She is engaged to marry her handsome boyfriend, and life seems perfect – until she has a drink with a friend one night to celebrate, drives her new sports car, crashes and ends up in a wheelchair paralysed from the waist down. Jody is a beautiful pageant queen and the spoilt only child of wealthy parents and like many teenagers she is pre-occupied with her popularity, selfies and social media.

I set the novel in the US where beauty is paramount and it’s written in first person – in Jody’s voice – which reveals the comedy and the pain of life as a ‘retard’ as Jody calls herself. Her gutsy spirit and how she turned things around played on my mind for many years, and she was definitely the catalyst for the story. I have worked as a journalist for many years and my protagonist, seventeen-year-old Jody Angel Taylor, was inspired by a true story of a young girl I interviewed for a magazine who crashed her car and ended up a paraplegic. Please tell us more about your leading lady Jody, along with the pain and comedy elements found within the story and how she transforms her life and starts to put the pieces back together again.

Let’s start with your debut novel “Stop The World.” The topic itself is sad (a young lady becomes paralysed after a car accident and loses many important things in her life) and yet your book has been hailed as compelling and uplifting, due to the attitude of your brave protagonist Jody. Hi there Sherry, thank you for being our guest here today treating us to this insight into your enchanting words and the writer behind them. It’s that time of the week again where we all get together and rejoice because the weekend starts here.įor our final author interview of the week, we have a terrific guest to showcase in the form of author Sherry Mayes, so sit back, relax and enjoy the show (you know the drill by now) as we chat to her about her writing motivations, writing advice and her debut novel.

Stop The World by Sherry Mayes