Rosie will be
awarding to randomly drawn winners during the tour one of the following items:
a "@" pendant, an engraved Floppy Disk Keyring, a Cardiff City
Typographic Mug, a £10 Amazon voucher, and 3 Binary Witness e-books. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To be entered for more chances to win, feel free to visit other tour stops and enter there, too.
Rosie
Claverton grew up in Devon, daughter to a Sri Lankan father and a Norfolk
mother, surrounded by folk mythology and surly sheep. She moved to Cardiff to
study Medicine and adopted Wales as her home. Her short film "Dragon
Chasers" aired on BBC Wales in Autumn 2012. Binary Witness is her debut novel from Carina Press. Currently
exiled to London, she lives with her journalist husband and their pet hedgehog.
Welcome, Rosie. Please
tell us about your current release.
Binary Witness is about agoraphobic hacker Amy Lane
and her reluctant cleaner ex-con Jason Carr hunting down a serial killer in
Cardiff. It is the first book in The Amy Lane Mysteries.
What inspired you to
write this book?
I
was keen to turn my hand to crime fiction, as it's one of my favourite dramas,
and I love crime-fighting partners. When thinking of unlikely double acts, I
struck upon the idea of a gifted hacker who is unable to leave her apartment
relying on a streetwise partially-reformed criminal to gather evidence for a
police investigation. And what better first case than serial murder? I also
wanted to set a book in Cardiff, because I love Wales and I wanted my work to
reflect that passion.
Excerpt:
(Amy hacks the forum)
Bryn flipped open his notebook over his fingers, worn
wedding ring outside the shield of soft black leather. His ex-wife must be
speaking to him this week. He read out the web address as she typed, and it
loaded in seconds.
“Band fan forum. Nu metal.” Generic BB template, basic
customisation—poor effort. She could’ve knocked together a better site in
fifteen minutes.
She could feel Jason leaning over her shoulder and tried to
control her urge to tense, to move. He was a big guy, intimidating, a skinhead
with old-fashioned tattoos wound around both his arms. But he could’ve been any
guy, really. It didn’t take much to spook her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him scan the text,
tongue slightly protruding from between pink lips. He scratched absently at a
smattering of light brown stubble on his chin—he was probably one of those guys
who had a five o’clock shadow at midday. His dark brown eyes flickered across
the screen faster than she expected. The educational attainment of the prison
population wasn’t exactly renowned.
“Crash and Yearn? They’re more punk pop.”
Bryn looked at him with amusement. “This is what you bring
to the table, boy?”
Jason scowled at him. Amy felt like the referee on some
bizarre American wrestling show.
“The original post is down,” Amy said, scanning the forum.
“Not the ‘dead naked girl’ types. I’ll find the archive—you got that before it
went dark?”
Her simple yet thorough methodology for profiling and
password trawling involved a lot of social networks and a bit of hacker’s
intuition. The old science fiction trope of advanced technology seeming very
like magic unfolded before her audience.
What exciting story are
you working on next?
I've
just finished editing the second book in the series, Code Runner. Jason is
framed for murder and Amy must work to prove his innocence. But when Jason is
broken out of a prison van, the guards murdered, he goes on the run from the
police, the gangs, and the criminal mastermind who orchestrated his downfall.
When did you first
consider yourself a writer?
I've
always written stories - from nursery school, my supposed "news" was
full of crocodiles on the beach and burning buildings. But I've been working on
my professional writing career for about eight years now. I started out in
novels, gave them up as useless, concentrated on my screenwriting efforts, and
then drifted back to novels. I'm a bit of a writing gadfly!
Do you write full-time?
If so, what's your work day like? If
not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I
have a full-time day job as a psychiatrist, so I work a 9-5 with some evenings,
weekends and night shifts for variety. I have to be very disciplined with my
remaining free time, trying to write a little every day. I have to make the
most of my train commutes and the hour or two in the evening before my husband
gets home. My family will always come first, and it can be a difficult balance
when I'm on a deadline.
What would you say is
your interesting writing quirk?
Folks
suffer a lot in my work. I love a bit of rough and tumble, particularly if it
results in stitches and plaster casts, and I had to keep a record of all
Jason's injuries throughout the novel to ensure the continuity! It's nice to
patch them up later with some TLC and a cup of tea.
As a child, what did you
want to be when you grew up?
I
consistently wanted to be a doctor from a young age, with a brief phase in my
teenage years when I wanted to be an anthropologist or linguist (for which I
blame Daniel Jackson from Stargate SG-1). Writing for a living always seemed
like a dream too distant to consider but having two careers was never something
I anticipated!
Anything additional you
want to share with the readers?
One
of my most valued causes is the accurate and sensitive portrayal of people with
mental health problems. By writing a character with agoraphobia and depression
who is also a complex human being with strengths and weaknesses, I hope to shed
some light on these debilitating diseases - and combat the stigma of having a
mental health problem.
Buy links
Thank you for hosting me! I'll be popping in throughout the day to answer any questions your readers may have.
ReplyDeleteLooks like this could be a great series, I love a good author interview as it makes the book seem a little better when you know where the author is coming from. I read an interview with Mell Corcoran, read her book recenlty, Shadows of Doubt. It was fantastic, I swear because of knowing more about the author. mellcorcoran.com is her site, I recommend her as well! Great interview thanks!
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