oldest almost 25 – so they probably just do it to humour us parents now. Then it’ll be home for Muppet’s Christmas Carol and a Chinese takeaway; a mince pie, a carrot, and something alcoholic for Santa by the fireplace (he might like prosecco this year); then on Christmas Day we will hopefully go to my parents for lunch. My mum makes the best Christmas dinners so I’m looking forward to it! 2020 was the first year I’d had to cook my own as my husband generally does them, or we go to Mum and Dad’s. My husband was working away, and lockdown meant my parents were worried about seeing my son and I, as he had been away at Uni in halls of residence; so we went no further than their porch on Christmas Morning and ate bacon sandwiches on makeshift seating while they sat on the stairs and we had a shouty conversation through the hallway. Hideous. It was quite a culture shock cooking my own dinner (I’ve been so spoiled getting out of it for so long!), so I’m pleased hubby did it last year, and my mum will do it this year! I must say, “my” dinner was nice, apart from the pigs in blankets which were cheap and nasty ones I got out of desperation. They literally tasted of grease. I chucked them in the garden for the birds, and then my dog came in licking his chops after snaffling them all, and threw up all afternoon; so that tells you how bad they were!
You have £5 to buy a Secret Santa gift – what would you buy?
Ooh we do this at work and opinions are divided as to whether we buy something from a wish list, or rely on our instincts. I’ve had dreadful, dreadful presents in the past (washing up gloves, a balloon inflater and – the worst – a notebook someone had ALREADY WRITTEN IN, RIGHT ON THE FIRST PAGE), but I’m in a small, close-knit team now, and we won’t be going any wider than that; so I will buy the person something I know they will like. I think if in doubt, chocolates, alcohol or stationery are generally pretty safe bets, though.
What’s your favourite Christmas song?
Argh – lots of them. I love Do They Know it’s Christmas and Fairytale of New York, and also Winter’s Tale by David Essex; but I think my favourite pop song has to be Last Christmas by Wham. My favourite classical piece is Troika, and my favourite carols are We Three Kings, Little Donkey and In the Deep Midwinter. I had to do some research on carols played on violins for this book and found an amazing version of Carol of the Bells, so that’s up there this year too.
What’s your essential Christmas food or drink?
Mince pies. It’s not Christmas until I’ve had a mince pie. (As I was typing there, I got distracted by the dog and typed ‘mice pies’. No thank you, not a mice pie!) And we like to get a bottle of Asti for the Christmas Dinner. Also, crispy round the edges sausage meat stuffing which is amazing in a buttered white sandwich at Christmas teatime. Calories don’t count at Christmas do they? Oh – and pigs in blankets. And my godmother’s Christmas cake…oh, so much delicious food!
What Christmas book are you looking forward to reading this year?
I don’t have one that I re-read every year, but I do love to have a good look around and see what’s out there and choose a few to work through. The covers all look so pretty on the shelves I can spend ages picking them up and studying them to pick one – or two – or three…
How can people follow you or connect with you on social media?
www.twitter.com/kirsty_ferry
https://www.facebook.com/kirsty.ferry.author/
my website www.rosethornpress.co.uk
my blog is at http://www.rosethornramblings.wordpress.com
And finally, what’s your favourite Christmas tree decoration?
I have a stuffed, white felt snowman I made when I was in secondary school, and my gran knitted him a red scarf and a red hat, so I love him because it has happy memories of her. I also love a pom-pom owl I made when I was in primary school and a pom-pom Santa from the same time. They always go on the same place on the tree every year and surprisingly they haven’t dropped to bits yet!
Thanks so much for joining me today Kirsty. I hope you have a lovely Christmas when it comes, particularly enjoying your usual Christmas traditions once more. Flora’s Christmas of New Beginnings is published by Ruby Fiction and available now in ebook and paperback. You’ll find buying links below.
Buying links
Kindle: https://amzn.to/3VFmG9P
Kobo: https://bit.ly/3CFI4mI
Apple Books: https://apple.co/3P58DWu
Nook: https://bit.ly/3vGxOaW
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