Stop Dead by Leigh Russell

 I'm very excited to have Leigh Russell here today, talking about her latest novel 'Stop Dead'.

Tell us about your latest book, ‘Stop Dead’.

In ‘Cut Short’, ‘Road Closed’, and ‘Dead End’, Geraldine Steel worked for the Murder Squad in Kent. In ‘Death Bed’ she moved to London, so ‘Stop Dead’ is the second of the London novels. Once again the reader follows Geraldine’s search for a killer who proves to be elusive as well as deadly. The only clues the police have are two samples of DNA found at the crime scenes.  The first of these matches the DNA of a woman who has been in prison for twenty years, the second is from a woman who has been dead for two years. It makes no sense, but Geraldine has to solve the mystery if she is to find the killer who has embarked on a killing spree. 

The last two books have seen a move to London for Geraldine. How has this opened up new possibilities for you as a writer?

My main interest is in character, so probably the most significant difference for me was the opportunity to introduce her new team, Detective Sergeant Samantha Haley and Chief Inspector Reg Milton. While pursuing a murder investigation, Geraldine establishes relationships with her new colleagues and adapts to working in the Met. 

Has ‘Stop Dead’ got a really juicy baddy in it?

It’s important for me to understand my characters, otherwise they risk becoming two dimensional functions of the plot. Like all my villains, the killer in ‘Stop Dead’ is a damaged character, in some ways as much a victim as the people who are killed. Nevertheless, the nature of the killer’s experience leads to some quite horrific murders… It is quite tricky to talk about it without revealing the killer’s gender!

Geraldine Steel seems to be a big hit.  What is it about her that has made her such a good series character?

When I wrote ‘Cut Short’ I didn’t expect anyone to read the manuscript, let alone publish it. It certainly never crossed my mind that ‘Cut Short’ might turn out to be the start of a series. So Geraldine Steel turned up, unplanned, as the detective who would solve the case in ‘Cut Short’. She managed that quite efficiently and believably, and seemed to catch my readers’ imagination before I really knew her. Most authors of series plan their protagonist’s life story before they begin writing but Geraldine is evolving throughout the process of writing the books. I wonder if this is what interests her fans - the ambiguity and development in her character that makes her seem real.

Do you think crime writing particularly lends itself to long running series, and why?

Yes, By its nature, crime writing is episodic. The detective is the thread that runs through the series, moving on from case to case, while each book has its own complete story. So an author can continue indefinitely with different murder cases to be solved.

What’s next for you?  Are you going to continue writing books about Geraldine, or do you have something else up your sleeve.

Yes to both! Initially my publisher offered me a three book deal for Geraldine Steel. Those three books all became bestsellers so my publisher asked me for another three books. ‘Stop Dead’ is the fifth book in the series, so I’m currently working on the sixth. I’m meeting my publisher in a few weeks’ time to discuss our next contract - hopefully for the next three Geraldine Steel novels! We are also exploring the possibility of a spin off series for Ian Peterson, the sergeant Geraldine left behind in Kent when she moved to London in ‘Death Bed’. I’ll keep you posted!   

What’s been the most exciting thing to happen on your writing journey so far?

There have been so many highlights, it’s impossible to pick just one.  Here are a few that spring to mind: signing a contract with my publisher, seeing my books on the shelves in bookshops, being shortlisted for a CWA Dagger Award, being sent a personal endorsement by Peter James, reading good reviews in The Times – in fact good reviews anywhere - being invited to share Jeffery Deaver’s champagne al fresco on a summer evening, meeting Lee child, Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Clive Dexter, and all the crime writing gang, receiving an invitation to teach on the Greek island of Skyros, spending time with a Murder Investigation Team… but the biggest thrill is still writing!

Thank you for interviewing me here and keep writing!

Thanks to Leigh for sharing those thoughts about writing and giving some tantalising hints about 'Stop Dead'. I can't wait to read it now! 

You can pre-order 'Stop Dead' for Kindle now here.  

And you can buy Leigh's other books here.

 

Jane Wenham Jones at Chez Castillon

You'll probably remember that I was very excited earlier this year about my visit to the wonderful writing retreat, Chez Castillon. Chez Castillon is an amazing place  in Castillon la Bataille near Bordeaux and St Emilion, and the very lovely Mickey and Janie have turned it into the most fantastic retreat for writers and artists.

Now there's a brilliant opportunity to attend a course at Chez Castillon led by the talented and inspiring Jane Wenham Jones.

Is There A Book In You?

For anyone who longs to be published, whatever stage of the journey they are at.

Tutor	Jane Wenham Jones
Date	Saturday 6th October – Friday 12th October 2012
Course Fee	£825 per person.

