The Story Behind Love's On The Cards

Love's On The Cards is my second Amazon Kindle book released as a download this week. It's a follow-up to my well received poetry collection called More Than A Tremor focusing on the battle with Parkinson's Disease which I was diagnosed with last year. This latest effort is a much more lighter effort, a comedy novel featuring Gemma and Hannah who work in a card shop, Cosy Cards, in a typical modern day run down British town centre.

Having worked in retail myself for a good few years, it has been sad to see so many store closures and empty shops. Competition from the Internet and out of town retail parks have hit hard. There is a lot of pressure on managers and staff these days, as Cosy Cards manger Adam finds when he is haunted by demanding area manager, Sonia White who lives and breathes her job to mind boggling extremes.

Gemma and Hannah are fond of a laugh and a drink in a pub near to work that's so rough it's nicknamed, The Animal House. 23 year old Hannah has a boyfriend called Mike, a totally self obsessed male model who dreams of super stardom. Just turned forty, Gemma, after a life of romantic disappointment meets, Steve, a somewhat mysterious character who seems too good to be true. It's a look at bloated male egos and the pressure to meet, "the right person."

I was also thinking about how the shop worker is undervalued in a job that can present difficult and indeed, dangerous situations. The two ladies that star in the book are typical of the army of females that are paid miniscule wages for maximum effort and never get lauded. It also features veteran cleaner Gladys who is in a similar situation, overan by dust and under appreciated by all. The trio represent the real "girl power" hijacked by pop stars. The everyday grafters at the heartbeat of retail but seldom mentioned.

So in a series of chapters named after the cards the girls sell, we follow their quest to find out if happiness in relationships really exists. The result is often rude, chaotic and hopefully funny. Because you can't take life too seriously, because you have to laugh and love those who deserve it. Love's On The Cards is available to download now on Amazon.