Interview with chick lit author J.G. Dow

Today’s special guest is chick lit author J.G. Dow and we’re chatting about Jane of Manchester.

Welcome, J.G. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

I was born in Huddersfield and went to University in Manchester to study Social Science. I got into writing in my twenties, starting off with poetry and moving onto novels. I like socialising a bit and reading and listening to a wide range of music as well as a bit of walking now and then.

Please tell us about your current release.

Jane of Manchester is a fun, easy reading type chick lit novel with funny parts as well as the odd reflective bits when Jane is trying to figure out what she wants in life. Light reading.

What inspired you to write this book?

I wanted to write something a bit different from what I had done before and as I studied in Manchester, it seemed the perfect place to set the novel.

What exciting story are you working on next?

I’m currently working on the Jane of Manchester sequel and I’m nearly finished so there won’t be too long a wait until it’s out there.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

When I tried poetry and realised I liked that but mainly after my first book which was a sci-fi.

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?

At the moment, I do it part time but want to try and make it full time if I can get enough readers. I write in the evenings, although it probably would be better to write earlier so I may change writing times soon and see how that goes!

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I don’t really have one although I drink a Berocca vitamin drink while doing it so maybe that’s a quirk!

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I didn’t have a clue!

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

I enjoy playing guitar and used to want to play in a band but I think writing is probably more satisfying in the long run!

Links:

Facebook

Thank you for being here today, J.G.

Interview with historical fiction author Alix Rickloff

I’m ending the week with a special interview with Alix Rickloff. She’s talking to me about her historical fiction, Secrets of Nanreath Hall.

During her virtual book tour, Alix will be awarding a digital copy of Secrets of Nanreath to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!

Bio:

Alix Rickloff is a critically acclaimed author of historical and paranormal romance. Her previous novels include the Bligh Family series (Kensington, 2009), the Heirs of Kilronan trilogy (Pocket, 2011), and, as Alexa Egan, the Imnada Brotherhood series (Pocket, 2014). She lives in Maryland with her husband and three children.

What drew you to the twentieth century and WWII as a setting?

My interest in the war began while I was in college. I watched Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver and was forever hooked on the time period. But for twenty plus years and nine plus books, it remained merely a side interest until a recent conversation with my agent during which she asked the fateful question; “What do you really want to write about?” Suddenly, I was confronted with all sorts of exciting possibilities in genres and settings I’d never considered.

What inspired you to write Secrets of Nanreath Hall?

The first kernel of the story came from watching an episode of Downton Abbey. I was intrigued by the fatherless heir and the child of a scandalous elopement. From that seed, my what-if process started as I tried to imagine what their lives would have been like as they grew to adulthood during WWII.

Excerpt from Secrets of Nanreath Hall:

Buildings leaned drunkenly on their foundations, their windows blown out, doors knocked from hinges. A jagged gap like a missing tooth was all that was left of the butcher’s shop. The pub looked comfortingly unscathed until she approached, then she noticed a tumbled slide of bricks and shingles where the roof had collapsed. A gleam of brass railing poked up through fallen plaster and splintered beams. A pint glass stood half- filled on a table in a corner. A dart stuck dead center in the dartboard still hanging on the back wall.

Ten paces. Twenty. The damage greater, the houses tumbled and spilled like a child’s toppled building blocks. Smoke hung low like a morning fog across the Thames. A few firemen replaced their hoses upon a truck. A policeman unrolled a coil of rope across the pavement where a set of marble steps led to . . . nothing.

No.

Anna’s chest tightened. Her throat closed around a hard painful knot. Pain lanced down her leg, buckling her ankle. The awkward weight of the valise knocked her to her knees. Dirt bit into her skin, scraped her hands raw. She retched, but there was nothing in her stomach except the weak tea she’d drunk this morning on the train. Still, she felt her insides shriveling, darkness crowding the edges of her vision.

It couldn’t be. There was some mistake. She was having another nightmare. She would open her eyes to see curtains at the windows and geraniums on the stoop. Graham and Prue standing on the steps to meet her.

“Here now, miss. Are you all right? You took a nasty spill on these cobbles.”

What books/authors have influenced your writing?

I couldn’t begin to list every author that has ever inspired me, but I do have authors who hold a special place in my heart. I dedicated one of my books to four of them; Mary Stewart, Lois McMaster Bujold, Jane Austen, and Rosamunde Pilcher. These are my four go-to authors. Different in genre, style, characterization, but I read their books over and over whenever I need to get lost in a familiar story where the writing is flawless and the characters are old friends.

