BLOG TOUR SPOTLIGHT: The Distance by Zoe Folbigg @zolington @aria_fiction
The Distance
by Zoe Folbigg
Thanks so much to Aria Fiction for this stop on this Blog Tour!
See below for a book description, about the author and a note from the author about procrastination - don't know about you guys, but I'm definitely guilty of it!
From the author of the bestselling novel, The Note, comes this beautiful, romantic tale of finding love in
the most unexpected places.
Under the midnight sun of Arctic Norway,
Cecilie Wiig goes online and stumbles across Hector Herrera in a band fan
forum. They start chatting and soon realise they might be more than kindred
spirits. But there are two big problems: Hector lives 8,909km away in Mexico.
And he's about to get married.
Can Cecilie, who's anchored to two jobs
she loves in the library and a cafe full of colourful characters in the town in
which she grew up, overcome the hurdles of having fallen for someone she's
never met? Will Hector escape his turbulent past and the temptations of his
hectic hedonistic life and make a leap of faith to change the path he's on?
Zoe
Folbigg's latest novel is a story of two people, living two very different
lives, and whether they can cross a gulf, ocean, sea and fjord to give their
love a chance.
Expected publication: July 1, 2018
AMAZON | KOBO | iBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY
About the author
Zoë Folbigg is a magazine journalist and digital editor, starting at
Cosmopolitan in 2001 and since freelancing for titles including Glamour,
Fabulous, Daily Mail, Healthy, LOOK, Top Santé, Mother & Baby, ELLE, Sunday
Times Style, and Style.com. In 2008 she had a weekly column in Fabulous
magazine documenting her year-long round-the-world trip with ‘Train Man’ – a
man she had met on her daily commute. She has since married Train Man and lives
in Hertfordshire with him and their two young sons. She is the bestselling
author of The Note.
FROM THE AUTHOR
Distractions distractions…
Anyone else prone to procrastinating? Have a think about that
while you flit between tabs on your computer screen (you don’t want that
shopping basket to expire), have a quick peek at Twitter (what an idiot!), look
at friends’ summer holiday pics on Facebook as they start trickling in (wow, Montenegro
looks nice this time of year), come back to your favourite book blog (thanks
for reading btw), maybe make yourself a cup of tea (Earl Grey and milk I’m
afraid)…
I’m the worst for it. It took me eight years to write my debut
novel, The Note, based on the true
story of how I fell in love at first sight with a handsome stranger on my daily
commute. To be fair I did get married (spoiler alert), change jobs three times
and have two babies in those eight years, so they were quite legitimate
distractions.
But even going back to the inspiration behind The Note, to 2004. It took a year of
dithering to even make a move and ask “Train Man” out, I was so easily
distracted, quick to get lost in something that would delay the embarrassment
of rejection. So I would focus on my breakfast of choice at the time (almond
croissant), my magazine of choice at the time (Grazia), or my album of choice
at the time (Room On Fire by The Strokes) on my iPod Nano (now hijacked by my
sons so they can listen to Harry Potter on the speakers at bedtime). All these
distractions put me off the task in hand: asking Train Man out with a simple,
polite and crumpled note – which I wrote on my birthday but sat in my bag for
eleven days before I stopped dilly-dallying enough to thrust it into his hand
as we pulled into King’s Cross station.
Fast forward to The Note
being released: I finally scored my dream job, got a two-book deal thanks to my
brilliant agent and amazing publisher, and was able to work from home: writing
stories with the intention of making people smile, making their hearts swell. I
had wanted to be an author since I was a teenager, and finally, as I turned 40,
I was. I could take my sons to school and get on with writing my new novel, The Distance, a story about star-crossed
lovers living on opposite sides of the world in Mexico and Norway, when I got
home.
But not before I took my kids to school, went for a run to think
about Hector and Cecilie and how their love story would pan out (that’s work,
right?!), to stop at the supermarket to pick up supplies, to return home,
shower and wash up the breakfast bowls and porridge pan. Oh and not forgetting
the laundry and vacuuming. As I sat down to write, I would look at the clock
and see that 3 p.m. – school pick-up time – loomed rather suddenly.
It took eight years to write The
Note, and amazingly, I managed to write The
Distance in 18 months. But I need to do better. I’m excited to say I have a
new book deal, and more books to write, so I need to focus. My next book is due
to my editor in seven months’ time and although I know where I’m going with it
and what I want to happen, I haven’t started. Gulp.
This is my job now and I need to be disciplined, but I’m
learning to focus. To leave the toast crumbs under the dining table for later.
To not stick Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills on ITV Player when I have
writer’s block. To get up early and run before school. To shut down all those
tabs and not give Donald Trump’s ramblings a second of my precious time. That
said, in the time I’ve taken to write this post, I did catch up on Love Island,
ate a whole bar of Green & Black’s (current favourite: Sea Salt) and booked
tickets to see The Lost Boys at Sundown Cinema. I’d better crack on. Book three
is calling…
I hope you enjoy The
Distance and find Hector and Cecilie a happy distraction!
Zoë
x
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