I’m extremely pleased to introduce fellow local author to me, Ross Greenwood. Ross is the author of his recently released debut novel Lazy Blood.

Are your friends to die for?

Did you make friends at school?
Are they still your friends now?
Do you trust them?
Will is on his way to prison. His life is a mess, but who is to blame?

Here, Ross talks about what inspired him to write and he also gives us a brief idea of what to expect from his second upcoming novel The Boy Inside.

‘Lazy Blood.’

By Ross Greenwood

I never wanted to go to prison. It was certainly not one of my choices at school when asked. Doctor, postman maybe, radiographer (obviously later on), never prison. I had passed my A-levels but was so unfocused I just decided to get a job. As the years went by I seem to find myself working in a variety of call centres. First, as a phone jockey and then as a manager. Good money, as I was good at it, but hardly inspiring stuff. I found myself never staying in one job for long. Even now, at 42, the last job at 4 years’ service is over twice as long as anything I had achieved before.

I found myself travelling to get my thrills. The usual holidays when I was young, 18-30 etc., European capitals, then later 3 months in Asia and a year in Australia. More obscure capitals followed, living in Spain and then a month in Indonesia and 3 months in South America, before unexpectedly (how did that happen) children arrived. It was at that point, as I was trying buy-to-let and being a landlord, that the need to write a book was becoming very difficult to put aside. I had met such a range of people and had participated in so many amusing, mad events that I hoped I had a book people would be interested in.

I began what eventually became Lazy Blood. Life gets in the way and soon the need to get a job outweighed the urge to finish the book. I was stuck anyway. I had managed to mould many different attributes of hundreds of different people into four likeable and flawed characters, but I was struggling for a start and a beginning; the bite that would make the book interesting and exciting.

I wanted a career change though. No more insurance companies and depressing Mondays, I wanted something exciting. I was going to get it. I actually wanted to join the Police but, as you can imagine, my CV wasn’t going to stand any kind of investigation. The prison service wasn’t so fussy. As government cuts bite it is even less so now, the staff are leaving in droves.

After the training, how I got through those first few weeks I will never know. Only a commitment to myself to finish what I started got me through that period. HMP Peterborough is a B-category local jail. The hardest type to work in. We were constantly understaffed, sometimes running 80 man wings on your own for hours at a time. It is a revolving door for some, the drug addicts and shoplifters, but it takes all the prisoners from Cambridge, Huntingdon and Peterborough Crown and Magistrates Courts.

So there were murderers, rapists and psychopaths merged in with dangerous drivers, embezzlers and drug dealers. All of them meshed together in a crazy world of violence, depression, suicide, anxiety, drug abuse, self-harm and disorganisation that they weren’t allowed to escape from.

Obviously after a little while, I had more ideas and stories than I could ever imagine. I was desperate to get back to writing my book. All the time the book was percolating and composting in my head. I think that was one of my coping mechanisms. When they wanted volunteers to put riot gear on and break up a barricade, I would be there, sometimes just for the experience. When you work in that environment, you certainly know you are alive. Then another child came along and the book went back on the shelf.

By that time I had got to grips with the job. I found consistency, professionalism and politeness with a certain amount of apathy was generally the best way to get the job done. Aggression and arguing generally led to assaults and rage. The prisoners get to know you too. They know which officers will help them and they are also fully aware what a tough job it is.

Another year went by and I took child-friendly hours and started to work in Resettlement. The idea behind it was that you assisted them when they arrived in prison. For example, ringing the bank for them, finishing tenancies and then when it was time to leave you set about making sure people had somewhere to go. Unfortunately, that wasn’t always achievable.

This job still had its difficulties as some people were almost impossible to help. There are many charities out there and Peterborough Council do a brilliant job in housing people, but If you have been made to sign the sex offenders register or, worse, are an arsonist, then it is very hard to find somewhere for you to live as there is a duty of care to existing residents.

I got to chat to a lot of people and got much more material! I still wanted to finish my book and my boy gave me the opportunity. He was waking for his four a.m. feed and with a sense of determination that this was my time, I completed it in the early morning hours. Lazy Blood is available on Amazon and has been well received. Just £1.99 until the 1^{st of} May.