This is your first straight historical fiction novel, though you write historical romance under the pseudonym Alexa Egan. Was it a difficult transition to switch genres?

Not at all, though the romance novelist in me insisted on a happy ending. And if a love story turned up unexpectedly, well…old habits die hard.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a follow-up to Secrets of Nanreath Hall. Lucy Stanhope is the spoiled daughter of an ex-pat socialite living in Singapore who is sent to England in disgrace just ahead of the attack on Pearl Harbor and Japan’s entrance into the war. There she befriends a young evacuee and the unlikely pair end up heading to London in search of his mother.

What’s on your nightstand right now?

For work, I’m reading West End Front; The Wartime Secrets of London’s Grand Hotels by Matthew Sweet. For pleasure, The Forgotten Room by Karen White, Beatriz Willams, and Lauren Willig.

Links:

Website | Amazon | Barnes and Noble

Thanks, Alix!

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Interview with international thriller author Ian Coates

Today’s fun interview is with thriller author Ian Coates as he shares about his newest novel, Eavesdrop.  

Bio:

Author Ian Coates graduated with honors in engineering. He worked in the high tech electronics industry for thirty years, where he specialized in the design of radio communication equipment. His intimate knowledge of that environment always triggered his imagination to think about the mysterious world of international spies.

A lifelong love of books led him into writing, but it was being named one of the winners in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook centenary novel writing competition that spurred him on to complete his spy thriller, Eavesdrop.

The novel was written largely on planes and in airport lounges as well as in snatched moments before starting work each morning. Eavesdrop was released by Bad Day Books, the suspense and thriller imprint of Assent Publishing.

Ian is proud to support the British Science Association and donates a proportion of his book proceeds to that charity. He lives and writes in Buckinghamshire, England, with his wife and two daughters.

Welcome, Ian. Please tell us about your current release.

James Winter is a Customs Investigation Officer, but when the smuggling ring he’s closing-in on suddenly develops an uncanny knack of avoiding arrest, he is suspended on suspicion of helping them. As he tries to clear his name, he uncovers a group of assassins, industrial espionage, and a very determined Mossad agent.

The story starts with three apparently separate story threads. The first follows the assassins – they are operating in London, and when their hits suddenly start to go wrong, they begin to think they have a traitor in their midst.

The second story thread follows the smugglers. They are setting-up a new run to smuggle diamonds from Antwerp to London, and need to bring in a new courier to help. However, they soon begin to think that the man they’ve chosen is not all that he seems.

The third thread follows Winter as he tries to discover who was behind his dismissal. As the story progresses, these three threads start to come together until, by the time we reach the climax in the snowy wastes of Finland, they’ve become just one storyline and we suddenly realize there’s a lot more at stake than just Winter’s career.

It’s a fast paced thriller, and it’s the book’s title that gives us a clue as to what links the story threads.

What inspired you to write this book?

I graduated in electronics, and my first job was working for a company that designed radio equipment – transmitters, receivers, walkie-talkies and the like – and one of the ranges we made had a facility for encrypted audio. That was at the time of the Northern Ireland troubles, and we sold some of those to the Northern Ireland police force – the idea was that they didn’t want the IRA listening in to what they were saying.  And that got me thinking - what if I wanted to be able to intercept their conversations? How might I go about it? That was what gave me the main idea for Eavesdrop.

But I don’t think a single idea is large enough or strong enough to support something as big as a novel. For that, I think you need two or even three solid ideas that work together to create an overall plot. The second idea for Eavesdrop came when I thinking about the attempts to achieve peace in the Middle East, and how it is that we never seem to be able to manage it, especially around Israel.

It was only when those two ideas, together with some thoughts I’d had about smuggling, all coalesced that I realized I had a plot powerful enough to support a full length thriller – and Eavesdrop was born.

Excerpt from Eavesdrop:

Copyright © 2014 Ian Coates

All rights reserved.

PROLOGUE

August 2nd, 2010

Bashar Al-Jabib wriggled forward into position in the long grass. Everywhere smelled fresh and damp. Perched on the crag among the trees that carpeted the higher slope, he commanded an uninterrupted view of the lake in the valley bottom. Water glinted silver when the first rays of sun reached its mirrored surface. Thin ribbons of mist hung here and there above it like wraiths.

Al-Jabib’s pulse quickened with excitement. After many months of planning, it was finally time to set things in motion. He smiled to himself. They would be proud of him back home.

On the far bank, an angler tied a new fly to his line. After one final inspection, he cast toward the row of willows that edged the water, then slowly drew it back by hand so that the lure glided smoothly across the surface.

