Fourteen Days Later, with Sibel Hodge

A few months ago, I had the privilege of working on a project with Indie author Sibel Hodge.  Sibel is an absolute delight to work with, and her work has a snappy, witty spirit to it that keeps a reader intrigued.  Her latest book, My Perfect Wedding, has just been released, and I wanted to share that news with you.  To that end, I asked and Sibel graciously accepted my offer of an interview.  Ladies and gents, Sibel Hodge.

Tell me about your newest book.
My Perfect Wedding is a romantic comedy-mystery. (The heroine), Helen Grey, is finally getting everything she wants. She’s about to have the perfect dream wedding and begin an exciting new life abroad on the sunny Mediterranean island of Cyprus. But living the dream isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

After a mix-up at the airport, Helen finds herself drawn into the midst of an elaborate plot to steal an ancient statue and assassinate a local businessman. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, her wedding dress is AWOL, the statue seems to be cursed, and Helen is wanted by the police.
With the big day rapidly approaching, a roller-coaster of mishaps, misunderstandings, and disasters threatens to turn the newlyweds into nearlyweds. Can Helen prevent an assassination, save the statue, and have the perfect wedding? Or will the day to remember turn into one she’d rather forget?

This is the second book in this series which features Helen as our heroine.  Please tell me about the series.

Fourteen Days Later was the first novel. Written in a similar style to Sophie Kinsella and Marian Keyes, it is “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” meets “Bridget Jones”…

When accident-prone Helen Grey finds a thong stuffed into the pocket of her boyfriend’s best work trousers, it’s time for her to move on. His excuse that he needed to dust the photocopier and just thought that it was a rag sounds like a lame excuse.
Helen’s life is propelled in an unexpected direction after her best friend, Ayshe, sets her a fourteen-day, life-changing challenge. Helen receives a task everyday which she must complete without question. The tasks are designed to build her confidence and boost her self-esteem but all they seem to do is push her closer to Ayshe’s brother, Kalem.
How will Kalem and Helen get together when she’s too foolish to realize that she loves him? How can he fall for her when he is too busy falling prey to her mishaps and too in love with his own perfect girlfriend? How will Kalem’s Turkish Cypriot family react when they find out?
Is it really possible to change your life in fourteen days?

My Perfect Wedding follows the next stage in Helen’s life where she’s getting married and moving abroad. She assumes it’s going to be nothing but love and romance, but living the dream isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It shows the twists and turns life that can happen unexpectedly….

What challenges, if any, have you encountered with writing a series?

None so far. I really enjoy writing a series because you can carry on the character’s lives that much further.

How do you keep things straight from book to book?  What special tips and techniques do you use?

The hard part is remembering things about your characters or repeating yourself. My main characters are firmly burned in my brain, but I’m frequently looking up details from the other novels to check that I haven’t made someone’s eyes green when they should be brown, etc.

With authoring two different series, do you work on one series at a time, or do you work on both at once?

Fourteen Days Later was my debut novel.  After that, I started on the first of the Amber Fox mystery series. I wasn’t sure which series to carry on next, but eventually decided to do the sequel to Fourteen Days Later. I’m now working on the second Amber Fox mystery. So I guess you could say I’m mixing them up.

Living in Europe but with an audience largely based in the United States, what challenges does that present?   Do you find that you have to change your writing style to fit your audience to some degree?

I think some of my writing has more Americanized sayings to avoid confusion: apartment instead of flat, and words like that. In the Helen Grey series, I wanted to keep some of the Brit humour and sayings alive, though.

Tell me three random things about yourself that may surprise your readers.

I was born in the UK, my husband was born in Australia, we got married in Jamaica, and now we live in Cyprus.
I worked for the police for ten years and did an attachment to the coroner’s office, investigating sudden and suspicious deaths.
I hate injustice.

If you would like to learn more about Sibel, you can visit her website, as well as finding her on Amazon and Smashwords.com.