Prison is a crazy place, not for the faint-hearted. It is an unnatural environment but not what people expect. Prison for most is Bad Girls, Shawshank, Prison Break and Porridge. A British jail is none of these things. Most people there are not ‘bad’ people. Sure there are career criminals and obviously, these figure strongly in the book too. That’s why we love crime books, but many have just done something stupid. Perhaps used their phone whilst driving and killed someone. Silly things with terrible consequences. Got involved with drugs and had to steal to service their habit. Maybe borrowed a few quid from work and things have got out of hand, or had a few beers and got in a fight. These things could happen to most of us. This is their story too. The list is endless and so are the ideas for characters.

I finally left the job after nearly four years to get my first book published and take a year out to do some more writing. I will look back fondly on my time there though. By far and away it was the worst job I ever had, but it was also the best job. I worked with some amazing people as well. The money wasn’t great, but the commitment had to be. I’m nearly six foot tall, mature (ish) and fourteen stone so I walked on those wings armed with physical presence and life experience. You had to bow your head to small school leavers on their first day in the job, whose nervous hands fumbled with confusing keys, as they entered the abyss.

What I wanted to focus on for my second book, ‘The Boy Inside,’ was one of the more depressing and sad parts of prison society. The young. Before you judge these boys in hoodies you should really have walked a mile in their shoes. I know that is a little cliché but many of them never stood a chance. Parents who were drug dealers for example, or no parents at all.

Once you are in the police and prison system, especially as a juvenile, it is hard to get out. The people in it often do not have the skills, knowledge or finances to climb out of the hole they are in. They become careless, chaotic and have no expectation of any kind of future. They are a burden to society and there seems to be little appetite to deal with these issues. There are many who work tirelessly with young people and try to get them back on track, often without being paid, but it is hard work and often unsuccessful.

Ironically to paraphrase The Shawshank Redemption, a life without hope is a terrible thing. Many of these issues are brought up in ‘Lazy Blood’ and the ‘The Boy Inside,’ but they are also books about persistence, determination and luck. In some ways they are also modern love stories. I hope to change your perception of those who end up in prison, but after reading these novels there is one thing I can be sure of. You will never want to go there yourself.

Lazy Blood is out at Amazon now, read the reviews and you decide.

www.rossgreenwoodauthor.com

After you have finished the book you can visit the website and see if you can match the locations in the story to those on the site. Some of the names have been changed for obvious reasons. All the best, Ross.

Thank you for such an interesting post, Ross. If you want to connect with Ross on social media you can find him on Facebook and on Twitter.

 

I’m extremely pleased to introduce fellow Urbane published author Pete Adams as my guest author today. Pete is the author of A Barrow Boy’s Cadenza (released by Urbane Publications in June 2015), the third novel in the Kind Hearts and Martinets trilogy with the fourth in the series, Ghost and Ragman Roll, due for release on the 1st November 2016. Although a crime thriller, A Barrow Boy’s Cadenza is also infused with Pete’s wicked sense of humour as you can see from the following hilarious book description;

DCI Jack Austin – Jane to his friends and the not so friendly – knew he shouldn’t have come in to work. Following a terrorist bomb, an incident with a tutu and a hangover that would fell an elephant, investigating dead dogs, dodging bullets and being pulled sopping wet from a naval harbour is not conducive to a sunny disposition. But when the Head of Armed Forces and a City Banker are brutally murdered what is a dashing DCI to do? FORCE, a powerful Star Chamber, is under threat and Jack will need to go deep undercover to get to the bottom of the sinister plot. As revelations and rocket attacks threaten to turn his world upside down (and ruin his best pair of trousers), Jack will need courage, skill and a huge dose of lady luck if he is to bring the perpetrators of a nefarious plot that goes all the way to the Prime Minister’s office to justice. As the trail leads to a showdown at the Albert Hall, Jack Austin, quintessential jumped up barrow boy and Portsmouth’s very own self-styled national icon, must fight to save his reputation, the country, and the lives of those who matter most. And work out just what a dead dog has to do with it allIt is a fine line between genius and madness, or so they say, and so, with just a little trepidation, I asked Pete Adams, author of the Kind Hearts and Martinets trilogy in eight books, and the self illustrated nonsense books Whopping Tales, are you mad, and do you have to be at least a little mad to be a writer?

Now, read my interview with Pete, with a straight face if possible, and learn how, amongst many other weird and wonderful things, he became a writer. Oh, and don’t forget to take a quick look at his wonderful self-portrait at the end!