Al-Jabib reached for his rifle, felt its cold metal against his fingertips. Without taking his eyes off the fisherman, he seated the bipod in the soil to support the muzzle, and pushed the stock hard against his shoulder. Shuffling awkwardly until he was aligned with the weapon, he squinted into its telescopic sight. He noticed his nerves didn’t flutter. Years ago, he would have wet himself doing this.

Not now.

He adjusted the focus and flicked off the safety catch.

The fisherman raised his rod and flicked it forward again, letting the line run through his fingers. The man’s face looked content. Al-Jabib could see it clearly as he squeezed the trigger.

The bullet entered through the angler’s right eye. Blood spattered across the fishing bag that stood on the bank as he toppled backwards and the rod splashed into the water. In the woods, the gunshot sent a pair of pigeons flapping away through the undergrowth.

Staying on his stomach, Al-Jabib shuffled backwards off the small square of tarpaulin he’d been lying on. His whole body tingled with exhilaration. It had been a beautifully placed shot. Easy.

He retrieved the spent case, and did his best to rough-up the flattened grass before he wriggled further back into the trees. Only when he was well into their cover did he stand and brush himself down.

Al-Jabib slid his hand inside his jacket and felt for the locket that hung around his neck. His fingers caressed the polished metal, conjuring the memories, the screams, the falling masonry, and choking dust. He shouldn’t be wearing it, but it had seemed so appropriate; a fresh chapter of history was going to be written and it fell to him to prepare the ground. It was his destiny.

As he hiked the mile back to the hire car, he tapped a number into his mobile and spoke in Arabic.

Two weeks later

The meeting in Tel-Aviv drew to a close. Fluorescent strips lit the windowless room three floors below ground. The ashtrays on the table around which the eight men sat were full, and thick cigarette smoke hung in the air, the air conditioning too slow to remove it.

Ehud Mandell, a large man with heavy jowls and thick spectacles, looked around at the others from his place at the head of the table. “Any other items?” He wanted to go home. Already, the meeting had gone over time. Mandell chaired these cross-departmental security meetings, held every month under the grandiose directive of ensuring the continued security of the homeland of the Israeli State. He scratched his mop of white hair as he waited. Most of the others were already gathering up their papers.

The head of International Analysis coughed. “I have one thing.” Leon Cardash was the antithesis of Mandell: short, with sallow features that looked malnourished. His head jerked in short rapid movements when he looked around the table like a bird nervously searching for grubs.

Mandell sighed. The traffic was going to be hell. “Go on,” he said. Cardash was not known for getting to the point quickly.

“I…well…rather the head of the European team, asked me to raise this.” Cardash coughed again. “He’s very reliable, and if he says…well…if he thinks this committee needs to know about it, certainly we should not dismiss it.”

“Just get on with it,” Mandell barked.

He smiled obsequiously. “Well, a couple of weeks ago in England, one of their top government officials was assassinated during a weekend fishing break. It seems it was…er…a very professional job.”

The Chief of the Israeli Air Force spoke up. “So what? Let the Brits sort out their own mess. It’s nothing to do with us.”

Cardash tugged at his earlobe and looked down at the sheet of paper in front of him.

“Well, you see, there we’re not quite so sure. As you say, it is probably nothing, but the thing is, the British police—and we’ve seen all their reports—the thing is, they can find no motive at all.”

“I still don’t see why this is relevant.”

“It may not be, of course, but Charles Asquith—that’s the dead man—well, he was always a strong advocate of Israel and had an influential place in the British government that was often to our advantage. He has, on occasions persuaded it to make decisions that favor our position. My European head was concerned that Asquith may have been…” He hesitated as he chose for the most appropriate phrase. “…well, perhaps he was permanently removed because of it.”

Mandell took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It had been a long day. It was fifty-fifty whether anything raised by Analysis was useful, but they were right just frequently enough that one couldn’t take the chance of dismissing them. He turned to the head of Mossad. “Perhaps you could check it out, Avraham? Do you have anyone in England who could take a look?”

The head of Mossad nodded slowly. “I’ve a man in London, Sol Halutz. He’s a pain in the arse, but he’s good at bringing a fresh perspective to things. I’ll get him to dig around.”

What exciting story are you working on next?

