One Year and Counting...

Last year I reset the clock on Valentine's Day.

At the time, I was in a job that I did enjoy at times, but was incredibly stressful.  I had multiple panic attacks most days, I was incredibly anxious and I wasn't doing any of the things I loved.

So I quit.

On Valentine's Day last year, I decided to stop dreaming my life, and instead live my dreams.  I went in, handed in my notice, thanked all my colleagues for their support and went home to cook a meal for some of my best friends.

I then looked at the things that I wanted to accomplish, and instead of putting them off and off and off, went out and did something about.

Today I'm in a job that I enjoy, but that finishes at 5.  I have space in my life to do the things I love and I do them.

Today, I'm Romance and Erotica Reporter for For Books' Sake and divide my time for them on writing features (today's being on everyday objects as sex toys in literature), and reporting on new developments in the romance world.  In fact, not two hours ago I finished interviewing Samantha Ellis about her new book and how books can help shape the narratives of our lives.

I'm also affiliated with Mills & Boon, hosting #ModernTemptedDay on the 18th of every month, and also writing a monthly guestblog for them.

I've returned to my academic roots and am heading to Greece this summer to give a paper on the impact of the internet on portrayals of weddings.

So this year, Valentine's Day isn't just about love and romance (though I'm so happy to be spending it with my wonderful bf), it's about *corny alert* loving yourself.  I'm happier than I've ever been, and I've made it because of everyone's who's helped and supported me.

If you have a dream, follow it.  Life is way to short to waste time doing stuff that stresses you out or you don't really care about.

So this is my Valentine to myself.  <3

Global Modern Tempted

Yes, it's that time of the month once more when I celebrate Modern Tempted in all its glory!!

This week I'm looking at Modern Tempted across the globe - not just in where their authors are based, but where the romance in the plots take place.  From roadtrips across the Australian outback to weekends in Turkey, Vietnam and Hong Kong, Modern Tempted settings are as varied as the characters who inhabit them.

Hence the map.

Possibly my biggest undertaking in a while, I have plotted each MT novel on this interactive, global map in an attempt to capture the essence of the global Mills & Boon novel.

Click on a title and it will take you straight to where the novel is set, and those that occur more than once?  That'd be because they have numerous settings.  The idea is that I'll keep updating this each month, and people can shout out if there are any missed off!


In addition to this, I also have four delightful MT offerings for you.  Next month's releases have been weighed and they have been found far from wanting, as Mills & Boon boy Neil agrees...  Click below for the links:

No Time Like Mardi Gras by Kimberly Lang

The Last Guy She Should Call by Joss Wood

Romance for Cynics by Nicola Marsh

Trouble on Her Doorstep by Nina Harrington

Actually, this month is going to be packed with Modern Tempted as Monday marks the beginning of their #TemptedToWrite contest.  I will be here every weekday with analysis of what makes the perfect Modern Tempted novel, as well as delightful giveaways...

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year one and all!

I had a rather fantastic holiday break.  Despite the fact that my house seemed to have no less than ten people in it at any given point, it was still pretty relaxed.  We ate obscene amounts of food, were very merry and even held dinner parties with friends in an attempt to play at being properly grown-up (despite all of us being well into our twenties).

New Year's itself was seen in with snuggles on the sofa and Jools Holland, and no matter what anyone says, it was perfectly understandable to have a nap beforehand, in order to be able to stay up later.

I am old before my time.  And I'm totally fine with that.

But of course I wish to start the year as I mean to go on - which means book recommendations/reviews.  And I'm curious to see which books you're reading/planning on reading - comment below!!

 

Anna Alessi – history expert, possessor of a lot of hair and an occasionally filthy mouth – seeks nice man for intelligent conversation and Mills & Boon moments.

Despite the oddballs that keep turning up on her dates, Anna couldn’t be happier. As a 30-something with a job she loves, life has turned out better than she dared dream. However, things weren’t always this way, and her years spent as the ‘Italian Galleon’ of an East London comprehensive are ones she’d rather forget.

So when James Fraser – the architect of Anna’s final humiliation at school – walks back into her life, her world is turned upside down. But James seems a changed man. Polite. Mature. Funny, even. People can change, right? So why does Anna feel like she’s a fool to trust him?

Mhairi McFarlane's debut novel, You Had Me At Hello, pretty much broke my heart, and was probably my favourite book of 2012, so when Here's Looking at You was released, I was more than a little delighted.

And it was lovely.  As someone who wasn't the most popular kid at school (a prepubescent preoccupation with books put paid to that) Anna's predicament resonated with me.  As did her attraction to James (hottie alert!!)

Happiness and contentment is not easily come by - whether in the school playground or once 'grown up'.  A dream job at 15 or even 23 can become a nightmare by 25 or 30 and having the courage to make changes is both terrifying and liberating.  McFarlane manages to capture these fears and adeptly interweave this with humour and pathos.