So Pete, are you Mad? 

My mum used to say to me as a kid, and then, using the word loosely, as a grownup, “You’re mad, M U D, mad”. I think she meant it kindly, but I have always taken on challenges that I am generally perceived as incapable of doing, but I did, have, and still do, and likely always will. But success in all that I have tried, well that would be another matter, and it is the varying degrees of achievement, or not, that drives me MUD.

So frustration at lack of achievement, or people’s faith in your ability to succeed, is it this that drives you? And does this make you mad? 

I became an architect after I was advised to stick with being a draughtsman; I qualified with distinction. I set up my practice within six months of getting my professional papers, against all advice, because I couldn’t handle being told what to do. That was in 1977 and my practice still goes, not always thriving, as I am want to tell the clients where they may be going wrong, nicely, if a tad forcefully sometimes, but, we are good designers and I am proud of our ability, my ability. So, a successful practice, you will need to define success; I can hold my head up, though we are sometimes called MUD.

So that is success surely, or is it arrogance that troubles you? 

No, never ref.

It’s about self belief then?

Maybe, or it just could be that success is not as important to me as the doing, and that drives the people around me MUD.

So it is audacity? 

Who knows; I have done, and failed in various degrees, many other things from a total and complete failure at DIY for instance, my partner, she says “Destroy it Yourself”, and anything else practical with only partial success; I garden using the scorched earth policy, never could stand pottering.

Nerve then, like a sportsman when he goes onto the field? 

Hmmm, sport, I was okay at cricket except the ball kept hitting the wicket, shite at rugby, but loved it and stayed on the team because I was a laugh on the pitch; I have the rare distinction in my club as being the only player told by the ref, “One more joke and you’re off.” The team and I were proud of that, but it drove the ref MUD.

Brass, would that be it? 

Yeah, maybe, I was good at the after rugby stuff, and became MC Mariner, a post that was retired when I retired from the club; I MC’d the Annual Mariner Charity dinners for more than seventy five years, it was actually twenty, maybe a few more, but I was so bad at rugby, and my head, being particularly oval shaped, was often mistaken for the ball, so the memory…and anyway, dinners would be an exaggeration as we cooked them ourselves, a national theme every year and David Duckham, celebrated England winger, still talks to this day of his invitation to the Russian dinner, referring especially to the beetroot soup, beetroot starter, beetroot main course and beetroot ice cream, for a hundred guests or more – still they kept coming back, on the condition I stuck to MC’ing and not cooking.

Sigh – Impudence, temerity? 

Who you calling Temerity, that’s a girl’s name. Yes, my daughter says that at my funeral she will say in her eulogy, “He tried everything, and with such enthusiasm, he became a leg end, but it drove everybody else MUD”.

Audaciousness?

Hmmm, maybe, and oh how they laughed when I said I’m gonna write.

So, imperiousness? 

Oi, I’m a socialist and proud of the fact.

Sorry, 

         S’alright sweet’art, just pulling yer leg.

So, I started one evening, after settling myself under the stairs, set the washing machine and tumble drier going, and began; it was a summer and so the boiler remained still.

Brazenness?

(Are you getting fed up Eva?)

Shusssh, answer the questions please, you’re starting to drive me MUD

(Ooh err missus) 

I have often argued I could have been a sturgeon, even if I did have Bowyer fingers and not fish fingers, but I resisted that branch of a challenge as I never could stand the sight of blood, or Tartar sauce for that matter. However, I managed the handwriting, though the College of Sturgeons (collective noun for caviar producers) say I am not known for my delicate touch, and my clumsy one finger typing commenced that balmy summer’s evening, barmy being the operative word, and the novels rattled out with a keyboard replaced every six months; “For Gawds sake type softly”, calls from around the house; seems my typing drove everyone MUD.

Gutsiness, spunk? 

I’ll have none of that language please and yes, I do like Guinness, there’s eatin’ and drinkin’ in it.

So, my huge family conspired, “He’s writing books now…”

“What?”

“Feckin’ books” (My missus is Irish)

“Dad, didn’t you fail English?”

“What’s that got to do with the price of fish?” I replied quoting Abraham Lincoln. I failed GCE English ‘O’ level, twice; well, it was hard; they’ve dumbed it down a bit since then.

