Firstly, I would like to thank Author’s Lounge for giving me this opportunity to talk about my newest release.

There’s Always Us follows the life of Tara Holtby; a studious and hard working girl who’s in her last year of university. While at the student union bar she meets her three future friends; Oscar, Sophie and Rafe, and suddenly finds herself swept up in lively house parties and fun outings. But it’s Rafe she’s drawn to the most. Handsome and charming Tara sets out to make him hers. But after graduation these four friends will have to deal with broken bonds, betrayal and heartbreak, among other things. They will have to face the unknown together and it’s not going to be easy for any one of them. Will their friendship survive when the odds are stacked against them?

I was inspired to write this story about friendship surviving the odds by my own days at university. I wanted to explore how four friends would survive adult hood, after discovering for myself how different adult life was to life at university. To do so I had to draw on old memories and though I didn’t attend many house parties when I was on campus, I was just as studious and hard working as my female lead. I also wanted to explore the idea of keeping in contact with the friends we make throughout our educational lives. Despite Tara, Rafe, Oscar and Sophie choosing to live their own lives after graduation they still remain together, and I believe this is an important idea which I hope readers will take away from this book; the idea of how a friendship can last forever and survive the odds.

The plot for There’s Always Us took months of planning, as I had four characters I needed to flesh out and I had to figure out how their lives would all intertwine, which had to be the most difficult part. I chose to do a character chart for each of them and mapped out their individual lives, before I worked out how their story lines would interconnect. I then gave them all backstories so I had an idea of what each of them was like, what they valued the most in the world, their dislikes, favourite food and music etc. This is something I do with all my characters before I sit down to write a story. I have to know the ins and outs of them so I can get an idea of how they will react to certain situations.

The story itself took months of writing, editing and in-depth research, as I had very little knowledge of the sensitive topic which runs throughout the story.

The target audience for this book is mature adults, due to the adult themes and strong language.

I hope readers will be able to relate to Tara, Rafe, Oscar and Sophie and the strong friendship they share in the story. I also hope it reminds them of their own days at university and perhaps they will draw parallels to their own friendships and relationships.

My future plan for There’s Always Us is to see it made into a feature film one day, or at the very least have it traditionally published.

As for a little more about me, I’m a romance author who’s a hopeless romantic at heart. I tend to write thought provoking and emotional love stories which tug at the heart, as I believe not all love stories have to have a happy ending. I have self-published six novels so far, with many more in the works. Aside from this I also have a degree in Journalism and I self-published my very first novel “Who We Are” four years ago.

You can buy “There’s Always Us” here:

My Instagram is: andreaoauthor which is where I post pictures about my everyday life.

My Twitter handle is: AndreaOAuthor which is where I post updates on all my upcoming novels.