Plus she's referencing Austen.  

With her debut being inspired by Persuasion (which is clearly the most superior of all JA's novels), this draws on Pride and Prejudice for inspiration.  Anna and James are so influenced by their first impressions of each other, that they struggle to see what is really there in front of them.

This made me smile and literally made me cry.  Go read!!

If you adore Sleepless in Seattle and Pride and Prejudice and The Avengers, then you want a movie guide aimed at women like you. Women who enjoy romances and more! You like both a good kiss and a good knockout and refuse to be categorized-but you wish someone like you would recommend movies.

Which brings Harlequin author and professional movie critic Heidi Rice to the rescue. Whether it’s nonstop action with a little heart ‘n’ soul, sweetly adorable cartoons, a classic black-and-white screwball comedy or that under-the-radar flick that you never knew you were missing, Heidi Rice will lead you through her must-sees and why you will also enjoy them. From Ryan Gosling’s six-pack to that iconic orgasm sandwich delivered by Meg Ryan, right up to the double whammy of hotties in Prisoners (Gyllenhaal and Jackman)—there’s a little something for everyone.

And a little something for that teenager inside you who’s ready to watch “nekkid” man-candy and spend two hours falling in love all over again…

One of my favourite parts of the holiday season is curling up in front of the telly in a catatonic stupor after consuming way too much food.  Whether with friends, family or that significant other, nothing really says Christmas like the movies.

And Heidi Rice - author of gems such as Maid of Dishonour and BTW I Love You - is a film critic by day and so turns her knowing eye to films we love to love.  Ranging from the epic Gone With the Wind (Scarlett being flawed perfection), to the quirky Attack the Block (essentially Aliens on a Council Estate - yes, that is as awesome as it sounds), Movie Bliss is split into six sections:

1. Oldies That Are Awesome
2. Cartoon Capers, but Not Just for Kids
3. Rom-Coms R Us
4. Joys for the Boys (and the Girls, Too)
5. Offbeat but Right Up My Street
6. Big is Beautiful, Bold is Even Better

The book itself reads like every conversation I've ever had with my friends about films, from plot points to eye candy, and isn't dry at all.  Its charm lies in its ability to bring to life the films it describes, whilst simultaneously entertaining and incredibly witty.

And I have every intention of watching all the films she writes about!

Published under the new Harlequin Pop! digital imprint, it's fantastic to see M&B branching out into "sophisticated analysis" of popular culture.

Born in London in 1923, Elizabeth Jane Howard was privately educated at home, moving on to short-lived careers as an actress and model, before writing her first acclaimed novel, "The Beautiful Visit", in 1950. 

She has written 12 highly regarded novels, most recently "Falling". Her Cazalet Chronicles have become established as modern classics and have been filmed by the BBC. She has been married three times - firstly to Peter Scott, the naturalist and son of Captain Scott, and most famously and tempestuously to Kingsley Amis. It was Amis' son by another marriage, Martin, to whom she introduced the works of Jane Austen and ensured that he received the education that would be the grounding of his own literary career. Her closest friends have included some of the greatest writers and thinkers of the day - Laurie Lee, Arthur Koestler and Cecil Day-Lewis, among others. 

Honest and unflinching, this book illuminates the literary world of the latter half of the 20th century, as well as giving a personal insight into the life of Elizabeth Jane Howard.

On the 2nd January, Elizabeth Jane Howard died.  90 years old, and having brought out yet another novel in April last year, she was renowned for being vivacious, sexually liberated and approaching her craft with humility and bemusement.

Having won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for her debut novel in 1953, she went on to write novels reminiscent of Austen in both their tone and incredible depiction of everyday female characters.

Slipstream - an autobiography that is full of heartwarming and heartwrenching moments - is best summed up in her own words:

I feels as though I have lived most of my life in the slipstream of experience.  Often I have had to repeat the same disastrous situation several times before I got the message.  That is still happening.  I do not write this book as a wise, mature, finished person who has learned all the answers, but rather as someone who even at this late stage of seventy-nine years is still trying to change, find things out and do a bit better with them.

Happy New Year to you all, and may we all keep on trying to do that bit better.  <3

(photo credit: thomasstache via photopin cc)

The History of Modern Tempted

I'm delighted to welcome you back, once more, to Modern Tempted Day, here on CLAficionado!  And am rather excited to inform you that the 18th of every month, here on in, will be designated as such.

This month's point of discussion is the history of this illustrious imprint.  Modern Tempted (or Harlequin KISS as it's called across the pond), is the revamp of RIVA, which was my favourite Mills & Boon imprint for about two years.  But to truly understand it's origins, we have to delve even further back in time... to Mills & Boon Temptation.

The very first Halequin/Mills & Boon Temptation book

Launched in February 1985, with LaVyrle Spencer's Spring Fancy, Mills & Boon Temptation heralded the mainstream rise of sensual romance for Mills & Boon.  Starting sensual and ending with downright saucy books in the 90s, the covers of Temptation started to move away from handdrawn images, towards more realistic depictions of characters before many of the other imprints.