I’ve started work on a new thriller with the working title of The Rival. It deals with industrial espionage, a long-hidden family secret, an unusual double blackmail, and what happens when two people being blackmailed don’t want to be blackmailed any more.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I’ve wanted to write novels since I was about 7 or 8, but wouldn’t have called myself a writer at that point. I remember once copying out the first few chapters of one of Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven mysteries into a fresh notebook, changing the name of the children and the dog, and then putting my name on the front cover. I suppose I could call myself a writer by the time I reached the age of fourteen, because that was when I won a competition run by the local authority with a private-eye novella.

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 work as a technical manager in the electronics industry, so I fit my writing in between holding down a busy full-time job and helping to bring up a family. That means it gets written over breakfast, during additional snatched moments here and there, and during holidays.

Eavesdrop was largely written during a spell when I did a lot of business travel, which meant much of it was written on planes and in airport lounges.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

Perhaps the fact that I write my first drafts longhand in spiral notebooks with a lovely propelling pencil that my wife bought me. There’s something special about the visceral connection between hand, pencil and paper that seems to help my creative process.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

One of my earliest memories is of wanting to be a spy.  I think that came from reading and re-reading a big fat storybook called something like “Spy Stories for Boys.” I absolutely loved that book, and that’s what made me think I wanted to become a spy when I grew up. As I got older, though, I realized it was probably rather a dangerous profession, so started to think more about technology. I confess to being a coward

As a child, I never appreciated there was such a job as a writer. I don’t know where I thought books came from, but I didn’t realize it was something you could do for a living. If I had known writing could be a profession, I guess that’s what I would have said I wanted to do.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

Just that I hope people enjoy reading Eavesdrop. Certainly I’d love to hear from them, and I can be contacted via social media or my website. If readers like the book, please add a review on Amazon to encourage others to also give the story a try.

Website | Amazon buy page | Facebook | Twitter | Blog 

Thanks, Ian!

Interview with mystery/thriller author Huw Thomas

Mystery author Huw Thomas is here today to talk about himself and his new novel, The Vault.

Welcome, Huw. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Born in 1965, I grew up in a small town in southern England and wrote my first ‘book’ while at primary school. I pretended to be a newspaper journalist for a while and then moved into PR before getting fed up with office life and throwing it all in to retrain as an teacher of English as a foreign language.

My wife, Carolyn, and I have just resettled in Bournemouth after several years teaching in Portugal. As well as writing, I now juggle several other part-time jobs - gardening, teaching at a language school and working as a sub-editor for a local newspaper.

I had my first writing success in 2005 when The Tale of Findo Gask won a UK contest for new authors. I was over the moon to get a publishing contract but sadly - although I did get to see my book in print and got one royalty cheque - the company involved went bust not long after.

Subsequently, along with Findo and The Vault, I've published one other novel - Thin Ice - and a collection of short stories - Fractured Lives - under my own name. I've also written an adventure novel called Pagan's Sphinx under the pen name William Webster. At the moment - slightly annoyingly - this is selling a lot more copies than my other books.

I've just completed the first draft of my next novel - Church of the White Rabbits - which is a bit more quirky than anything I've written before. This is currently in the hands of my beta readers but I hope it will be out by the end of the year or early in 2014.

Please tell us about your current release.

The Vault is a mystery thriller set in a small town in southern England. The book revolves around young schoolboy Adam Strong and his battles with a gang of local yobs. Woven around Adam's story are three other strands - an armed raid on the home of a reclusive billionaire, the discovery of three dead bodies in a local pond and a sex offender who goes on the run after breaking his parole.

The different stories - and timelines - all gradually come together as the significance of the vault and its contents finally become clear.

Aimed at adults or young adults, The Vault explores questions of trust and loyalty from a range of perspectives.

The Vault is published in aid of the disaster relief charity ShelterBox, which gets half of all royalties. I was once in charge of the charity’s communications and fundraising and I know how much it does to help families who - through no fault of their own - have lost their homes to disasters like earthquakes, floods etc

In 2010, my wife and I undertook a year-long tandem cycle ride in aid of the charity - clocking up nearly 11,000 miles across 10 countries and raising almost £50,000.

What inspired you to write this book?

It all started with an idea for short story that began with a group of black-clad intruders breaking into castle to kidnap a young boy.

That mutated into a more contemporary story about armed raiders forcing their way into a mansion and I then started to weave several other strands around that initial scenario.

The main part of the resulting novel is about a young boy growing up in a small English town, who spends a lot of time roaming the local woods. There’s a lot of me in that part - although much of what Adam gets up to is purely from my imagination. He’s far braver than I ever was.