But you got a degree and a post graduate Distinction in Diploma for Architecture, what was that, brashness, gall, backbone, brass neck or cockiness? 

It was schtummness?

That’s not a word.

Could be, I’ve applied to my mate Colin who is thinking of starting a dictionary.

I kept schtumm and got all the way through School of Architecture, degree and post grad, and had the interview for my post grad distinction when they picked up the fact that I did not have the necessary qualifications to get onto the course. Well, they never asked, just presumed, and who am I to presume to tell them, and this drove them MUD.

So audacity? 

Maybe, but immediately after I submitted my first, first year design report, the tutor called me in and seemed surprised that I was not a Johnny Foreigner, which drove me MUD. I was so MUD, I made it my business to learn English, and steadily my reports improved and by the time I was in my post graduate years (Janet and John standard), I was getting plaudits for my writing; “Look Janet, see Peter writing, isn’t he dead good an that”, and it helped in their decision to award the Distinction; anyway what could they do?

I told them life was like a bowl of cherries and I think that was the clincher.

So hubris? 

Yes my books are thought to be humorous, although I prefer to think of them as serious but make you laugh. I’ve written eight novels and three illustrated nonsense books since settling into my sous-escalier utility room to write, (for those of you who need illuminating, escalier is like a small onion-shaped like a staircase, and Sous is the girl next door, a right sweet’art)

Phew – Tenacious, would that describe you? You have an adventurous spirit, you have guts? 

Yes, I would say I have an intestinal fortitude that can defy the meanest Jalfrezi, and in the world of books and an immense Mickey taking family, you need pertinacity and a dogged determination.

Oh I see and that involved hiding away under the stairs in the utility room, sorry writer’s den / study, because you lacked a certain loftiness, bluster, braggadocio when writing, did it? 

Listen mate, I’m actually tall and I love all things Italian, I even have a picture of the Eyeful Tower in the utility room, writing den (it has the top bit bent over as it wouldn’t fit because of the stairs), and if you must know I am probably the most modest person you are ever likely to meet and would probably win the Booker Prize for Modesty, if there was one.

Alright, I give up, what is it that best describes you and your approach to writing, and life really? 

Chutzpah. 

Chutzpah?

Yes Chutzpah, I think he was the brother of Ghunga Din? That’s me; except I don’t play the bugle, but I do blow my own trumpet.

 

**************

Pete chose the subject of madness himself as he is currently writing his ninth novel, Larkin’s barkin’, sub titled, ‘Where’s me chutzpah?’ And he tells me that his writing career really took off after kissing the Barmy Stone.

Thankyou Pete, most illuminating, and please take that smirk off your face, it is driving me MUD.

 

Take a look at the following links if you want to find out more about Pete and his books.

Facebook – Book Page – reviews, interviews, I review other books, and for those who would ordinarily sit at the back of the class tittering, some funnies:

Facebook here

Book One – Cause and Effect – self-published here
Book Two – Irony in the Soul – self-published here
Book 3 – A Barrow Boy’s Cadenza – Urbane Publications here
All of the 8 books in the Kind Hearts and Martinets trilogy are written:
Book 4 – Ghost and Ragman Roll – will be published by Urbane out on the 1^st Nov 2016
Book 5 – Merde and Mandarins
Book 6 – The Duchess of Friesian Tun
Book 7 – Rhubarb in the mammon
Book 8 – Umble Pie

It is my great pleasure to introduce Martin (M.J.) Lee as my guest author today. Martin is the author of the Inspector Danilov novels and the recently published City Of Shadows is the second book in the series. Martin is also the author of the recently released Samuel Pepys and the Stolen Diary.  Martin has spent most of his adult life writing in one form or another and here he talks about how his love of history and travel merged one evening during a stroll in Shanghai, sparking the idea for the Inspector Danilov novels.

City Of Shadows is described as,

A family has been found murdered in the heart of 1920s Shanghai. But what could have compelled them to open the door to their killer?

Thanks, Eva for this opportunity to talk about myself and the Danilov novels. It’s something I love doing almost as much as I love writing the books.

You see, I had two passions growing up. I fell in love with history when I was very young. I have a vague memory of sitting up in bed one summer’s evening, I must have been five or six years old, reading a book my mother had given me with pictures of the Kings and Queens of England in it. We weren’t a big book reading family and besides, we were Irish, so why we would have this particular book? I haven’t the foggiest. But I do know with absolute clarity that was the moment I fell in love with history.