In 2000 it was replaced by Sensual Romance, which in turn split, becoming Blaze in 2005.

This overhaul was echoed five years later when Mills & Boon Romance merged with Special Editions (which they'd bought from outside) to form the current Cherish line.  Those books in Romance that were highly sensual moved - along with the sexy Modern Heat books - into RIVA.

Since then, RIVA's become Modern Tempted, and the sexy, sassy books that I've been raving about for the last couple of months have become staples for any Mills & Boon fans.

In some ways for me, as someone who discovered Mills & Boon first through Temptation, it seems only right that everything's come full circle, and I am delighted to be hosting the Modern Tempted Day each month.  And I urge you to go try some for yourself.

So, as per usual, I present my reviews of this month's delightful offerings:

Mr (Not Quite) Perfect by Jessica Hart

After the Party by Jackie Braun

The Dance Off by Ally Blake

And Jennifer Rae's debut novel:  Confessions of a Bad Bridesmaid

Crying over books - the tragic tale of a soppy reader...

I spend a startling amount of time crying.

I suppose it started when I was about eight, and came across my first introduction to Shakespeare, bound in the format of The Enchanted Island.  It was Ian Serraillier's reimagining of King Lear that I first cried over.  Devastated by the fact that he only realised the value of Coredia too late, so began a fairly vicious cycle of weeping over literature.

Since then I've cried over numerous sad endings including George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (Oh Maggie, Oh Tom!!); the tragic one-sided love of Dan in Jo's Boys, the final book in the Little Women series; and I still cry whenever I get to a specific point in Rilla of Ingleside (clearly the most superior of all of the Anne of Green Gables books), whether on public transport or in the comfort of my own home.

But these days Happy Ever Afters make me cry just as much as the Never Ever Afters.

The other day I found myself unashamedly moved by Mhairi McFarlane's newest novel Here's Looking At You.  I don't know whether it was the fact that Anna, the main character, had been through so much that she truly deserved a decent HEA; that it was so deliciously written (which it definitely was - an utterly lush read!); or whether it was just that I've got soppy in my old age*.

Sometimes, I think it's nice to cry over happy endings.  I find it moving when I'm reminded of the innate goodness of humankind ("the milk of human kindness", if you will), and I find it moving when it's proven that there are people who genuinely just try and do nice things for others.

It's probably why I watch The Ellen Show so much, even though I just sit there bawling my eyes out.

So all in all, I think that crying over books is pretty forgivable.  Thoughts dear internet?  And whilst you muse upon that, I leave you with a version of And So It Goes that never fails to get me all weepy...
 



*I'd like to point out that I'm only 25, but that seems incredibly old to my teenage, angsty, weepy self.

(Image by Alena Navarro-Whyte)

On Being a Modern Tempted Girl

 

I'm a Modern Tempted girl.

Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy to read any Mills & Boon imprint (I'm currently reading a Medical Romance for my M&B December guestblog), but there's something about Modern Tempted that reminds me of the old school Temptation line.

I like my heroines sassy and my heroes alpha.

I like plots that aren't beyond the realm of possibility.

And I like romance novels that challenge every damn preconceptionthat people may have.

So imagine my delight when the Modern Tempted dream team - Flo Nicoll and Clio Cornish - asked me whether I'd like to review the books for them on a regular basis.

Obviously I barely paused, before calling them back in a flurry of delight and excitement, to accept their offer!

And as a result it is my privilege to welcome you to my first monthly Modern Tempted day.  Settle down, put your feet up and enjoy reviews, musings of a rambling nature, and this month's Mills & Boon boy.

Follow the links below for this month's books and their wonderfully lovely authors' websites:

Leah Ashton's Beware of the Boss

Amy Andrews' The Most Expensive Night of Her Life

Lucy King's The Reunion Lie

Joss Wood's Too Much of a Good Thing?

Breaking News (or 'recently in my life...')

So over the last couple of weeks I've been quite quiet here - for a number of reasons.

Partly because I had an event for 1000 people to organise for work (went off without a hitch - thanks for asking), and partly because I've been contributing to a number of other sites.

I'm now an official contributor to the wonderful For Books' Sake webzine (books by and for women), specialising in Chick Lit and Erotica new stories.  Most recently I've written about the thirteen women who've won the Nobel Prize for Literature, busted the Mills & Boon myth and celebrated the delights of Marian Keyes.

Forthcoming articles for them include wishing Tamora Pierce 'Happy Birthday', interviewing Emily Dubberley about her research into women's sexual fantasies and a piece on the History of Sex Toys in Literature...

I've also been contacted by Mills & Boon who've asked me to write a monthly blog for them on the new revamped website (coming in November).  This may have made my year.

