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 ...

I am nothing if not modest. In fact, modesty is the greatest amongst my many talents. I lay claim to an average level of proficiency in most physical pursuits, with the exception of gymnastics, ice-skating and throwing a ball, all of which I'm pretty crap at. But I can twirl several martial arts weapons with a worrying degree of almost efficiency. When it comes to tastes in music, I like a bit of everything – the latest tunes on the pop transistor radio station, classical pieces by people in suits, bluegrass by folks with no teeth, heavy rock by hairy ones. Stick a label on it and I've probably got examples in my music collection. I myself can play fairly averagely well on several musical instruments – guitar, piano, trumpet, anything that plucks or blows. Regarding TV, films – I'll watch Downton Abbey , Dr Who , Lillehammer , The Middle , almost anything. Reading – contemporary fiction, classics, crime, thrillers, science fiction, misery lit, I lap it all up. Not a big f...

e-book or printed? During a recent weekend spent with writers old and young, I was in the company of a well-known novelist (no namedropping) and mentioned I was enjoying reading Gone Girl. (I was about half way through at the time).  She said she had like it too and like me had read the e-book. She also happened to say that it was ‘the kind of book that was good for Kindle’. This perplexed me but I let it ride until later in the weekend by which time I had finished the book and  we talked about it again. I wanted to know which novels she considered good for Kindle. I might have misunderstood, but I gathered that she considered the e-format better for quick reads, genre fiction or page-turning thrillers. I was surprised that she felt this need to differentiate in this way. She has, by the way, been published in both formats and is working now on something that will go straight to e-book, so we are not talking Luddite or literary snob. I went off to think about my ...

Last week, a colleague remarked on the variation in what I write. 'Every book seems different,' he said. But I reckon that's been the rock I've perished on as far as traditional publishing is concerned. I could never settle down to writing within any single marketable genre. I was always going off at a tangent.  So maybe acquisitions editors were right when they declared time and again that they loved the work but couldn't possibly carry Marketing with them. It's true, though, that I often write about love in all its strange and wonderful manifestations. And I often find myself writing about people who are damaged in one way and another. Perhaps by past trauma, as in Bird of Passage and more recently in Ice Dancing .  Perhaps by a betrayal of friendship or family, as in the Curiosity Cabinet and a new novel called The Physic Garden. Perhaps by circumstances of birth, as in The Amber Heart . Put these two predilections (obsessions, some might call them) toge...