The other passion was crime novels. Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane and Ed McBain all graced my sticky little fingers. I still have many of the copies of the books with their wonderfully lurid covers at home.

Well, a few years have passed since then. I did a degree and postgraduate degree in history, but never became a criminal, having no opportunity to put into practise the methods of murder so beautifully described by Ms Christie. I spent most of my working life in advertising (it was the only place that would pay me to have ideas), taking a couple of sabbaticals to write. I still have the rotten evidence of those sabbatical years on my computer – three books that have no hope of ever getting published.

A couple of years ago I became a freelance Creative Director, writing novels in the mornings and doing my freelance work in the afternoons.

Finally, I had achieved the sort of balance I wanted in my life ( a book in each hand). I remember very clearly when the idea for writing a novel set in the Shanghai of the 1920s and 1930s came to me.

I was out strolling one evening in Shanghai (we were living in the city at that time). It was around dusk in October, one of the best times of the year in the city. Perfect walking weather. I reached the crossroads at Jiangxi Middle Road and Fuzhou Road, just opposite the Metropole Hotel. A square where four Art Deco buildings built in the 1930s meet. For a moment, there was no traffic and no people, a strange occurrence in a city of over twenty million people. I closed my eyes and was suddenly transported back to the 1920s, imagining old Dodges, Packards and Chevrolets rolling up to the hotel, discharging carloads of flappers and elegant men wearing tuxedos. A lovely moment, trapped in time.

The Inspector Danilov books were born. And what a time to write about. Back then; the city of ‘joy, gin and jazz’ was an amazing melting pot of adventurers, spies, triads, opium smugglers, merchants, con-men, communists, criminals, fascists, Japanese militarists, gamblers and refugees. With such a witches cauldron of deceit and double-dealing, happiness and despair, wealth and poverty, it soon became obvious that only a crime novel, with its strong moral compass, could explore the depths of the abyss that was Shanghai.

The two main characters, Detective Inspector Danilov and Detective Sergeant Strachan, are both outsiders, in a society full of outsiders. They are employed by the Shanghai Municipal Police but distanced and separate from the rest of their colleagues, and from the society of the time. Mavericks are always so much more interesting to read about and to write. The choice of Danilov as the lead in the books actually came from a line in a policeman’s memoir of the time. He mentioned that when they had a problem, both the French and Shanghai police turned to White Russian members of their forces to solve it for them.

At last, my two passions, history and crime, can now both co-exist together. So far, two books in the series have been published, Death in Shanghai and City of Shadows, with a third on the way in October. Given the wonderful cesspit of characters who lived in the original ‘Pearl of the Orient,’ there’s no shortage of wonderful material for the future.

The Danilov series of historical crime thrillers is published by Carina, an imprint of Harper Collins. They are available at Amazon and other online bookstores.

You can find M.J. Lee on social media:
Website
Facebook
Amazon Author Page
Twitter 

I’m really pleased to introduce the lovely and very comical Nell Peters as my guest author today. Nell is a crime writer and the author of By Any Other Name and the recently released Hostile Witness – described as a “mesmerising new psychological thriller.”

Here Anne talks about cantankerous chickens studying for a degree as a mature student (like me and, as it also happens, at the same university as me) and her road to publication.

*********

Thanks for dropping by, especially on a Monday morning – and sincere apologies if you were expecting to read an entertaining blog from Eva. You’ve only got me today, but normal service will be resumed asap.

I have written several guest blogs recently – my publishers like their authors to get out and about online and elsewhere, to spread the word for new releases – and as my latest book, Hostile Witness, launched on 4^th February, here I am, waving the chequered promo flag. Even if it is a little limp. Promise I’ll try not to repeat myself too much, in the unlikely event that anyone has read more than one of my posts.

My real name is Anne, with a double-barrelled surname that is quite a mouthful and so I use the pen name, Nell Peters. I didn’t have to look far for that, simply pinched my parents’ Christian names – draw own conclusions as to which is which. Don’t think I haven’t been asked – more than once.

