About Me

NatalieOriginally from England – the land of tea and scones – I now live in America with my husband, and our lovely but sharp and pokey cat Penny.

I started this blog in 2009 under a different name. I love to bake and somehow the old blog ended up being more about food than anything else. Since getting married gave me a new name, I decided the blog needed one too!  And a new direction, to include all sorts of different things going on in my life. Thus, Natalie’s Life was born – a place where I can blog about anything and everything.

Computers and PC gaming have always been a big part of my life. But during university and moving country, I kind of fell out of gaming (booo!). Now things have settled down I’m really enjoying discovering new games, and the older ones I’ve missed along the way! My current love is Animal Crossing New Horizons (my first ever Nintendo game!).

I love reading and have as many books as I do shoes – cue excuse to buy more of both. My TBR (to be read) pile is growing rapidly, and a recent reading slump hasn’t helped! I love delving into the worlds of urban fantasy, YA, and some sci-fi, along with general fiction and non-fiction. Basically anything with a good, gripping storyline, or some interesting information.

America has been a learning curve. I’ve been living in the US for a few years now, but it’s still surprising me with lots of things I haven’t experienced before! I’m perpetually stuck in a linguistic mash-up of American and English: saying things like “trash bin”, instead of “trash can” or “rubbish bin”. I also take great enjoyment when my American husband asks his American co-workers to “open the boot”!

Some random facts about me:

  • I’m not a morning person. At all.
  • I’m originally from The Midlands, the central area of England. A place which northerners consider southern, and southerners consider northern.
  • I miss pork pies, and crumpets.
  • My favourite food is garden peas. When I moved to the US my husband met me at the airport with a bag of frozen peas <3
  • Flapjacks (oat bars, for non-UK peoples) are delicious, but they are my baking nemesis!

I’m a writer of urban fantasy. If you like that kind of thing, or want to discover what kind of thing that is, check out my author site nataliewestgate.com where I post short stories, talk about the novel I’m writing, and have some great guest posts from fellow writers and authors. The novel I’m working on is currently at 60k+ words, which is pretty exciting!