Please welcome author Victoria Connelly, who’s here to talk about the inspiration behind her new romantic comedy collection, It’s Magic.

I never meant to write novels featuring magic. My first attempt at a novel was a historical (which I now call my hysterical novel). I then wrote several rather ordinary romantic comedies which were universally rejected by agents and publishers all over the world. And then I got married and my husband was sent to a war zone just six weeks after our wedding…

I panicked and truly believed I was going to become a widow and, in the split second that the thought crossed my mind, the writer in me kicked in and I thought, wouldn’t that be a great idea for a book? So, once my husband was safely home, I started writing a book about a young widow who has her own group of tiny guardian angels to take care of her. It was called Flights of Angels (a collective noun stolen from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Well, if you’re going to steal, steal from the best, I say!) It was to become the first novel I would have published but there was one drawback – only Germany ever published it and, despite it even being made into a film, the UK have never published it.

Two more magical romantic comedies followed in Germany. Unmasking Elena Montella about a woman who is given a magical Venetian mask which helps her choose which of her three (yes – three!) fiancés is the right one for her. And Three Graces about a young woman who marries a duke and goes to live in his ancestral home only to find it’s haunted by a rather opinionated eighteenth-century ghost.

But still no UK or US publisher so, whilst writing non-magical romantic comedies like A Weekend with Mr Darcy and The Runaway Actress, I’ve decided to make my magical trilogy available on Kindle where you can buy them individually or as a trilogy called It’s Magic.

I really loved writing these three novels. There’s something rather special about a book with a touch of magic and fantasy – it allows the writer freedom to explore all sorts of wonderful things like what would you do if you could become invisible and spy on your boyfriend? I think we all need a little bit of magic in our lives and I hope readers enjoy It’s Magic as much as I loved writing it.

About the author

Victoria Connelly was brought up in Norfolk and studied English literature at Worcester University before becoming a teacher in North Yorkshire. After getting married in a medieval castle in the Yorkshire Dales, she moved to London where she lives with her artist husband and a mad springer spaniel.Her first novel in the UK, Molly’s Millions, is a romantic comedy about a lottery winner who gives it all away.

Victoria is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and has a short story called Mummies and Daddies – set in the mummy rooms of the British Museum – in their 50th anniversary anthology, Loves Me, Loves Me Not.