Matt Gardner and I have also launched The Plotcast (episodes one-three of which can be found here, here and here), a vodcast about narrative.  Essentially we ramble on about our favourite books / tv shows / films / anything we want and I almost fall off a chair.  A lot.  I've also recorded an episode of Writer Collider with M. J. Starling, but more about that when it's published in its podcast format.

In other news, I seem to be getting addicted to comics, continue to prep for NaNoWriMo - which may or may not end up being the most stressful month of my life - and am creating a super hero costume for Halloween (see below for the latest reincarnation of Miss America upon which I shall model myself).

So pleased to note that I can dress up as a female character without having to resort to the dreaded leotard!

AND I've just bought a new netbook for all my typing needs.  :D


But despite the insanity that is my life, things are pretty good and I'm rather pleased with the way things are going.  So which of the above are you looking forward to (if any)? 

On a Foray into Comics

I have a fairly addictive personality, which is the only reason I can come up with for avoiding comics for so long.  I've always been a fan of manga but (despite a slight obsession with superhero movies) never really made the move to Marvel or DC.

However, this has all changed in the past week.

Tasked with finding a costume for my group of friends' annual Halloween party (this year's theme: super heroes and super villains) I turned to the Twittersphere for help.  I wanted to go as a female character, and yet have a distinct lack of love for leotards and hypothermia, hence the dilemna.

Then the delightful Holly Casio pointed me in the direction of the latest incarnation of Miss America in Vol. 2 of the Young Avengers.

Her look - red hoodie under a denim jacket, blue t-shirt, black shorts and what look like red converses - only underscores how kickarse this latino version of the character is, as well as how she's slightly different when compared to the 'clean-cut-ness' of the rest of the team.

The artwork's pretty gorgeous and I love that there are short cameos from the 'old' avengers dotted throughout the issues.  Plus I'm genuinely rooting for the characters and more than a little annoyed that the next book doesn't come out til February! (And yes, I know I could get the monthly issues, but that won't match my first set of the comics).

So now I find myself ordering series such as Gotham Central (a noir-style look at the Gotham's human police force) and Secret Six (cos who doesn't love a group of anti-heroes?!) and am currently stuck on a toss-up between Secret Avengers, Thor:  God of Thunder and Brian Wood's X-Men.

Essentially I'm teetering on the edge of what appears to be an unstoppable torrent of comic addiction.  And all in the week before NaNoWriMo.  I'm so screwed.

Wedding-Fever

I think it's fairly well-established knowledge that I'm a bit of a wedding nut.  I watch Don't Tell the Bride religiously, have wept buckets over Tom Fletcher's wedding speech and am currently working on a paper that looks at The Wedding Season Quartet as challenging the normal romance novel by opening (as opposed to ending) with a wedding.

So understandably I was delighted to be invited to the wedding of two friends from uni.  I met Jo in my first year where we bonded over sex-infused poetry seminars and late-night love of Moulin Rouge (I maintain that our version of Elephant Love Song Medley is a classic).  Towards the end of that year she met Andy and that was pretty much it for the both of them.

Fast-forward to last Saturday and to one of the loveliest weddings I've ever attended.  Set in the beautiful Ward Rooms in the University of Greenwich - with surprisingly good weather for September - everything seemed perfect.

From the banners with their family crests emblazoned on it (wings for the Piancastellis and a crescent for the Tattons) to the packs of cards, board games and (frankly exhausting) Dance Dance Revolution in their own games room, it was clear that this was a celebration of their past, present and what will clearly be a very happy future.

The ceremony itself was simple but lovely; Jo's dress divine and the vows .  It was as if there was no-one in the room but them.  And this is the key thing.  In so many weddings you go to, or see, the bride and groom do the 'rounds' and do all the stuff they think they ought to do, whereas Andy and Jo did what they wanted.

They had a jukebox so that everyone could choose the songs to dance to; they spent time just chilling out with their friends and family (I'm referencing a fairly hysterical interlude where most of the party - men included - tried on heels of varying heights and attempted to stumble along in a straight line); they did Gangnam Style with Andy's 86 year old nan (who is a legend); and they provide an obscene amount of food, which is always a good thing.

And when it came to the first dance - to Come What May from Moulin Rouge - they danced with each other, with parents and then grandparents.  When Jo's younger brother went to dance with her I (in a rather embarrassing moment) burst into tears and retreated behind my friend Cathy until I was able to pull myself together.  And when she looked up at him and he looked down at her...  Well, who says that true love is a fable?!

Their laughter, lust for life and love for each other is what makes them who they are and is what makes them a perfect couple.

I wish them all the best, all my love, and all the adventures they could ever wish for...with a pack of dice always in their hands.

A Life In Cocktails (the post-18 years)

I would firstly like to highlight that I am not an alcoholic - despite what this post may suggest!