The hospitality of Chez Castillon makes it the perfect environment for writing and relaxing. Mickey and Janie are the perfect hosts, and the provision of food and drink is abundant and seamless.

Katie Fforde will be there too to offer guidance and advice to participants and also literary agent David Headley! What could be better than that!

You can find out more about Chez Castillon here.

Meanwhile, so you can see how beautiful it is, here are some photos ...

Guest Post from Victoria Connelly

 I'm very pleased to have Victoria Connelly here today to talk about her trilogy of magical romantic comedies, 'It's Magic'.

I think I’ve always wanted to be a writer.  I started my first novel when I was fourteen and used to take it to school and pass it under the table for my friends to read during Maths lessons.  Of course, it was a romantic comedy and I’ve never stopped writing them since.

I never finished that first attempt at a novel and it was many years and many rejections from agents and publishers later that my first one was published.  It was called Flights of Angels and it was about a young widow who has her own group of tiny guardian angels to take care of her.  It was a romantic comedy with a touch of magic but that touch of magic was what stopped it being published in the UK.  Nobody seemed to think that readers wanted magic in a rom com.  However, things were different in Germany where five publishers set up a bidding war for it.  It was a whirlwind experience and resulted in four different editions of the book being published as well as a film being made – an experience I’ll never forget!

Then came two more magical romantic comedies.  Unmasking Elena Montella about a woman who is given a magical Venetian mask which helps her choose which of her three (yes – three!) fiancés is the right one for her.  And Three Graces about a young woman who marries a duke and goes to live in his ancestral home only to find it’s haunted by a rather opinionated eighteenth-century ghost.

I had so much fun writing these books but they were never published in the UK even though they’d done so well in Germany.  So, whilst writing my ‘straight’ rom coms like A Weekend with Mr Darcy and The Runaway Actress, I’ve decided to make my magical rom coms available on Kindle where you can buy them individually or as a trilogy called It’s Magic. 

So, if you like your rom coms peppered with naughty guardian angels, magical Venetian masks and haughty ghosts, give them a try and let me know what you think.  I really hope you enjoy them.

You can find out more about Victoria on her website,  or follow her on Twitter at @VictoriaDarcy

You can find 'It's Magic' here.  

Thanks to Victoria for being such an interesting guest!

Prime Time by Jane Wenham-Jones

I'm really pleased to have Jane Wenham-Jones here today, to talk about her new book 'Prime Time'.

'My new novel Prime Time was inspired by some of the bizarre things I’ve got up to, in the name of publicity for my various books. This has included appearing on a variety of TV programmes which has sometimes been huge fun and sometimes led to me watching the re-run through my fingers…

Here are a couple of things I’ve learned along the way…

Keep quiet

Once you’ve been miked up – usually with a power pack attached to your waist somewhere (for this reason it’s useful to wear a skirt/trousers and/or a belt rather than a slinky dress, although all is not lost if do you opt for the latter – it just has to sit on the chair behind you) and a small lapel microphone, make sure it is switched off before you a) say anything rude about the producer/your fellow guests and b) you go to the loo.

Stories abound of entire production crews listening to the sound of the uninitiated having a pee, dealing with their nervous flatulence or discussing their sex lives with whoever’s in the next cubicle.

Check someone’s doing your make-up

They usually are if it’s a magazine / celebrity type programme, and usually won’t be if it’s current-affairs / news job. But this is not set in stone.

I went on something called The Good Day Show on Legal TV, a Sky channel, a few years ago and made an assumption. So I sat around, flicking through magazines, waiting to be called into make-up, only to find time had marched on, and the call was to go straight into the studio.

I knew I was in trouble when I glanced at the monitor to see the young and beautiful American presenter, Tracy Falke appearing to be at least a decade older.

With that lighting, I’d have been struggling if they’d employed their entire cache of concealer but with no time to even get on any slap myself, I realised I’d look about ninety.

"No, you didn't look great, love," confirmed my friend Lyn-Marie Fabes. "Rather tired."

"You looked fine," Hazel, my publisher, declared loyally, adding doubtfully, "though I noticed you weren't wearing any lippy," which I realised translated as: "you were so ancient your mouth had disappeared".

If you’re doing your own make-up, have a steady hand

And take your time. I still have a small eye injury from hastily stabbing myself with a mascara brush before presenting a short film on Margate for The Politics Show back in 2007. By the time filming had finished – it took all day – I could barely keep that eye open and by the next morning it was swollen shut. I had to drive to Brighton to do the voice-over wearing a patch and whining. There is a still from the programme on the internet, showing me scowling, with eyes like slits. Aside from that it was a great experience – even when the locals came out and started yelling at me.'

