Today I’m pleased to welcome Karen Hamilton to the blog. Karen’s debut novel, The Perfect Girlfriend was published by Wildfire on 22 March 2018.

Karen has written a post about the best bits of being part of a flight crew.

Top Five Things about being Crew

One: It really is one of the best jobs in the world. To me, the job of being paid to travel, meet new people and explore places I’d only ever read about was a dream come true! I remember the first time I ever went to a hot country and realised that our hotel had a pool with stepping stones to this wonderful bar! I remember a colleague and I walking over to the middle, stopping halfway and laughing because we couldn’t believe that this was our job! Sometimes, we’d have up to three days in certain countries to explore, go on safari, sightsee or just chill.

Two: Onboard, we were not confined to our seat area, it was nice to have the space to have access to the whole aircraft after the service. If there was food leftover in other cabins, it was possible to eat that instead of crew food. On some flights, there were bunk areas or areas with seats where you could take your break. Also, it was possible for operating crew to sit in the flight deck for landing or take-off which was an amazing experience every time. On the last flight I ever operated I flew back from Cape Town and after taking off in the dark, watching the lights of the city fade, I had a birds-eye view as we flew over London before landing into Heathrow.

Three: As crew you can get the best bargains from around the world. You get to know the best cities, markets and shops to buy certain items which is very handy around Christmas time! This extended to other things as well, best bars, restaurants, gyms, hairdressers, nail places, dentists, everything!

Four: Staff travel. Crew can use their discounted flights to travel further and this extends to family and friends too. My husband used to come on trips with me. This is also a useful perk because crew tend to miss out on so much at home, so it was another way to spend time with loved ones. For me, with friends and family around the world, it was also another way to visit them as we could occasionally request certain destinations.

Five: I loved the sense of freedom that came with shift work. I didn’t mind sleeping in the day or working all night. Before I had children, I was happy to work Christmas, New Year and through all the holidays as I loved celebrating in different ways in various countries. I loved getting my new roster, it was always so exciting to find out where I would be going for the following month. Crew quite often meet each other for the first time in the pre-flight briefing room, so we were always meeting new people and having new experiences. It’s these type of details that I have re-created in the book.

About the book

Juliette loves Nate.
She will follow him anywhere. She’s even become a flight
attendant for his airline, so she can keep a closer eye on him.

They are meant to be.
The fact that Nate broke up with her six months ago means nothing.
Because Juliette has a plan to win him back.

She is the perfect girlfriend.
And she’ll make sure no one stops her from
getting exactly what she wants.

True love hurts, but Juliette knows it’s worth all the pain…

About the author

Karen Hamilton spent her childhood in Angola, Zimbabwe, Belgium and Italy and worked as a flight attendant for many years. Karen is a recent graduate of the Faber Academy and, having now put down roots in Hampshire to raise her young family with her husband, she satisfies her wanderlust by exploring the world through her writing. THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND is her first novel.