BA Year 1 – Between the Sheets

My first year of university was spent consuming copious amounts of alcohol, not least this little gem that we drank by the tumbler.  My first ever alcohol-induced-memory-gap occurred towards the end of first year, due to toasting my lovely Canadian friend, before she returned across the Atlantic.

BA Year 2 – Triple Archers and Orange

We bought a friend of ours a mini-fridge for his birthday and so Fred’s was born.  Essentially a bar in his university room, we’d pay for the alcohol we drank, but all funds would go towards replenishing the bar.  A triple at the Students’ Union cost £5; at Fred’s, a mere £1.50 (based on 50p a shot – we didn’t pay for mixers).  Perhaps unsurprisingly we spent most of this year rather intoxicated.

BA Year 3 – Blue Lagoon

The traditional Blue Lagoon cocktail is a beautiful rich blue colour, but I’d get the bar staff at Crosslands to add orange juice to it, creating a gorgeous swirl of blue, green and yellow.  We’d grab a pitcher of this in the summer, sit outside all day in the quad and revise.  Good times.

MA – Bellini

Whilst studying for my Masters I momentarily grew up a little, and turned to the Bellini.  It would be a lie to say that these are days that I have left behind me – it’s all about champagne cocktails and anything with bubbles in still does it for me – but that year I drank classy cocktails and extraordinarily good quality grappa.

Post-MA – Purple Rain

Then came the year I discovered clubbing properly.  We must have spent at least one night a week for around 6 months in Tiger Tiger in Croydon, and we almost always got through a whole pitcher of Purple Rain, accompanied by much singing.  With harmonies.

GTP – Porn Storm 

Roadhouse in Covent Garden is probably my favourite London club – in part due to the motorbike behind the bar, in part due to the live music every night (The Lettuceheads’ reggae version of Don’t Look Back in Anger is one of my favourite covers to this day) and in part to the fishbowls.  Fishbowls are exactly that, a fishbowl filled to the brim with a cocktail of your choice.  And my choice?  The Porn Storm as it came complete with two bottles of Prosecco.  And there’s nothing like drowning your sorrows whilst training to be a teacher.

NQT – Malibu and Coke

During the hardest year of my life (hence my recent career change), I turned to the old stalwart of Malibu and Coke.  It tastes like summer to me.

Present Day – Anything

And these days I’ll try anything, though in far smaller quantities than my university days.  What’s your cocktail of choice?

How to Colonise a Bookshelf

It's all about starting small.  Just the odd book.  The mini paperbacks work best because they're not obtrusive and then BOOM!  Vintage Mills & Boon books snuck into a hardcore Catholic household.

Note the collection of vintage Mills & Boon books - just to the right of my Studio 60 DVD.

And as for my boyfriend's bookshelf - laden down as it is with thrillers and Sharpe (and a surprisingly large collection of Italian dictionaries) - there is still a corner for some of my books.  He made a space himself.  And every time we pop down to the beach, I drag him inside a tiny charity shop which has a surprisingly good collection of M&B.  And my space on his bookshelf is growing.

Second shelf, far right.  Mainly early 00s editions, with a Katie Fforde book on top.

Do I have too many?  Very probably.  Shall I get rid of them?  No.  Chris is just grateful that I have a Kindle; not that that'll stop me.

Food and Sensuality Take Two...

So back when I first started this blog I wrote a blog on Food and Sensuality that I feel I need to revisit.  At the time, it focused on the use of food to heighten tension and sensuality in a scene, but now I want to highlight something a bit different.  Food and sex.

There are two writers I've been reading recently, side by side almost, who have used food - in one way or another - in a book of theirs.  Eden Bradley's Forbidden Fruit and Jenny Colgan's Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe.

Bradley specialises in erotica.  We're talking explicit sex scenes and Forbidden Fruit looks at the use of food within sex and the idea of a food fetish.  It's wonderfully drawn, with 3D characters and is essentially such fun that I've persuaded my book club to take it as our next novel.  Interestingly though, despite the cherries on the front cover, nothing gave away the book's exploration of this fetish in the blurb.  (Apologies if I've spoiled the surprise, but you pick up on it fairly quickly).  Plus, such inventive uses or wine and syrup...  NB.  Be careful, it turns out that syrup is just as sticky as you thought it - and is a complete bugger to clean up after.

But just as sex sells, so does food.  Jenny Colgan, recent winner of the RNA's Romantic Novel of the Year award, seems to have tapped into this.  I literally fell over myself to buy more of her books after devouring the Romantic Novel of the Year in question (Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams) on Sunday.  Since then, I've also read Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe and just downloaded The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris.  Again, though more romanticised than sexualised, food ends up playing a central role in characters' relationships.  In MMatCC, chapters open with a recipe, linked pertinently to the narrative, and though not sexually explicit, they provide an enchanting escapist fantasy of their own.

I am not, however, trying to pit one style against the other.  It's more that I think I was a little reductive when first writing on this topic and kind of wanted to put that to rights.  I'm half-Italian; I'm born to love food.  I'm just lucky that there are some damn good writers who explore its many different facets in their writing.

