This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Kerry Barrett was a bookworm from a very early age, devouring Enid Blyton and Noel Streatfeild, before moving on to Sweet Valley High and 1980s bonkbusters. She is the author of three books in the Could it be Magic series. She dropped into tell Novelicious why Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married had such a big impression on her.
In 1996 I'd just graduated from university and I went on holiday to the Scottish Highlands with my boyfriend at the time and two friends. I am still friends with the friends. I am no longer friends with the boyfriend. It was a terrible holiday. The weather was awful, the place we were staying was dreadful, and it was fairly clear that the boyfriend was not a keeper. But I remember the week fondly because I spent the whole time reading Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marian Keyes. It was a revelation. Here was someone writing about a girl like me, with the same worries and concerns as me, living in London like me, with parents like mine (Lucy's parents are Irish and mine are Scottish but trust me – they're similar). It felt like Marian Keyes had sat me down in a café and told me a hilarious story about one of her friends.
It was, I suppose, the beginning of the chick-lit revolution and I was exactly the right age and in the right place at the right time. I was in my early 20s, trying to find my way in the world and struggling with the same worries that all the chick-lit heroines like Lucy Sullivan had. Marian’s writing made me laugh out loud and it was gripping and interesting and I found myself wondering if I could write like that. I'd spent three years of my English literature degree reading amazing, brilliant writers but none of them made me think 'I could do that' like Marian Keyes did.
Not long after I read Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married I started writing my own first novel (which was terrible – really, really bad – and which, thankfully, I didn’t finish) but it took me almost two decades to finally get published. It may have been a long journey but I think it was Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married that started me off on the road to being a writer.Kerry's latest novel, Baby it's Cold Outside, is out now.