Consuelo Roland's Blog

The ‘double life’ or secret identity is a recurring theme in contemporary fiction. Characters conceal their true selves or roles, leading to complex relationships and suspenseful narratives.  Contemporary fiction borrows themes and tropes from the classics. In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, a portrait serves as a visual representation of Dorian’s double life and … Continue reading Suspense and Secrets : The Double Life in Contemporary Fiction

A new edition of The Good Cemetery Guide hot off the Karavan Press!  Lighthouses cast light in the darkness for weary fishermen to find their way home. But sometimes the sea takes them and then the Loxton Funeral Parlour gets busy. Whenever I needed to get inside my reluctant 3rd-generation funeral director’s head I’d walk around … Continue reading Suspense and Secrets 2: The Double Life in Contemporary Fiction

A new edition of The Good Cemetery Guide hot off the Karavan Press!    Lighthouses cast light in the darkness for weary fishermen to find their way home. But sometimes the sea takes them and then the Loxton Funeral Parlour gets busy. Whenever I needed to get inside my reluctant 3rd-generation funeral director’s head I’d walk … Continue reading Suspense and Secrets: The Double Life in Contemporary Fiction

I confess that I tried to make a sour dough starter and failed. Before. Lockdown Level 5. My niece passes on the idea and sends a video link. I watch a charismatic and patient young London baker explain his lifes passion. During. I spend two weeks feeding (too sporadically?) my ravenous potential-loaf-of-bread child. It doesnt Continue reading Corona, the Baker and the Snail

via thiswasaerodrome Love and Crime: in conversation with Consuelo Roland

An interviewer asked about the detectives in the Limbo Trilogy. The question came as a surprise and got me thinking. Why are literary suspense writers increasingly drawn to detectives in all their guises? Detectives in fiction are often alcoholics on the fringes of polite society. We relish the fact that they are loners and that … Continue reading Strange Angels; detectives in contemporary fiction

  The genre question keeps raising its head. And once again, with marketing for book 2 of the Limbo Trilogy underway, and  the revamp of my author’s blog on WordPress I had to reconsider my options. I’ve done a lot of ruminating on this topic. It’s all about different storytelling styles. Thriller implies a fast-paced … Continue reading Why Literary Suspense?

I write contemporary suspense fiction about apparently normal people with a hidden double life. A boy sleeps in a coffin and plans his escape from the family business funeral parlour. A woman enters a world of sexual and emotional abandon in order to find her lost husband. The people in my novels exist on the border between … Continue reading Double Lives and Forbidden Secrets: Contemporary Suspense Fiction

I write contemporary suspense fiction about apparently normal people with a hidden double life. A boy sleeps in a coffin and plans his escape from the family business funeral parlour. A woman enters a world of sexual and emotional abandon in order to find her lost husband. The people in my novels exist on the border between … Continue reading About me the writer

How queer it is to be moved by a room. It happened to me in Sils-Maria, a place I now carry with me. I stood on the doorsill of the cordoned-off restricted space where a man of great intellect had sat at a small desk – the original piece of furniture still there – and pondered … Continue reading La Stanza – The Room