I am currently a crime writer with Accent Press, but I self-published for a long time in a rather random manner, my efforts frequently interrupted by the usual trials and responsibilities that real life tends to throw at us. And with four sons, that’s trials aplenty! There were a good few near-misses at successfully placing various masterpieces over the years, only for the dreaded email to finally arrive, quoting one of those very well-worn rejection phrases that most writers could recite from memory, and print off to paper a largish wall; ‘It’s not quite right for our list at the moment,’ or ‘I just don’t love it enough.’ My favourite is the agent line, ‘Unfortunately, I don’t feel I could give your book the representation it deserves.’ Why not? Couldn’t you just try? Hey ho…

It was during this period spent in No Man’s Land that I took the plunge and went back to uni to read psychology, with a bit of sociology thrown in for good measure – I think I had a vague thought that knowledge of the subject would offer me insight to the criminal mind and perhaps give my writing an edge. Or alternatively send me over the edge … By coincidence, Eva went to the same uni, except I never actually set foot on the Cambridge campus – a local college offered an affiliated degree and child-friendly hours, so I went there. A no-brainer, as the youngest boy would say – hideous expression. Anything you want to know about terrorists, psychopaths in general or serial killers, I’m your man. Not Freud, though – I am so not a Freudian, which was slightly unfortunate, as two of my main psych lecturers most certainly were. ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,’ is possibly the most sensible thing SF ever said …

I managed to scrape a 2:1 Hons, with an additional, implied award for being the oldest student on campus – I also learned to swear a lot more and discovered microwave meals to save time in the kitchen (much to my family’s shock/horror). I passed on having a tattoo, though, even if I was the only undergrad there who hadn’t been inked (see, I have the lingo, just not the tat!) And yes, it is possible – though really not recommended – to write a 3K word assignment overnight to meet a deadline (pesky real-life being a nuisance again) including all that tedious Harvard Referencing stuff, and land a merit for it. The marker did observe, however, that my conclusion was weak compared to the main body of work – what did they expect? I was nodding off by then!

After the social culture and buzz of campus life, I snuggled back into my rather insular existence in front of the laptop to write. Taking my backlist by the scruff of the neck I edited ruthlessly, rewriting or deleting great swathes in some instances. I also rewrote and finished a book one of my sons had managed to delete from my system when it was half-finished, over a decade ago. That book was By Any Other Name and it was the first of mine to be published by Accent. Son survived, by the way – as I type this, he is flying to Thailand for work, but has tacked on a few leisure days. Lucky thing.

As soon as a book goes live, there comes the anticipation of a review – the first for BAON was an embarrassing 1*. Accent used to do free promotions of eBooks after a couple of weeks to boost interest, and following some detective work worthy of Inspector Morse on an off-day, I deduced the reviewer (‘Patsy’ – her name is ingrained in my memory forever) was a serial offender who’d grab any freebie going. She’d read just a few pages, post some poisonous prose and award a single star. If you already have some reviews you can weather a low rating, but when it’s your first it’s soul-destroying. However, that’s the risk you take when you raise your head above the parapet and say ‘Look at me, I’ve written a book!’ First World problems …

The head/parapet thing goes for social media too – whilst it’s great for spreading the word about your new release/whatever, it does leave the individual open to all sorts of missiles. I find self-promo excruciatingly awkward, with my mother’s words ringing in my ears along the lines of, ‘Stop that showing off immediately – who on earth do you think wants to hear what you have to say?’ Not hot on child psychology, my mother. But self-published authors and those – like me – with small, indie presses have to bite the bullet and advertise our wares.

And then come the stalkers … I used to protect both my FB and Twitter accounts on the highest notch, but that had to change to be practical. I’ve collected numerous stalkers on FB, one on Twitter and one by email (an old address). Because I’ve cornered the market in friending undesirables, my fellow authors openly despair at my naivety – but belatedly, I have come to recognise the dodgy profiles. They are always posing in some sort of military uniform (usually American), always widowers (sympathy vote?), have a very stunted timeline and we typically have only one or two friends in common. Quite often the Christian names they have adopted suffer in translation, for example a recent-ish Michaels and Simonn. The inevitable DMs are written in appalling English, telling me how pretty I am, yada, yada – so not only frauds, but so myopic they should be wielding a white stick. I am Grannie Annie to six, after all.

OK – time I wasn’t here. Pavlova the cantankerous chicken is making one hell of a racket at the back door – obviously it’s time for her third breakfast. Can’t get the staff, can you?

