Lyrically Tongue Tied-
Another Cup of Coffee by Jenny Kane
Many thanks for letting me visit your fabulous blog today,
to talk a little about my brand new romance novel, Another Cup of Coffee!!
Blurb-
Thirteen years ago Amy
Crane ran away from everyone and everything she knew, ending up in an
unfamiliar city with no obvious past and no idea of her future. Now, though,
that past has just arrived on her doorstep, in the shape of an old music
cassette that Amy hasn’t seen since she was at university.
Digging out her
long-neglected Walkman, Amy listens to the lyrics that soundtracked her student
days. As long-buried memories are wrenched from the places in her mind where
she’s kept them safely locked away for over a decade, Amy is suddenly tired of
hiding.
It’s time to confront
everything about her life. Time to find all the friends she left behind in
England, when her heart got broken and the life she was building for herself
was shattered. Time to make sense of all the feelings she’s been bottling up
for all this time. And most of all, it’s time to discover why Jack has sent her
tape back to her now, after all these years…
With her mantra, ‘New
life, New job, New home’, playing on a continuous loop in her head, Amy gears
herself up with yet another bucket-sized cup of coffee, as she goes forth to
lay the ghost of first love to rest...
Jack, the male led
within Another Cup of Coffee is, as
so many of us are, rather hopeless when it comes to expressing how he feels
about other people. So, rather than try and explain himself, and mess it up-
which he often does- he falls back on song lyrics to help him out. This was a
habit Jack first picked up when he was dating Amy, and she told him all about
the blank tape (see blurb!), that her brother had given her to record all her
musical memories when she was a student...Since that time, so many years ago,
Jack has used the lyrics of others to explain himself over and over again...and
not always successfully....
Extract:
The power shower thundered, sending a searing-hot cascade of
water down onto Jack’s head. Squeezing far too much shampoo into his hands, he
began to viciously scrub his short hair. What the hell had he been thinking?
Well, actually, he hadn’t been thinking, had he? He never looked beyond
himself. The moment. The day. He was so stupid. So angry with himself.
Why the fuck had he posted that tape? And
more immediately, where was he? And how soon was he going to able to get away
from whoever it was he’d spent the night with? Jack could feel the familiar
sensation of suffocation closing in on him as he abandoned his hair and began
to furiously soap his torso.
He was a shit.
But then you have to be good at something.
And now Amy was coming here. It hadn’t
crossed his mind that she’d even visit, let alone move her entire life back
south. And not just south, but bloody London.
Being back in touch, and hopefully forgiven, was one thing when she was safely
tucked away in Scotland. But here. Face to face. Jack hadn’t banked on that at
all.
He really didn’t want to see Rob today. It
was his fault this had happened. Rob had come into work one day, back in the
summer, going on about how worried he and Paul were for Amy. How she seemed to
have placed herself completely off the emotional scale. The combination of
bright sunshine, happy reminiscences, and the weight of a conversation he and
Amy had never had, had brought his buried guilt racing to the surface.
Then, a few days later, Paul had visited
Jack and Rob’s bookshop, passing through on one of his rare visits between his
archaeological digs. He’d been sorting out some of his university mementos, and
had come across a load of photographs.
They were all there, at university, more
years ago than was acceptable if Jack was still going to pass himself off as
thirty at the clubs he frequented. Amy, Rob and Paul huddled together in a
muddy ditch, laughing. Rob, Paul and him, pints of Tiger lager in hand, outside
their favourite pub. Paul, Amy and him, all cuddled together on Rob’s battered
and suspiciously stained brown sofa. Amy and him. Amy and him together.
Smiling. Together.
That had been the killer. That was the
photo that had made him think. Her eyes had shone at the camera. If Jack was
honest, so had his. So, in a state of happy but unrealistic nostalgia, he’d
gone home, dragged a box of assorted junk out from under his bed, and pulled
out the tape.
He had weighed the clear plastic box in his
hand. It was time to explain. If Amy was half the girl he used to know then
she’d forgive him. And suddenly, from nowhere, Jack had found that he really,
really needed to be forgiven.
That was why he’d put Unfinished Sympathy on Amy’s tape. He wanted her to understand that
he knew he’d hurt her. That he, himself, had been hurt by having to leave her.
But for reasons he hadn’t totally understood at the time, he’d felt he had no
choice. A fact which had led him to the record the unbearably twee, but wholly
accurate, I Will Always Love You. It
seemed to say how sorry he was. It said everything he’d wanted to say then, but
couldn’t. He was sorry, really he was. But for Amy to turn up here! Bloody hell.
Stepping out of the shower, Jack began to
dry himself with a suitably punishing rough brown towel. Now he was going to
have to tell Rob he’d returned the tape, and
have another go at talking to Kit.
He hadn’t deliberately failed to tell Kit
about Amy. Specific conversations about individual exes had never come up. Jack
was pretty sure that Rob hadn’t mentioned Amy to Kit either. Amy had been part
of their old life, and Kit was part of their current one. Simple.
Jack knew he had to see Kit soon, before
someone else filled her in. He wasn’t sure why he’d walked out on her now he
came to think about it. At least she’d understand. Kit always understood. After
all, they’d remained friends. Great friends. They had moved on smoothly.
‘Talk about my past catching me up,’ he
muttered to his sleep-deprived reflection as he dragged a borrowed razor over
his chin. ‘It’s pretty much tripped me up, into a pile of shit, and it’s
entirely my fault. Bloody sentimental tape. Fuck!’
****
Music has always paid an
important part in my writing life. I have different playlists to listen to
depending on what style of writing I am creating. When I am ‘being’ Kay Jaybee
and creating erotica, I listen to Depeche
Mode (just as Kit, the erotica writer within Another Cup of Coffee does!!). When I was writing Another Cup of Coffee, I listened to
non-stop 80’s and 90’s music- just as I did when I was a student back in the
1990’s. And it is that music that inspires Jack’s lyrical feelings- and
excuses...
If you want to find out how Jack manages to mess up even the
simplest conversations with his overuse of lyrics, and discover how Amy sorts her life out, you can buy Another Cup of
Coffee as an eBook or a paperback from –
or
Thanks again for letting me pop by today
Jenny xx
Bio-
Jenny Kane is the author
of the contemporary romance Another Cup
of Coffee (Accent Press, 2013). This is Jenny’s first novel, but more are
in the pipeline...
Keep your eye on her
blog at www.jennykane.co.uk
You can also follow
Jenny on-
Twitter @JennyKaneAuthor https://twitter.com/JennyKaneAuthor
Jenny also writes as the erotica author Kay Jaybee.
As Kay she has written several novels, novella’s and short
stories, including, The Retreat, (Xcite 2013), The
Voyeur, (Xcite 2012), Making Him Wait
(Sweetmeats, 2012), The Perfect
Submissive (Xcite, 2012), Digging Deep, A Sticky Situation (Xcite 2012), and The Collector (Austin & Macauley, 2012).
Details of all Kay’s work can be found at www.kayjaybee.me.uk
1 comments:
Many thanks for letting me stop by today! Jenny xx
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