Tiny Acts of Love - Dream Cast & Giveaway

Surviving motherhood? It's all about having the right support network.

Lawyer and new mum Cassie has a husband who converses mainly through jokes, a best friend on the other side of the world, and a taskforce of Babycraft mothers who make her feel she has about as much maternal aptitude as a jellyfish.

Husband Jonathan dismisses Cassie’s maternal anxieties, but is he really paying attention to his struggling wife? He’s started sleep talking and it seems there’s more on his mind than he’s letting on. Then sexy, swaggering ex-boyfriend Malkie saunters into Cassie’s life again.

Unlike Jonathan, he ‘gets’ her. He’d like to get her into bed again, too…

And on top of all her emotional turmoil, she also finds herself advising a funeral director on ghost protocol and becomes involved in an act of hotel spa fraud, never mind hiding cans of wasp spray all over the house to deal with the stalker who seems to be lurking everywhere she looks. Marriage and motherhood isn’t the fairytale Cassie thought it would be. Will her strange new world fall apart around her or will tiny acts of love be enough to get her through?

Funny, perceptive and real, Tiny Acts of Love portrays the rawness of motherhood, the flipside of love and the powerful lure of paths not taken.

Tiny Acts of Love Dream Cast

Today I’ve been given the exciting task of deciding on a dream cast for the principal characters in Tiny Acts of Love! So here goes:

Cassie

Cassie is a young lawyer, and the lead character in the novel. She’s just had her first baby, and she’s trying to find out who she is, now that she’s a mother, and a wife who’s a mother, and has stepped back with her career. She frets a lot and has a tendency to catastrophise. But she also knows how to laugh at herself, which is her saving grace.

I think Amy Adams would be perfect to play Cassie. Here she is:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/amy_adams/      

My two little girls and I have been watching the DVD of Enchanted (purchased in desperation in the supermarket one rainy day at half term!) It’s a modern day princess story set in Manhattan, affectionately poking fun at Disney classics like Cinderella and Snow White. Amy plays the lead and she reminds me of Cassie, as she’s got that wide-eyed, innocent look going on, but with wicked, tongue-in-cheek humour underneath. I also like her because she’s very beautiful, but warm and real-looking, too.

Jonathan

Jonathan is Cassie’s husband, and quite a complicated soul. When Janne from my publishers suggested Benedict Cumberbatch to play him, I wasn’t sure to begin with because he didn’t fit my idea of Jonathan physically. In my mind, Jonathan is sturdier and more heavily set (though he also has dark hair and is tall). I was convinced, however, after carefully studying the photos in this hilarious article which Janne found!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/elliewoodward/times-benedict-cumberbatch-looked-like-an-absolute-god-in

Photo number 3, in particular, is very Jonathan! And in terms of character, it would be a perfect match. Jonathan has a streak of arrogance, and will always think he’s the most intelligent person in the room. But there’s vulnerability underneath that. He doesn’t like to show his emotions (something which infuriates Cassie!) but they’re definitely there, having an effect on his actions and reactions. Benedict would be brilliant at bringing that out. With his understated, dead pan humour, he would also be devastatingly good at delivering some of Jonathan’s comic lines.

Malkie

Malkie is Cassie's long lost first love, who appears out of the blue - working at her law firm - when she returns from maternity leave. He’s a bit of a bad boy come (sort of) good, but with vulnerability underneath all that, too. His charm is that he’s very intuitive  – he ‘gets’ Cassie like no-one else does.

I knew straight away who would play him! Imagine Ewan McGregor's Renton from Trainspotting, ten or fifteen years on, all cleaned up, with a sharp suit and a good job. That would be Malkie. 

This picture, in particular, is very Malkie!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SapClGprE2A

Dita

Dita is Jonathan’s mum. She’s a lovely character, emotionally available and very supportive of both Jonathan and Cassie, as well as being a doting grandmother to baby Sophie. Sometimes she can be a little too open, and always seems to puts her foot in it with the ultra-competitive, right-on Babycraft group.

I would cast Barbra Streisand in this role!

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000659/

I’m thinking, in particular, of Barbra playing Roz, Ben Stiller’s embarrassingly open but endearing mum in Meet the Fockers.

I hope you enjoyed meeting my dream cast for Tiny Acts of Love. It was great fun choosing them!

About the Author:

Lucy Lawrie was born in Edinburgh, and gained an honours degree in English Literature from Durham University before going on to study law. She worked as a lawyer in Edinburgh for several years, specialising in Employment and Pensions law. When Lucy was on maternity leave with her first baby, she unearthed a primary two homework book in which she’d stated, in very wobbly handwriting: ‘I want to be an AUTHOR when I grow up.’ To appease her six-year old self, she began writing her first novel.

Connect with the author at:

Website * Twitter  * Black & White Publishing – Tiny Acts of Love

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