Tuesday 28 February 2017

Me, You and Tiramisu by Charlotte Butterfield

Published by HarperImpulse on February 23, 2017

Why I Write Chick Lit
by Charlotte Butterfield


Twitter: @charliejayneb

Apparently ‘domestic noir’ is the genre everyone wants. Tales of family strife, murderous wives, stalker exes, revenge-seeking lovers, drama-filled husbands, that’s what people want to curl up with after a busy hectic day dealing with work, children and day to day life.

Um, I may be in the minority, but I’d rather lose myself in a plot that takes me away from the theatrics of real life and plants me firmly in an uplifting love story where happy endings are on the horizon. I want to smile, and maybe even giggle, and if I’m really lucky, I want to laugh one those snorting laughs where you risk losing bodily fluids. Whether it’s a chocolate shop in a French hamlet, or a fishing village on the Cornish coast, I want to escape to utopia for a while, to feel cosy and warm and happy. This isn’t weather-dependent either – cold winter nights were made for reading chick lit, and fast forward six months to when the sun is shining and a deckchair beckons, well, yes, a new chick lit novel is my perfect companion then too (if my husband’s reading this, obviously you are as well, just don’t talk to me while I’m reading.)

Before I wrote Me, You and Tiramisu I tried my hand at creating something darker. It was going well for a few hundred words, the scene was set, it was raining, the female lead was feeling sad, but then she made a joke and the sun came out, and I realised where my true passion lay. I’ve been a journalist and copywriter for fifteen years, often writing things that I had to sell a bit of my soul for (the blurbs on the back of bathroom bleach bottles was a real career low for me) and so to now wake up in the morning, turn on my computer and write the words that I want to write is such a joy. You can’t fail to feel cheerful and that everything is right with the world when your characters are playing thumb wars in the back of a London cab and making in-jokes. There really is no such thing as a bad day at work when you write romantic comedies for a living!



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