Dreaming of Domesticity...

I am not an overly sentimental person, though all my friends would claim the contrary.  Yes, I have a love of romance novels and chicklit, and yes, I do believe in love, but I don’t think that that’s abnormal.  Au contraire, we see it around us every day: in the couple walking along hand in hand on the street; in the partnerships of our grandparents, loyal and true; and even in our own parents.  So I think that believing in true love is merely logical, given all the evidence.

But I’ve never been particularly domesticated.  Despite an adoration for cooking, kitchens and all things culinary, I’ve never particularly enjoyed housework.  So why have I been dreaming in technicoloured 1950s glory?

Partly, I blame the novels I’ve been reading lately.  The entire Little Women series and the What Katy Did series as well...  There’s something quite enchanting to be found in turn of the century American women novelists’ work.  I find myself considering what colour bed linen I want in my own place, and how I’d decorate this room or that.  I dream of having a kitchen as loud and bustling and as Italian as my grandmother’s, with simmering pots of sugo, and handmade gnocchi on the side.

And when I say I dream of this, I mean literally dream.  When my head fits the pillow I seem to envision myself as the housewife I’ve always dreaded becoming.  And yet there’s something very comforting in that picture.  In the picture where our second bedroom’s been transformed into a study and has walls lined with books, where I write as much as I cook, and where I never have to do the ironing, for even in my dreams I can’t abide the thought of that.

So yes, apparently I’m dreaming of domesticity.  And I seem to quite like it.

On Being a Becket Kid...

It's nearly 14 years since I left St Thomas Becket Primary School.

I was a geeky kid - the kind who spent their playtime reading in a corner of the playground as oppose4d to joining in with other games.  In fact, in some ways I cringe when I recall my naïve enthusiasm for any kind of learning; I hadn't yet learnt to act with nonchalance and I must have been infuriating to teach.

But I did love my school.  The Leavers' Disco with it's cheesy music and final shouts of 'Becket!  Becket!'  The boys in my class who changed the way I see Cher's 'Believe' forever.  And the innocent scandal when one boy kissed one of the girls.  In Year 5!  The horror!

Fast-forward to the present and I don't generally think about that time too much - for me, it was a time when I was at my most vulnerable, too soft and with skin barely thick at all.  But recently people keep on popping up on my newsfeed.  One girl getting married, another pregnant, people who have started their own businesses, are on holiday and the weird day-to-day stuff that we never really think about.

It's been so many years since I've seen most people, and yet I'm so glad that snippets of their life come my way.  It seems so strange to consider how grown up we are now, bizarrely as if those years had never happened.  I spent yesterday evening with one of my best friends from primary school and her boyfriend and it was as if we were 11 only yesterday.  The perfect evening.  An utterly lovely way to spend my time.

And I do hope that when we hit 20 years of having gone our separate ways, someone'll sort out a reunion.  Partly to see how everyone is.  Mainly for the gossip.

Why choosing a career that perpetuates stereotypes can challenge those stereotypes

I would like to highlight the fact that the reason there is no picture attached to this article is that all of the pictures that Google came up with were of women in high heels.  I personally feel that this reflects badly on all the male secretaries I've ever met who, without exception, would approach wearing high heels with absolute horror.

I have, over the last year, gone through a fairly momentous career change.  Having had no life as a teacher, I decided to quit in order to be able to focus on writing in my spare time.  Since then I’ve been working on a number of projects (including this blog, a pitch for one of the Nationals, a novel, a joint-podcast and a number of academic papers). 

Writing, however, very rarely pays the bills.

So I took a job, working as a school secretary.  Now, I love my job.  It’s busy, fast-paced, challenging (especially when having to walk the political tightrope in the staffroom) and I enjoy interacting with the huge number of people who come to the office every day (students, visitors, parents, inspectors, exam officers, the list goes on and on), but the pay could be better.

So I’ve started looking at some of the big firms in the city.

Now, there is a small part of me that wonders whether I might be perpetuating the stereotypes.  Some people can’t believe that, despite having two degrees and having given a paper on ‘Romeo and Juliet and the Cybertextual’ at an international conference, I still want to be an executive secretary.

But an executive secretary doesn’t just answer the phone.  They (because yes, there are male and female secretaries) have to be hyper-organised, understand the intricacies of the business world that they operate in, be able to write reports and have killer logistics.  There’s is so much more to administration than most people ever work out, and I enjoy that.

And to be perfectly honest, this entire blog is about challenging stereotypes.  I’m highly educated and yet adore Mills & Boon novels, Made in Chelsea and discussing the pros and cons of balconette bras.  And I am not ashamed of any of those things.  Everyone should have the option of choosing what they do, so I’m choosing to follow a career path which will be mentally stimulating and financially viable, in order to continue exploring my dreams.

Bring it.

