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 ...

(from left to right) Orna Ross, me and Katie Fforde at the first Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival in April 2015 (Photo by Clint Randall) Writing on the penultimate day of 2017, I can't NOT think about where this year has taken me and what next year will bring.  Don't worry - I'm not going to be banging on about New Years' Resolutions . I love new beginnings and seize every opportunity for one - new school terms (I have a school-age daughter), solstices, equinoxes, birthdays, etc. But I was cured of an addiction to Resolutions a couple of years ago by my friend and mentor, the author and creativism teacher Orna Ross (you may also know her as the founder and director of the Alliance of Independent Authors ). Orna Ross made me realise that New Years' Resolutions generally focus on the negative: things to give up or bad habits to reform. Her recommendation is to state Creative Intentions instead - a more positive, constructive system which focuses on the ...

Novelist Debbie Young shares thoughts from a country garden Have you ever been surprised at how few people know a word that you've always taken for granted? That happened to me this week when I was working my way through suggestions and queries raised on my current work-in-progress by my extremely helpful team of beta readers . Oh, and before we go any further, just in case you've never come across the term "beta reader", that's the book's equivalent to a test pilot - a pre-publication reader who offers feedback on a book prior to publication. A Harvest of Words Autumn story now available to pre-order The work in question is the second in my Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries series of lighthearted classic cosy crime novels, Trick of Murder? This series will run the course of the village year from one summer to the next. Trick or Murder? spans October to November, thus incorporating both Halloween and Guy Fawkes' Night, and the tail end ...

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...