Welcome to Sugarbeat’s Books – The Home of the Romance Novel!
Today we are visiting with Lucy Morgan, author of Beautiful Mess. Lucy has agreed to answer a few questions for us so that we can learn more about her and her book! Sit back and enjoy!
Barb – Tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing
Lucy – I’m a British writer who relishes the contemporary genre. Whether it’s humour, 
romance, literary, a dash of scifi or paranormal–I’ve written it all. I get subgenre wanderlust. I’m known for character-driven stories with lots of smart dialogue, and although Beautiful Mess, my new novella, is a lighter story, I go to a lot of dark places in my work.
Barb – Who are your cheerleaders? Who continues to encourage you to write?
Lucy – I have two critique partners–Christa, who writes edgy YA, and Kenny, who writes erotic and contemporary stuff. They’re both great inspiration and motivation, given their outputs (rather superior to mine, sob) and the way they handle their characters.
Barb – When you made your first sale, how did you celebrate and with whom?
Lucy – The contract (for my first full novel, Chairman of the Whored) arrived in my inbox unexpectedly, and I just stared at it for a while, mouth open like a fish. Then I ran downstairs to tell my husband (who runs the pub we live above). When it was all signed and sealed, I called everyone. I didn’t do anything other than that to celebrate, I think…I felt like I’d jinx it!
Barb – What’s the hardest part of writing a book?
Lucy – Finishing the damn thing! When it comes to novels, I’m not a fast writer. For some reason, I can finish a novella in a few days, but a novel takes a good six months, if not more. I’m a plotter, and I usually know how things will go down quite quickly, but the characters and their many facets need to marinate in my brain.
Barb – What’s your favorite part of writing a book?
Lucy – Intense, confessional scenes. When I get to those daring, brutally intimate parts where a character reveals something special about themselves–when they grow a new dimension–it’s a bit of a drug. I live for those scenes.
Barb – Which scenes were the hardest to write?
Lucy – I don’t generally find scenes hard to write. The act of actually switching off the internet and ceasing all procrastination, though, is the most difficult bit for me! I’m like a magpie. “Ooh, shiny! Wha…I was writing a book?”
Barb – How long did it taken you to write your current book ?
Lucy – Beautiful Mess, bar one scene at the end which I added later on, was written in a day. It was for a contest (which it went on to win, fortunately). I love deadlines in a masochistic kind of way. Nom nom, lovely stress and pressure!
Barb – Who is your favorite character in your new release?
Lucy – Olly. He’s a lewd, crude twenty-something British lad and isn’t afraid to call a spade a fucking spade, but he’s also cute and fiercely loyal where his friends are concerned. Bailey, the heroine, describes him as “full of righteous metrosexual anger.”
Barb – Do you see yourself in any of your characters?
Lucy – In this particular story–not really, although I totally related to Bailey’s break-up pain. I think most of us have been in that lonely place, wondering why the person you love doesn’t want you any more and worrying that you’ll never feel normal again.
Barb – What were the challenges in bringing this book to life?
Lucy – Writing it for the deadline. And later on, formatting, although I ended up getting a lot of help with that (ie people did it for me. Self-publishing is a lot easier when you have talented friends).
Barb – Do you have an all time favorite book?
Lucy – I couldn’t pick just one. I read all sorts, from Mary Shelley to Michael Crichton to Alan Hollinghurst to Jacqueline Carey.
Barb – Where can your fans find you ?
Lucy – My website–which includes the first chapter of Beautiful Mess, as well as some deleted scenes–is at www.lucyvmorgan.com. I’m on Twitter as @LucyVMorgan, where I talk a lot about food, sex, and how much I hate my trainer…
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12922018-beautiful-mess
Read the first chapter of Beautiful Mess: http://www.lucyvmorgan.com/2011/11/beautiful-mess-chapter-one.html
First review: http://www.sizzlinghotbooks.net/2011/11/beautiful-mess-by-lucy-morgan-giveaway.html
Barb – Where is your work available?
Lucy – You can find Beautiful Mess for free at All Romance Ebooks, Smashwords and Goodreads, and it’s also up on Amazon if you’d like it sent straight to your Kindle.
Barb – Anything else you’d like to add?
Lucy – Thanks for having me!
Beautiful Mess by Lucy Morgan
Release date: Friday 25th November 2011
Publisher: Self-published
Edited by Christa Desir
Cover Art by Kenny Wright
Length: Novella, 15,000 words
Genre: contemporary erotic romance, humour
Blurb
Warning: contains pet rats, hot YouTube celebrity roommates, and one spurned girlfriend about to get even…
Working in a wedding cake shop sucks when you’ve just been dumped.
Bailey Frost has a recipe for disaster: one cheating ex, one big glass of liquor, and three well-meaning male friends who think her lack of a sex life is funny. Before she knows it, she’s confessed that she’s never had an orgasm with a man.
Now Bailey has to navigate sappy couples at work, while her friends are hell-bent on helping her get revenge on evil Craig…by dressing up as werewolves, on YouTube.
And one of those friends– the tall, shy-but-gorgeous Linc–might just want to help Bailey with that other little problem…
Author Bio
Lucy V. Morgan is a genre-hopping British writer and the author of the Whored series for Lyrical Press. She believes that fools are made to be broken, rules are made to be bent, and faulty characters are the most interesting. If it’s hiding in the shadows, she probably thinks it’s hot.
Originally, Lucy thought that talking about herself in the third person would sound pretentious, but finds she is DRUNK ON THE POWER.
She will now be going for a lie down.
I’d like to thank Lucy for dropping by and sharing with us. I have a copy of this book and I’m certainly looking forward to reading it! Stay tuned for a review in the new year…..or wish for a really bad snowstorm so that I can be housebound and catch up on my reading……ok, maybe not! In the meantime, head over to Lucy’s site and read the excerpt that she has posted there!
