Authors Electric

Partners in crime at CrimeFest, on a panel chaired by the fabulous Zoe Sharp, far left In the same month that I joined the Romantic Novelists' Association , I also pitched up on a panel at CrimeFest . An unlikely duo, you might think, but my cosy mystery series has a foot in both camps, with a strong romantic subplot  underpinning the murder in each novel. In some respects it's a similar situation to visiting Greenwich and being able to stand on the Meridian line with one foot in the east, the other in the west . Further variety is added by a generous helping of comedy running throughout my books. But I'm by no means the only one to tread such a complex path, genre-wise. Fellow CrimeFest panellist Alison Morton adds alternative history to her crime/romance split. Deemed by The Guardian to be the best crime writing festival in the world A Multiplicity of Murderers Just because two authors write in the same genre, doesn't mean their books need have much ...

Recently (20th Dec) the author and editor Diana Athill was interviewed on the Today programme for her 100 th birthday. Happy birthday! One of the things Ms Athill mentioned in her interview was her first memory, which was of falling into a puddle and being hauled out again. It set me musing on my own earliest memories. I can think of several, and because we moved house two weeks after my 4 th birthday I can accurately date them as being three or even two years old at the time. Most of those images involved getting into trouble with Mother. And most often came out of trying to keep up with two elder brothers (then aged seven and nine) who did not want their tiny little sister to tag along in the first place. Memory 1/ Throwing a monumental hissy fit because I could see my brothers building a snowman in the garden. I clearly recall standing in my cot and shaking the bars, whilst my mother stood at the sink washing up. (I was sick often and the kitchen was heated overnight ...

If you go down to the woods today... When I started writing my new series, the Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries , and set myself the ambitious target of publishing a cycle of seven novels over two years, I had no idea how much I would come to enjoy escaping into its fictitious Cotswold village of Wendlebury Barrow. Having now drafted the first three in the series -  Best Murder in Show   was published in April,   Trick or Murder? will launch in August, and Murder in the Manger will be my 2017 Christmas special (no surprises there) -   I feel as if the characters are old friends. I feel entirely at home with them. My second home... That shouldn't really come as a surprise, because in real life, I've  resided in the small Cotswold village of Hawkesbury Upton for over a quarter of a century.  Both the fictitious and the real village are safe, fun but eccentric places to live . Frequently heard in response to Hawkesbury Upton events is the...

I faced a difficult debate: do I stay in the confines of my writing cave for the day (and hopefully not get distracted by social media and the mountain of housework) or do I attend the first Killer Women festival of crime writing in London last weekend? As I hate to miss out, I chose to go. The founders of Killer Women (a group of crime writers mostly from London), Melanie McGrath and Louise Millar believed London didn't have its own crime writing festival and so created this one day event in Shoreditch Town Hall. As most of you will know, I'm still learning and soaking up the information I need to succeed as a writer, so I'm always happy to learn, and there were some elements of the programme that really interested me. Photo courtesy of reader Timea Cassera (left) How to pitch a novel, Building Suspense workshop, Inside the Killer's Head event, How to Self-publish a Bestseller, How to Solve a Murder and Making a Murderer workshop. These are just some of the...

As a crime writer I often find myself doing research. This can take many different forms. but sometimes it can take surprising turns. Despite the fact I write contemporary crime novels, I recently did a lot of research on hanging. I now know how to make a hangman's knot which traditionally has 13 loops. However, some hangman's knots have 9 loops. I also now know how to tie a cowboy's Lasso  or lariat knot. These skills are essential in any crime writer's arsenal. Guns, bullets, knives, swords, crossbows, yep, I can tick them all off my list. This probably has me on some sort of government watchlist for my online habits. I'm expecting  the local police, Interpol and the FBI to come storming through my door any minute now. How is this different I hear you say. It's just the sort of research I would expect any crime writer to do. Of course you would be right. However, sometimes research can take a very surprising turn indeed. The little fella in the pictu...