Huge thanks to Eva for inviting me, thereby risking her good blogging reputation.

Hostile Witness now has five 5* reviews (two on .com from when it was previously self-published), so if you’d care to take a look it can be found at mybook.to/hostilewitness. Here’s the blurb:

‘When her husband leaves her and their sons to shack up with a younger model, Callie Ashton thinks she’s hit rock bottom. She’s wrong. Already unemployed and struggling to hold everything together, her life goes into freefall when she stumbles across the murder of a neighbour. The killer soon becomes intent on despatching Callie too, wrongly assuming she can identify him. Despite her new man being the officer in charge of the investigation, Callie’s in great danger – and it soon becomes clear the murderer isn’t too worried whom he kills or maims in his quest to eliminate her. No one is safe and the killer seems to know her every movement. With no resolution in sight, Callie feels she has no choice but to take matters into her own hands … but at what cost to her safety – and sanity?’         

Toodles! NP

You can purchase Hostile Witness here and here.

 

 

I’m very pleased to introduce the lovely Jeanette Hewitt as my guest author today. Jeanette is the author of four novels including her latest, Exclusion Zone, described as “a gripping thriller that will keep readers hooked to the last page.”

A crime writer living in Suffolk, Jeanette has won the BritCrime Pitch Competition 2015 and was selected as a finalist in the Twisted 50 Short Story Horror Collection 2016. She is a member of the Crime Writers Association, the East Anglian Writers and is a regular at The Felixstowe Book Festival. Here, Jeanette gives us a fascinating insight into the importance of choosing the setting and location for her novels including Exclusion Zone.

Oh, and by the way Jeanette, I hope you will get round to publishing The Intelligence of Ravens – it sounds really intriguing!

The Setting of a Novel – Home or Away? 

I’ve never been able to write a novel that’s close to home – geographically speaking. It started with my first published novel, Freedom First Peace Later. Set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the eighties, I didn’t really have an option on the location! My second novel, Worlds Apart, was a whimsical journey from the South of France, through the African wilderness to the sweeping moors of Yorkshire and it incorporated all of the places that I’ve been to and loved, or want to visit. Next up came The Intelligence of Ravens, an as yet unpublished tale of a brother and sister separated upon the invasion of their Jewish ghetto in Poland, with one sibling sent to Ravensbruck, a camp in Germany and the other making their way to London’s Soho. I adored the research into post-war London, using the infamous Windmill Theatre as the pinnacle for my setting. Just yesterday I walked down Great Windmill Street, and the history is embedded there like it is in so many city landmarks, never to be forgotten.

Now, of course, we have Exclusion Zone, my debut crime fiction novel set in… Chernobyl! Although in Exclusion Zone I wanted it to be real and genuine so for the parts set in England I chose the location of Fitzrovia, a district of London that’s within easy reach of Oxford Street, Hyde Park, Soho and the West End. I’ve stayed here many times and it is familiar and dear, a point which hopefully comes across in the novel. At the time of Exclusion Zone’s release, I was reading Tuesday Falling, a brilliant debut novel by S Williams which is centred mainly in London’s underground. I found the book spellbinding, and the research that must have gone into it applaud-worthy. Sometimes the setting in a novel makes the book, and as I write this I’m scrolling back through some of the novels I read last year to see if subconsciously the location made a difference. The Ice Twins, by S.K Tremayne, set on a tiny Scottish island of which the Moorcraft’s are the only inhabitants. Would this book have worked so well set in busy Birmingham? No, definitely not. You, by Caroline Kepnes, is set in New York, and the characters are so hip and on point and up to date I don’t think any other location would have made so much sense. I understand her follow up, Hidden Bodies, is set on the west coast of U.S.A, so that will be interesting to see how that differs when I read it. Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds would not have been the sweeping epic that it is without the desolate Australian sheep country setting.

So I am a fan of a setting but more than that, it seems to come naturally to me when I’m writing. I’m a third of the way through the sequel to Exclusion Zone and it’s set in the beachside resort of Scheveningen and The Hague. Again, I’ve visited these places and they are among my absolute favourites. On my last holiday there I’d not even started writing the book, but I knew it was going to be set there.

Who knows, one of these days I may decide to write something a little closer to home. After all, as history has taught us, murder and mayhem can happen in sleepy little Suffolk villages…

 Exclusion Zone on Amazon

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