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.
Check out this book in the following links:
Amazon: mybook.to/TheDistance
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.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
1.
If you could work with any other author, who would it be and
why?
Isabel Allende because she’s such an
inspiration to me and I adore her writing style. Also, Emmy Abrahamson, author
of the brilliant How To Fall In Love With A Man Who Lives In A Bush, because
she has a wicked sense of humour and I think we’d have great fun working
together!
2.
What would be a typical working day for you? When and where do
you write?
I
have two young children, so I have to fit writing into a school day. I drop my
sons off at school, get home, wash up the breakfast bowls, and sit at the
dining room table looking out onto the garden while I write. If that porridge
pan isn’t washed up first, I can’t concentrate! I write through until 245pm
when I close the lid on the laptop and head back to school for pickup and any
sporting activities we have planned after school. I have to fit a lot into a
short working day!
3.
What is the hardest part of the writing for you?
Well
the hardest thing is being disciplined enough to write in the few hours I have.
It’s pretty prescriptive, so there’s no room for procrastination as time is so
precious. I’m sometimes very tempted
to put Love Island on the laptop while I do some tidying, or look at Instagram
if I’m facing a bit of a block in a scene I’m writing – but I know I only have
until 245pm, so every minute counts!
4.
When and why did you first start writing?
I
first started writing when I was a teen at school – I’d write short stories for
my friends overnight and hand them scrunched-up pieces of A4 paper in
registration the next morning, which they’d read and devour and ask for more. The
stories were pretty formulaic – usually about them getting together with whichever
boyband favourite they adored at the time! I loved that my friends were
entertained by my stories. So after a career in magazines, and since becoming a
mother, I thought I’d quite like to go back to scribbling stories down from
home, and hopefully making people smile again.
5.
How did you come up with the idea for your book?
I
really wanted to write a sweeping love story set in two very different
locations, so I chose Mexico, where I lived briefly in my twenties, and Norway
– which is a beautiful country, and couldn’t be more different from Mexico. And
then I heard about a friend who had fallen in love across an ocean, so it got
my mind thinking… and The Distance is the result of that.
6.
Are you a big reader? If so, what are you reading now?
Unfortunately
I’ve not read as much as I want to in the past eight years since having
children, as I no longer commute and I’m so shattered when I go to bed, I fall
asleep straight away! Next on my TBR list though is Emma Healey’s beautiful new
book Whistle In The Dark. I met her at an event recently and she was so
interesting and eloquent about the difficult subjects her books tackle
– plus Elizabeth Is Missing was so brilliant – I can’t wait to dive into
that.
7.
Do you have any advice for other aspiring writers?
Yes
– write! Find windows of time, sit down, and type. Get the words out and
reassess them later because words breed words and once you have the time and
headspace, it kind of snowballs from there. And try not to question everything
or think what you write needs to be perfect straight away – just get the words
down because that’s when other sparks fly and ideas tumble. You can always edit
later!
Follow Zoe
Twitter: @zolington
Facebook:
@zoefolbiggauthor
Follow Aria
Twitter: @aria_fiction
Facebook: @ariafiction
Instagram: @ariafiction
