This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
A few weeks ago I received a Facebook message from Novelicious Ed Kirsty asking me if I would like to attend an Afternoon Tea in a hotel in Birmingham with Lindsey Kelk. A chance to meet one of my favourite chick lit authors? I can tell you that my exact answer was ‘Hell Yeah!'.
Upon finding the hotel in Birmingham (yes, I know I live in the city, but this was the posh side of town that I very rarely frequent!) I was shown into a lovely garden/conservatory type place that had tables and chairs dotted around, and in the middle was a long table with eight women seated around, including Lindsey Kelk. I made my way over to the table, quietly introduced myself, and received a bright grin from the very down to earth author. Once settled with napkin on lap and champagne in hand, we started chatting about Lindsey's books, hot men in films that we’d seen recently and whether Lindsey would include a wrestling character in her next book (she’s a massive wrestling fan!).
One of the things I think everyone around the table was dying to ask Lindsey was if the character of Alex in the I Heart series was based on an actual person.
‘No sadly not’ she replied ‘although if he was I would not be letting him out of my sight!’.
Just imagining a person out there as gorgeous as Alex had all us ladies in a flutter. If I’m being entirely honest we only chatted about Lindsey's books for a little while – the rest of the time we were chatting about films and men! Obviously not the sole reason all of us were there, but it felt like meeting a group of your friends for a coffee. We chatted about anything and everything and were always going off on a tangent.
One thing that had all of us in a tizz was how much our waiter looked like Michael Fassbender. However, he was a little too moody and refused to bring any milk for our tea, which led to hysterics as the fact that all of our teas were now going cold. After the initial laughter died down, Lindsey proceeded to tell us a story of how Mr Fassbender was in a karaoke bar round the corner from her apartment in New York, and how gutted she was that she couldn’t make it to the bar so she could ogle him from afar!
After much chatter and laughter, we then all had photos with the woman herself and had a sneaky look in the goody bags that were provided. As well as a copy of Lindsey’s new book I Heart London, there was a copy of a Lucy Lord’s Revelry, special edition nail varnish and some DKNY perfume. I must say it was one of the best goody bags I’ve ever received and it the bag even had a tube map of London on it, which linked in very nicely with the book.
It was one of the most enjoyable afternoons I’ve had in a while and I hope to get the opportunity to do it again. Lindsey was down to earth, funny and made all eight of us feel very welcome.