Welcome to author Liam Livings joining us today here at Love Bytes 🙂
The Guardian Angel by Liam Livings
Release date 27th November 2015
Buylinks:
What’s the most memorable book you read as a child?
Pretty much anything by Roald Dahl. I loved the young children’s books because he created such a fantastical world for his character. I think my favourite was Matilda because it’s about a girl with her nose always buried in books surrounded by a family who weren’t so much into books. Except for Dad, no one else in my family were into books. I was that child reading quietly in the corner. Boy and Going Solo were probably some of the first children’s books I read as a young adult that were more realistic than purely children’s books. I remember thinking how magical it was to experience another human’s life by reading words on a page.
I have a particular memory of having a compendium of Adrian Mole’s diaries bringing together 3 or 4 individual books, and reading that, almost without doing anything else other than eating and sleeping, during one family holiday in a static caravan site in Dorset. ‘Do you want to play with your brother on his skateboard?’ Mum would ask. Or ‘We’re going for a walk, are you coming with us?’ And I would look up from the book as I curled up in my cosy corner on the sofa of the caravan, and ask, ‘I’m all right here.’ And I was, I was much more than all right, I was in a wonderful world of Pandora and Adrian and the awkwardness of being a teenager, and it was like having my own geeky friend between the pages of the book.
Favourite album?
If we’re talking studio albums, and greatest hits etc compilations are excluded – and to be honest, I think they should be excluded – then it would have to be either Super Trouper by ABBA, Aphrodite by Kylie and I Say I Say I Say by Erasure. I know that’s actually three favourite albums but I couldn’t pick between the three of them, so I’ve picked all three -throws glitter and confetti-.
Richard is into Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, which as far as groups go, they’re not quite as cool as The Beatles, but not as uncool as say Steps or Atomic Kitten. Richard’s friend Amy, because of her spiritual side ,is a big fan of Enya and during moments of stress often retreats to her Enya on all songs shuffle to see her through. I think you can tell a lot about a person by their musical choices.
Of all your characters in The Guardian Angel, who would you most like to push downstairs, who would you like to share a taxi cab with, and who would you like to move next door so you could see them ever day?
I would like to push Bobby gently downstairs (maybe three or four steps) because he’s a bit too full of himself, and could do with being taken down a peg or two. I won’t tell you exactly who Bobby is and why he’s in the story because that would be an enormous spoiler, so you’ll have to read it to see if you agree with me wanting to push him down the stairs. I would love to share a taxi cab with Kylie – one of the guardian angels – because although not a great friend, she would give good banter and certainly be up for a laugh, and who knows where I’d end up in a taxi with her. Yes, there’s more than one guardian angel in the story. Of course, everyone’s got their own, and they get temps in to cover when your main angel goes on a sabbatical, al overseen by The Higher Ones. Creating this magical fantasy world of angels was a lot of fun while writing. And finally, I would like to live next door to Amy, because she would be a wonderful calming influence and support to have in my life.
Blurb:
What happens when a man falls in love with his guardian angel?
Richard Sullivan is plagued by white feathers turning up at the oddest moments. Amy, his best friend, suggests his guardian angel is trying to contact him, but he dismisses the idea out of hand as nonsense.
Until, that is, he meets Sky. Six feet of muscle in a man skirt with white feather wings.
What exactly is a guardian angel? And what happens when your guardian angel takes leave and sends in a temp to cover? Do you wait for a perfect boyfriend on the off chance you may be able to touch him, to be with him, or do you grab happiness with another human? And, why the hell has Richard’s life suddenly become so complicated?
It all started on my way back from the wrong job. I’d just turned it down because I couldn’t stand to listen to that lot going on about sustainability this and putting bees on the roofs of houses that. I just wanted them all to fuck off. I didn’t need their job offer. I had a good feeling the law firm application would get me onto their graduate scheme. I knew it. I could feel it in my water.
The law firm sent me a letter thanking me for the application. And good luck with my other job searching.
Fuck it.
I returned to the office just west of Liverpool Street station to do my last week of temping—my last week temping there, after a long series of temping jobs, some of which had made me want to jump under the train some mornings, others I could just sail through with my brain in neutral. And now this one. Well, this one was fine.
It had been fine. At first I thought it was quite interesting to try to do what New York City had done with its unloved, unknown areas, and name them. Like their SoHo was the area south of Houston Street. TriBeCa was the Triangle Below Canal Street. All this was interesting and news to me when I’d started at the Between Town Partnership. They were trying to make the area between the City of London, Liverpool Street, and the West End, happen. At the moment it was a sort of nowhere between the proper shopping of the West End and the financial district—a sort of no man’s land. No one had reason to go there specifically, unless they worked there, as I had for a variable three months.
I turned on my PC, went to the kitchen to make myself an instant coffee, but not Nescafé because they were doing something nasty about bottle-feeding in Third World countries. I had listened at the time, a bit, but had just internally rolled my eyes. No, this was all free-range, organic, preloved coffee. Shame it still tasted of shit, though.
I sat at my PC and noticed a white feather next to the mouse. I picked it up, looked at it closely, noticing it was pretty perfect as far as feathers went, and then threw it in the bin.
The morning passed without incident: spreadsheets about the CO2 output of various buildings, some brainstorming for this new area, and another offer of an extension to my contract.
“I’ll think about it, thanks,” I said, folding the offer letter into my bag and leaving for lunch.
I sat on a bench in a little park. The grass was covered in office workers, each eating their lunch and grabbing some air and sun for a moment in their day. I pulled out the offer letter from my bag, and another perfect white feather fell into my lap. This one was a bit larger—as big as my index finger—and still perfectly white, still not bent or dirty. I folded it back with the offer letter, then rang Amy at work. She’d know what to do.
“Good morning, The Music and Video Shop, how can I help you?”
“It’s me. How’s your morning?”
She swapped her phone voice for her proper, slightly Welsh accent. “Busy as it goes. I can’t believe people still actually come into a shop to buy this stuff.”
“Just be thankful they’re trying to close down Pirate Cove. And there’s plenty of people who don’t know how to use it anyway, playing it safe, buying DVDs and CDs from you lot.” I paused, thinking about my morning, my situation, and the feathers; she’d want to hear about those. “So, white feathers, what do they mean?”
Liam Livings lives where east London ends and becomes Essex. He shares his house with his boyfriend and cat. He enjoys baking, cooking, classic cars and socialising with friends. He escapes from real life with a guilty pleasure book, cries at a sad, funny and camp film – and he’s been known to watch an awful lot of Gilmore Girls in the name of writing ‘research’.
He has written since he was a teenager, started writing with the hope of publication in 2011. His writing focuses on friendships, British humour, romance with plenty of sparkle.
You can connect with Liam
Twitter @LiamLivings
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/liam.livings
Blog http://www.liamlivings.com/blog
Website www.liamlivings.com
Win a $15 Giftcard from Amazon or ARe, plus 2 further prizes of an ebook from Liam’s catalogue. Competition closes 11th December – midnight GMT.
I certainly hope so!
Honestly,I never thought about it…I believe that angels exist but do I have a personal guardian angel,I don’t know.