Excerpt from The Vault:

Chapter 4

By mid-afternoon the entire area around the lake was cordoned off with blue and white tape. One police car was parked across the track leading up from the main car park. A line of vehicles stood where the council van had been. The team of workmen were gone; apart from having discovered the bodies, their statements had offered nothing more of obvious significance.

The pumps brought in to empty the lake had been busy for hours. Thousands of gallons of water had been sucked up over the bank and poured down into the fields beyond. A bed of fine wire mesh was spread across the ground where the last of the lake water was still emptying out, in the chance of catching any stray bits of floating evidence. Another pump was on the far side of the lake, diverting the flow coming from the culvert that fed the ornamental pool.

A few pools of water still glistened here and there but otherwise the lake was pretty much now drained. Instead of the usual wide pool, all that could be seen were thick layers of mud – silt and rotting vegetation that had built up over the best part of a century. Some parts of the lakebed were already starting to dry out, the surface of the mud thickening and cracking in the sunlight. Elsewhere, in the damper hollows, sunlight and oxygen were combining with the remaining moisture to create pungent aromas.

A churned-up track led out through the stinking mud to where police officers in thigh-length waders stepped cautiously through the ooze. One of the scene-of-crime officers (known as SOCOs) photographed the three black shapes. A number of colleagues crouched around him. Their oversuits now coated with mud, they were sieving through the surrounding muck, looking for any clues before they attempted to disturb the objects that had lain hidden underneath the lake and its lilies.

Esther Green stood and watched the SOCOs from the edge of the bank. She had ventured out into the lake once and had no desire to spend any more time in the mud than necessary. A pallid, tattooed arm was all that was to be seen of the first body, revealed where the council worker’s billhook had caught in the chain and then sliced through the corpse’s heavy-duty plastic wrapping. Esther had gone close enough to show solidarity with her junior officers. She would leave the detailed examination to the experts.

There were two similar bundles lying on the lake bed only a few feet from the first one. The actual details would not be confirmed until some time later and, for the time being, there was little else she could do.   Without answers to at least some of the more fundamental questions – such as how and when – it would be hard for her to start any kind of meaningful investigation. What she had seen with her own eyes, however, was enough to give her imagination plenty to work on.

What exciting story are you working on next?

I’ve just finished the first draft of Church of the White Rabbits. This is now in the hands of a small team of beta readers - and I’m really hoping they don’t pull it apart too much.

This book is a bit different from my others. It’s set on a remote Atlantic island, featuring a cast of eccentric characters, including a ‘mad’ old family matriarch, drunken fishermen, young surfers… and lots of white rabbits.

It’s a bit quirky and I hope it works because I had a lot of fun writing it and have plans for at least one sequel.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I’ve written stories for as long as I can remember. My mother tells me that I wrote my first book while I was still at primary school - sadly I don’t have a copy.

My life as a writer has gone in fits and bursts as I’ve tried to combine it with all the other parts of life but it’s never gone away.

I’m now 48 and still writing but I’m also still learning.

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 used to have a full-time job but gave that up as it didn’t give me enough time to write (or enjoy life).

At the moment I’ve got several part time jobs - as a teacher, gardener and newspaper sub-editor. I earn a lot less than I used to but I’m much happier… and I’ve also got a lot more freedom.

Every day is different and though there’s no security I’m no longer worried about it. I generally have at least one day a week that I devote to my writing - and marketing my books. I also write several evenings a week.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

Having no real plan! My books have all started life in different ways - Findo Gask came from a road sign, Thin Ice was based on a strange dream and The Vault spent some time as a screenplay.

I generally have a pretty good idea of where I’m going when I write but all kinds of things happen along the way that I never expected.

I think having a detailed plan before I start would take away a lot of the spontaneity of writing. Inconsistencies and plot holes can be ironed out in the editing stage.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

That varied - farmer, fireman, and astronaut were popular at different times.

Being an author has always been a dream though. I can spend huge amounts of time creating imaginary worlds, lives and situations. I get a huge amount of entertainment out of my writing - if I can share that pleasure with other people then so much the better.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

My main aim is to entertain. I want to take people out of their own worlds and transport them somewhere different.

If I can make them gasp, smile, sigh or laugh (in the right places) then I’m happy.

There’s often an underlying theme to my stories - about issues like justice, trust or equality - but I don’t want to preach. I’m happy to take people a little way out of their comfort zones and invite them to look at things from a new perspective but that’s not a crucial part of my writing. Most of all, I want readers to lose themselves in the places and relationships that I’ve created.

Ways to connect:

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Amazon author page

Thanks, Huw, for sharing a bit about yourself and your writing.