Guardian Professionals' Women in Leadership: Celebrating the Reality of Life

I'm a fairly avid Guardian reader; always have been.  So when I discovered that Guardian Professionals was launching a new section called Women in Leadership I was intrigued.  Part of me was really interested to see that gender diversity was finally getting recognition in the media, and whilst the other part was frustrated that such a section was needed. 

I met up with Harriet Minter, the head of Women in Leadership, to discuss exactly why she thought it necessary to trial such a group.

Having worked within the Guardian Professionals section for the last three years, where the paper tries to talk to readers 'with their work hats on', she developed a proposal for a section that addresses the challenges that being a woman - specifically a woman in leadership - poses within the workplace.  With a membership of 7000 after a month, there's definitely interest.  It's about highlighting the issues and the problems that stop women getting those top jobs, and it's different for different industries: for Engineering it starts when a girl gets a doll instead of a lego set; and in Accounting it's making that leap from Senior Management to Director.  (Approximately 60% of graduates taken on by the Big Four accountancy firms are women, compared with the 12% of women who make director).

Women in Leadership is kind of like LinkedIn for female executives - although membership is not limited to women.  The idea to is to inspire aspiring women leaders by holding conferences that deal with specific issues (ranging from career breaks to pay), provide quarterly reports for its members, and tap into the 'wealth of experience that's already out there', inviting established CEOs, Directors and Partners to write articles about their own experiences for the website.

But why start a supplement like this now?

Minter argues that for her, at least, it is twofold.  'On a professional level, I look around me and see women I went to school and university with - women who were always top of their class - turning round and saying that there's no point going for promotion.  That they just won't get it.  And that's something that's only been happening within my group of friends over the last couple of years.  On a personal level, it makes me angry to think that my ability to help my parents as they get older and develop my own career may be curtailed just because I'm a woman and may decide to have children at some point.'

This is a point where I'd like to put in a disclaimer:  for all those of you who read this, assuming that I'm angry and man-hating and that I think that women should run all companies and men should stay home to bring up the children...I don't.  It's true that I think that companies should echo the diversity of its clients - and that means ethnically and culturally, as well as in gender - and it's true that I think that women should not be hampered by their gender in advancing within their careers, but I try not to be reductive.  The whole point of feminism is to encourage the right to choose.  Women should be able to choose what path they take - whether that's focusing on career, or being a stay-at-home mum - neither choice is wrong.  Both should be open, as they should be to men.

However, we do need to push for change.  As Minter argues, companies should be made 'responsible for their own corporate governance', it's no longer acceptable for them to deny plausibility, as the Leverson inquiry has proven.  Organisations need to be braver.  Yes, there are issues - predominantly to do with childcare - but in not normalising the alternatives companies are still holding back women.  I think that the move to have m/paternity leave split equally between partners over a year by 2015 is fantastic - that way, neither partner will suffer.

Chris Sullivan, RBS's CEO, won a European Gender Diversity award recently.  He argues that it's no longer the role of women to fight for equality, but men's as well.  In 2011, the growth of men joining the RBS focus women's network exceeded the growth of women. 'This isn’t a men vs women thing', he argued. 'It is a men and women together recognising that this is an economic lever within your organisation.'

Towards the end of my conversation with Harriet Minter, we talked about the fact that there are a lot of good things about being a woman in business.  'There are advantages to standing out and there advantages to being a woman,' though the ideal is to move away from the idea that business have to hire a certain number of women - positive discrimination is just as insulting as negative.

At the end of the day, business is business.  You can't, and indeed shouldn't, make allowances for anyone because of their background, but at the same time we live in a multicultural and diverse society and companies should 'celebrate the reality of life'.

On being busty

I have big breasts.  We're talking 30J big breasts.  Yes, you did read that correctly.  30J.

Most people's reactions when they find that out is pretty standard:

'Wow!'

'Can I have some?'

'Niiiiiice.'

And even, on one delightful occasion (note the sarcasm) 'Look at the tits on that.'

Unsurprisingly, perhaps,  I've not always felt so confident about them.  Until I went to university I was painfully shy about them and was even encouraged to cover them up and wear clothes that minimized their impact.  At uni I went the other way, wearing tops that were pretty darn lowcut in an attempt to reclaim pride over how I looked.  And now?  Now I just wear clothes I like and that make me look half-decent - that usually means fitted, but I generally try for classy and classic over slutty.  (Note:  Pretty much any top that looks good on a size 12 30C makes me look like a porn star, so this can be quite difficult).

When I was about 22 I wet to Bravissimo for the first time.  I went in wearing a 34E, came out wearing a 30G.and in the three years since I've gone up four cup sizes.  Yet they've never made me feel like my only option is to wear frumpy cotton bras.

Having pretty much worn out all my current bras I popped into their Oxford Circus store after work the other day.  Bravissimo caters for busty women.  We're talking D to L cups, with 28 to 40 backs.  And their age range is pretty impressive:  One of the fitters I spoke to said that she's fitted 10 year olds up to 90 year olds!  All in all though, the average is about 20-50.

