Blog Tour for An Artisan Lovestyle by Kiltie Jackson ~with Guest Post and Giveaway

Are you ‘living’ your life or just living your life?
Elsa Clairmont was widowed barely five years after marrying her childhood sweetheart. She has struggled to come to terms with the loss and, six years later, has almost ceased to live herself. She does just enough to get by.

Danny Delaney is the ultimate ‘Mr Nice Guy’. He’s kind, caring and sweet. A talented artist in his teens, his abusive mother ruined his career in art and he turned his back on his exceptional gift. Now, he does just enough to get by.

On New Year’s Eve, both Danny and Elsa die in unrelated accidents.

Thanks to some poker playing shenanigans, Elsa’s husband Harry, and Danny’s old Art teacher, William, manage to orchestrate a deal with Death that allows Danny and Elsa to live for one more year on the condition they both agree
to complete three tasks.

They have until the last chime of Big Ben on the 31st December to fulfil their quests.

If they succeed, they stay in the world of the living.

If they should fail however…

‘An Artisan Lovestyle’ is a story of personal growth and self-discovery as two people find themselves forced to make overdue changes in their lives, changes in other people’s lives, and all with the added challenge of
finding true love before their time runs out.

Will they do it?

Can they do it?
After all, it’s a matter of Life or Death…

Purchase Link 

Amazon UK

 

I’m so happy to play host to Kiltie today.  She’s shares with us some of her ideas on what the Afterlife would look like…

by Kiltie Jackson

The Afterlife According to Kiltie Jackson

The afterlife is something, I confess, I have never given much thought to. It’s hard enough getting through this life on a day-to-day basis never mind dwelling on what comes next.

My mum is a Christian and has great belief in the Heaven and Hell side of things but that doesn’t really work for me. I very much doubt it will be that straightforward – after all, the afterlife is going to be full of human beings and we neverdo things the easy way!

In my wildest dreams, and if I do actually have a say in the matter, I suppose I would want my own immediate afterlife to consist of a lovely little house full of cats and dogs, with a library full of books and delicious calorie-free food. If the food cannot be calorie-free, then reading books would burn up a thousand calories per page!

We would have control over our own weather, so if we needed a nice sunny day to dry the washing – which would naturally wash and hang itself out on the line – then we could just set a special barometer to ‘Sunny’ and that is what we would have. On Christmas Day, we could set it to ‘Snow’ and have some of those fabled white Christmases which we’ve oft heard about but so rarely experienced. Of course, there would need to be a ‘Neutral’ option for those occasions where we are meeting with friends and no-one can decide what ‘weather’ they want! After all, sunshine ALL the time would become rather boring. There is a saying which goes something like ‘If it wasn’t for the rain, we couldn’t appreciate the rainbows’ – I think this would also be true in the afterlife.

Weather and food aside, there is one thing which I consider to be of the upmost importance in my ideal afterlife. It would be a place where cruelty has ceased to exist. My first thoughts, as I began writing this, went towards cruelty to animals. There would be no hunting – trophy or otherwise – and people would show great kindness to the other species which would share our space. After all, why should the afterlife only be for humans? However, cruelty towards anyone, and anything, is unnecessary and pointless so it would be lovely to be in a place where kindness was the order of the day – every day! There would have to be some allowance for a degree of banter between friends because, just like the weather, kindness overload would be very nauseating. I have a sharp and dry sense of humour and banter is my mainstay. If I could not indulge in calling my best friend ‘a scaly old dragon’ every now and then, I confess I would consider myself to be in some kind of hell.

There is a Ying to this Yang in that I would want retribution for the evil creatures who have walked on our planet. Those who have killed, or purposely maimed, for their own gratification, will find themselves forever stuck in their own Room 101. If they were hunters, they become the hunted. If they murdered, theywill be murdered every day and, if they created really awful music, they would be forced to listen to The Birdie Song until their ears shrivelled up to the size of raisins!

Somewhere in all of this, there is of course, the subject of reincarnation. Maybe there isn’t an afterlife after all. Maybe we are souls who keep being sent back until we eventually do something right. I confess that I’ve often found myself feeling that I’ve been here before. I seem to ‘know’ things without actually knowing how I know them. When we rely on our instinct, is it ‘really’ instinct or is it a deeply hidden part of our previous beings imparting their experiences to us?

In my book ‘An Artisan Lovestyle’ Elsa has to describe what her idea of ‘Heaven’ would be. She is all designer clothes, labelled shoes and posh handbags. As you can see, I have mentioned nothing of these things because they’re not – in the grand scheme of things – that important to me. I think the quality of a person’s heart and soul carries far more importance than a fancy hat or red Louboutin soles.

Reading this piece back, it appears to have become quite serious which was not my intention but maybe the afterlife is something we need to give serious thought to for we have no idea what awaits us when we step off this mortal coil. Perhaps the Buddhists have it sussed – what you sow in this world, you will reap in the next. I think I might be quite suited to this train of thought because, in this world, cakes are laden with calories and reading books doesn’t burn them off. This has resulted my body shape being akin to that of the great man himself so you could say I’m already halfway there!

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Giveaway

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Author Bio

Kiltie grew up in Glasgow in Scotland.  This is a very unique city with a very unique way of looking at life.  When she was old enough to do so, she moved to London and then,
after several years of obtaining interesting experiences -which are finding their way into her writing – she moved up to the Midlands.  Kiltie currently lives in Staffordshire with five cats and one grumpy husband.  Her little home is known as Moggy Towers, even though despite having plenty of moggies, there are no towers!  The cats kindly allow her and Mr Mogs to share their house on the condition they keep paying the mortgage!

She loves reading, watching movies, and visiting old castles. She really dislikes going to the gym! Her biggest desire is that one day she can give up the day job and write her stories for a living.

Kiltie’s debut novel, ‘A Rock ‘n’ Roll Lovestyle’, was released in September 2017 and won a “Chill With A Book – Reader Award” in December 2017.

She first began writing her debut novel eleven years before it was released but shelved
it as she didn’t think it was very good.  In November 2016 when, having read more on a best-selling author who had begun her own career as a self-published author, she was inspired to revisit the unfinished manuscript and finally finish what she had started.

Since beginning to write again, the ideas have not stopped flowing.  ‘An Artisan Lovestyle’ is the second book in the Lovestyle Series.  Work is due to begin on book three (not yet titled but also part of the Lovestyle Series) in the Summer of 2018.  She currently has a further ten plots and ideas stored in her file (it’s costing a fortune in USB drives as each story has its own memory stick!) and the ideas still keep on coming.

Kiltie now lives her life around the following three quotes:
“I love having weird dreams, they’re great fodder for book plots!”
“Why wait for your ship to come in when you can swim out to meet it?”
“Old enough to know better, young enough not to care!”

Website www.kiltiejackson.com

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/kiltiejackson

Twitter – https://twitter.com/KiltieJackson

 

You can follow the blog tour for An Artisan Lovestyle by checking out these blogs: