Fiona and the Whale by HannAh Lynn #Extract #Giveaway

October 05, 2019

Fiona and the Whale by HannAh Lynn #Extract #Giveaway

Today I am delighted to have an extract from Hannah Lynn's Fiona and the Whale.I also have a great International Giveaway for you. Details on how to enter are at the foot of this post. First, here's a little about the book:

With her personal life on the rocks, it's going to take a whale sized miracle to keep her afloat.

Event planner Fiona Reeves did not have her husband's sudden departure on her schedule. However, she’s certain that it's only a hiccup and he'll be back in no time, begging for forgiveness. Fortunately there’s a distraction of mammoth proportions swimming in the River Thames.

Absorbed by the story of Martha the sperm whale, Fiona attempts to carry on life as usual as she awaits her husband's return. However, nothing can prepare her for the dramatic turn of events that throws her life into ever greater turmoil. The road ahead has many paths and for Fiona it’s time to sink or swim.

Fiona and the Whale is a poignant and often hilarious contemporary fiction novel. If you enjoy topical tales, second chances and a little bit of romance, you'll love this new book from the Kindle Storyteller Award Winner, Hannah Lynn.

Extract

Dear Reader,

I’m Fiona. Okay, technically that’s not true. The first full sentence of the book and I start with an outright lie. You can read the cover, my name’s not Fiona, it’s Hannah. Starting a novel with a lie is not a good omen of things to come, but please bear with me. I’m ever so grateful you’re here. Don’t let one little white lie put you off.

Here’s the thing. You’ve got the choice of millions of books out there to read, and by some miraculous sequence of events, you found mine and chose it. You picked Fiona and the Whale. Maybe you read one of my other books before and liked the writing style. Maybe somebody recommended it to you, (say thank you from me if they did) or maybe it was simply the quirky looking cover that caught your attention and made you decide that on this particular morning or afternoon or whatever time of day it is, that Fiona and the Whale is the exact type of book you fancied reading. However you got here, I’m thrilled. That you’re holding the book in your hand or have downloaded it to your e-reader is more than I could have dreamed of. More than I dared hope. Now, I know it’s rather cheeky and highly presumptuous to put yet more demands on your time, but as the old saying goes, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. So, I have a little favour to ask.

Now that you’ve made the decision to put this book firmly into your collection, I was hoping you might read to the end of it. And I mean all the way to the very end, not just to the bit where you know it’s going to be happy ever after. Or not. I don’t want to give anything away. It’s definitely not all happy ever after. Unless you want it to be. I digress. Anyway, I was wondering if you would read to the bit where you learn about me. To the Fiona side of me and the Hannah side of me. To the pages where you read about more than the story, more than the characters, but instead learn about how I came to write this. How I, in my own manner, became Fiona. I want you to understand what my hopes are – beyond of course, you reading this, falling madly in love with it, and telling all your friends that you just read the best book ever about a whale that got stuck in the Thames.

I know what you’re thinking, well perhaps. You’re thinking that there are a lot of variables that may decide whether or not you get to the end of this book. Maybe you won’t like the writing style. I understand that. We don’t all like the same books. It would be disappointing if we did. And there’s no denying, I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself here for a book that, while I’m pretty damn proud of, is no Dickens, no Atwood; it’s probably hovering marginally above average in terms of syntactical lyricism if I’m honest. You might find the prose too clunky, the dialogue too casual, or maybe it will be my overly fond use of the olfactory sense that turns you off (what can I say, I’m a nasal person). Not to mention how much I talk about food. That is definitely me. I can’t help it. Give me a blank page and I start thinking about food. Perhaps it stems from working in a sweet shop as a teenager. Me that is, not Fiona.

Then again, perhaps it will be the romance element that makes you close the book or switch off your Kindle part way through. I get that too. Not that this is romantic romantic, but there’s definitely a bit of kissing in there. And a bit of the other stuff too. I wish Fiona could have been around to help with those bits. I’m not that type of writer. Not yet at least. Anyway, kissing and romance and grand declarations of feelings might not be your cup of tea.

You might be expecting more action and adventure. Maybe you have got it into your head that Fiona is an Amazon goddess of a woman who is somehow going to end up wrestling the whale in a dramatic fight for survival. If that’s what you’re thinking, then I might as well just let you down now. There will be no whale wrestling in this book I’m afraid. In fact, unless you include her conscience, there’s no wrestling at all. Close the book. Go on, you have my permission. I’m not going to let you wade on in the hope of blood and guts and fights for survival. You’re not going to find them here.

Then of course there’s that never-ending issue that people like you and me are so frequently faced with; too many books on your TBR pile. You might intend to get to mine when you buy it, you most certainly think you will, but every week there’s another purchase you simply have to make, another bestseller you don’t want to miss out. Day after day, week after week, this little novel of mine will get pushed further and further to the back of the shelf, be it real or virtual. Then one day, you forget that you even bought it. It will remain forever a member of the Books I Always Intend on Reading collective. That’s fair enough. All those outcomes mentioned above are entirely understandable. I wouldn’t hold it against you for one second if this happened to you. It’s happened to us all.

But suppose you do get to the end. Suppose you find that you start to lose yourself in the pages of the story. Suppose you start to imagine yourself in Fiona’s position, grappling with all the things she has to grapple with. Suppose you become Fiona, the way I became Fiona. Well if that does happen, then like I said, please don’t stop on the last page of the story. Keep going.

I guess with all that said and done, I should probably get started with the book.

If this has whetted your appetite, here's where to find the book:

Amazon UK | Amazon US

About the Author

Hannah Lynn is an award-winning novelist. Publishing her first book, Amendments – a dark, dystopian speculative fiction novel, in 2015, she has since gone on to write The Afterlife of Walter Augustus, a contemporary fiction novel with a supernatural twist – which won the 2018 Kindle Storyteller Award and the Gold Medal for Best Adult Fiction ebook at this year’s IPPY Awards – and the delightfully funny and poignant Peas and Carrots series.

While she freely moves between genres, her novels are recognisable for their character driven stories and wonderfully vivid description.

She is currently working on a YA Vampire series and a reimaging of a classic Greek myth.

Born in 1984, Hannah grew up in the Cotswolds, UK. After graduating from university, she spent ten years as a teacher of physics, first in the UK and then around Asia. It was during this time, inspired by the imaginations of the young people she taught, she began writing short stories for children, and later adult fiction Now as a teacher, writer, wife and mother, she is currently living in the Austrian Alps.