{"id":100228,"date":"2019-06-12T18:05:08","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T07:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=100228"},"modified":"2019-06-17T13:27:24","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T02:27:24","slug":"listen-tess-woods-on-love-and-other-battles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2019\/06\/12\/listen-tess-woods-on-love-and-other-battles\/","title":{"rendered":"LISTEN: Tess Woods on Love and Other Battles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Love<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Calling all fans of The Notebook<\/em>: we\u2019ve got a simply gorgeous new book for you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love and Other Battles<\/a><\/em> is the third novel from Perth-based author Tess Woods, and it\u2019s the kind of book that will make you swoon, cry, and laugh (and not necessarily in that order).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a generational saga, telling a story about three women that spans 50 years. There\u2019s the hippy matriarch Jess, her stubbornly independent daughter Jamie, and her granddaughter CJ, a 17 year old with a big heart and a singing voice to match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy struggle when I write is trying to make each character not all sound like me!\u201d says Tess. \u201cTo bring different eras to life, to bring different ages to life, that\u2019s the part I find the hardest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a struggle that certainly pays off; Love and Other Battles<\/em> seamlessly takes the reader from Vietnam War-era Melbourne to the 90\u2019s (complete with all the Princess Di mania), to the present day. Over the course of this novel, each of these women experiences first love and heartache, and the difficulty of having your core beliefs challenged by the ones you love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Love<\/a>
Tess hard at work signing copies of Love and Other Battles<\/em>!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This is a book with a big heart, with three individual stories that entwine so beautifully. Where other authors might meticulously plan out such a multi-layered story, writing each one out individually, Tess writes them all as one glorious jumble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe story kind of reveals itself to me as I\u2019m writing it, and I don\u2019t really have a destination of where it\u2019s going to go,\u201d laughs Tess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tess came in to Booktopia to sign a whole bunch of copies of Love and Other Battles<\/em>, which you can pre-order<\/a> right now. Then, while you wait ever so patiently for release day, you can listen to our podcast with Tess!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booktopia\u2019s fiction expert Ben Hunter and myself sat down with Tess to have a nice long chat about the book – how she wrote it, who inspired it, and just how many chocolates are involved in the writing process (spoiler: lots!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen below!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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