Prime Time by Jane Wenham-Jones

A British romantic comedy by Jane Wenham-Jones, author of 'Perfect Alibis'.

Laura Meredith never imagined herself appearing on TV, she's too old, too flabby, too downright hormonal, and much too busy holding things together for her son, Stanley, after her husband left her for a younger, thinner replacement. But best friend Charlotte is a determined woman and when Laura is persuaded on to a daytime show to talk about her PMT, everything changes. Suddenly there's a camera crew tracking her every move and Laura finds herself an unlikely star. But as things hot up between her and gorgeous TV director, Cal, they're going downhill elsewhere. While Laura's caught up in a heady whirlwind of beauty treatments, makeovers and glamorous film locations, Charlotte's husband, Roger, is concealing a guilty secret, Stanley's got problems at school, work's piling up, and when Laura turns detective to protect Charlotte's marriage, things go horribly wrong. The champagne's flowing as Laura's prime time TV debut looks set to be a hit. But in every month, there's a "Day Ten" ...

Prime Time is published by Accent Press, and is available from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Waterstones.com all other good book retailers.
 

Jane is the author of four novels and two non-fiction books –  Wannabe a Writer? – a humorous look at becoming a scribe – and Wannabe a Writer We’ve Heard Of? a guide to the art of book and self promotion.  As a freelance journalist she has appeared in a wide range of women's magazines and national newspapers and writes regular columns for Woman's Weekly and Writing Magazine, where she is the agony aunt. Jane is an experienced tutor who is regularly booked by writing conferences and literary festivals to run workshops and give talks on all aspects of the writing process. She is also a member of Equity, has presented for the BBC on both TV and radio and has done her fair share of daytime TV, particularly when promoting her controversial second novel Perfect Alibis (subtitled How to have an affair and get away with it...) It was those – sometimes hair-raising – TV experiences that inspired Prime Time, her new novel. For more information see http://www.janewenham-jones.com and http://janewenhamjones.wordpress.com.

You can buy Prime Time here ...


Paperback:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1908766581/janewenhamjon-21/026-9443805-3263660
eBook:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B008GE2RJE/janewenhamjon-21/026-9443805-3263660

 Many thanks to Jane for being here today ...

The Cornish House by Liz Fenwick

To tie in with the imminent release of the The Cornish House by Liz Fenwick, you can read a guest post by me on Liz's blog about 'One Thing I've Learnt'. Liz has a number of guest posts on this subject during May and they make for fascinating reading.

You can also find my review of The Cornish House over on Bookersatz. I highly recommend it.

Chez Castillon

You know how sometimes you meet new people and you just know that you’ll want to know them for ever? Well, that’s how I felt when I met Mickey and Janie at Chez Castillon.

Chez Castillon is an amazing house in Castillon la Bataille near Bordeaux, and Mickey and Janie have turned it into the most fantastic retreat for writers and artists.

I was out there for a few days at the end of last month and I had a wonderful time. The hospitality of Chez Castillon makes it the perfect environment for writing and relaxing. Mickey and Janie are the perfect hosts, and the provision of food and drink is abundant and seamless.

Add to this great tuition from the talented Adrian Magson and the stimulating company of my fellow students, and my stay at Chez Castillon was just perfect.

You can find out more about Chez Castilon here. They’ve got an array of writing and painting courses coming up, including 'Is There A Book In You?' with the gorgeous Jane Wenham Jones.

Meanwhile, so you can see how beautiful it is, here are some more photos ...

If you want a writing retreat or course in incredible surroundings with wonderful company, I highly recommend Chez Castillon.

Freaks!

Two of the loveliest people you could hope to meet have got together to release a book of short stories. They are Caroline Smailes and Nik Perring, and I am delighted to be hosting one of the stories on my blog today.

As well as stories by Caroline and Nik, there are fab illustrations by Darren Craske.



You can buy Freaks here and here.

But in the meantime, here's a little taster for you.

Invisible

[Super Power: The ability to make oneself unseen to the naked eye]

If I stay totally still,

if I stand right tall,

with me back against the school wall,

close to the science room’s window,

with me feet together,

pointing straight,

aiming forward,

if I make me hands into tight fists,

make me arms dead straight,

if I push me arms into me sides,

if I squeeze me thighs,

stop me wee,

if me belly doesn’t shake,

if me boobs don’t wobble,

if I close me eyes tight,

so tight that it makes me whole face scrunch,

if I push me lips into me mouth,

if I make me teeth bite me lips together,

if I hardly breathe,

if I don’t say a word.

Then,

I’ll magic meself invisible,

and them lasses will leave me alone.

Many congratulations to all involved in Freaks!