And the bras are gorgeous.  We're talking lace and satin and generally just pretty.

The majority of women who go there - especially for the first time - are pretty apprehensive.  My fitter for the session, Marika, highlighted a popular misconception.  'Most women are more self-conscious because there are female fitters.  Women seem to assume that other women are going to judge them.'  Indeed, when I first went I couldn't have been more nervous or embarrassed - I'd flinched at the sight of the mirrors, felt incredibly self-conscious standing there in jeans and a bra, and had to ask my fitter to stand outside the door every time I changed bras.

Not anymore.  One of the best things about Bravissimo is that it's less clinical than other places, it's more about teaching you how your bra should fit than whipping out a tape-measure and putting through that prolonged agony that makes you feel like a gawky teenager all over again.  Instead, they teach you things like how the wiring should lie flat against your breast bone, and how your straps should do up quite low on your back in order to support you properly.

Being larger than the average woman I have, as Marika pointed out, 'very powerful breasts'.  Some women who have a very large cup size, need a deeper cup due to the shape and weight of their breasts - limiting the kinds of bras they can wear.  I am one such woman.  The problem is that before being measured properly, and sometimes even after you have, being busty often means that even when wearing bras that are technically your size, you can spill over the top.  Now, this may be seen as seductive (though I'm personally not a fan of the double-boob), but it damages your breast tissue.

Plus, if you're wearing the wrong kind of bra, women with heavy breasts'll find that their weight and strength will cause the underwire to break out within a month, and that's just uncomfortable.

So it's in Bravissimo's favour to get you wearing the right kind of bras - there's no false flattery (we agreed that the gorgeous Paradise Fizz bra, despite fitting perfectly, kind of made me look translucent because of my colouring - my words, not hers).  And my aim to get two bras - one incredibly sexy (my bf is damn lucky) and one industrial strength (for support and to save me from back pain) - was met brilliantly.  Both ended up being sexy but strong.  Ladies, it's all about lace...

At the end of the day, it's important to feel confident in yourself and, through no-one's fault except perhaps the media's, women with big breasts are made to feel frumpy or slutty.  It's a polarising of perception that can hold women back.  I've a friend working in the city who, despite being one of the most intelligent people I know, got told at her induction by another trainee that she looked like a glamour model.  How is that ever appropriate?

I think Marika phrased it best, having worked as a costumer within theatre and in the vintage department at Liberties, when she decided to go part time she called up Bravissimo.  "I'm good at making women look and feel good about themselves, and I wanted to work somewhere where I could use my skills.  I've always got bras from Bravissimo, so I called up and here I am."


So, busty ladies of all shapes and sizes, feel confident because you are damn good no matter how big your breasts; know that you are not deined by anyone's perceptions of you; and above all, wear decent bras.

Why Heathcliff causes heart palpitations

I was fourteen when I first read Wuthering Heights.  It was the second text that my English teacher at the time had chosen for coursework (the first being Under Milk Wood which I’d detested) and so I wasn’t feeling too excited.  We were sent home with instructions to read the first chapter for the next day.

I read the entire novel.

Being fairly well renowned for my speed-reading abilities, I surprised even myself.  I literally devoured the novel.  For some reason the complexities of heartbreak, unbridled passion and star-cross’d lovers appealed to me, despite the fact that I’d never had a relationship, been kissed, or even had any idea what the word orgasm meant.

One my best friends, V, highlighted the fact that in all actuality it was Victorian melodramatic trash – for some reason she wasn’t as moved as I to read of Heathcliff’s anguish at Cathy’s death:

He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears.

But in rereading it recently I find myself a little discomforted by Heathcliff; far from being the brooding hero that I once imagined, I see him as a manipulative and physically abusive obsessive, who’d be branded persona non grata by any self-respecting jury.

And yet, when I read it now, there’s a small part of me that still thinks it’d be utterly thrilling to be adored in this way.  Plus the passion and torment in his words – there’s something terrible about the idea of living in a world without your love.

‘May she wake in torment!’ he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion.  ‘Why, she’s a liar to the end!  Where is she?  Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where?  Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings!  And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then!  The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe.  I know that ghosts have wandered on earth.  Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!  Oh, God! it is unutterable!  I cannot live without my life!  I cannot live without my soul!’

There’s an Arabic word that, in some ways, evokes a similar sentiment:  Ya’aburnee.  This literally translates as ‘You bury me’.  Pamela Haag argues that it’s ‘a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person, because of how difficult it would be to live without them.’  And it’s the intensity of this feeling that makes Heathcliff – psychopathic tendencies and all – into a romantic hero.

I may no longer have teenage yearnings for a Heathcliff of my own – for which my actual boyfriend can be infinitely grateful – but there’s still a small part of me that swoons at the thought of him.