Katharine Johnson's Blog

If you’re Christmas shopping and have some booklovers on your good list, I have a great suggestion for you. I’m always on the lookout for interesting gifts for book-loving friends and the occasional indulgent treat for my writing room so was thrilled to discover Lizzie Chantree’s fabulous Bookish Gifts. As well as writing bestselling romances full of friendship and laughter, she is now selling bookish gifts and merchandise.

The collection includes bags, aprons, cushions and notebooks. My first real journalism job was on a magazine for gift shops and I’m still fascinated by how designers come up with their ideas. So, when Lizzie popped into my virtual coffee shop, I couldn’t wait to find out more.

What gave you the idea to set up this business?

I ran a gift business for over fifteen years before my daughter became unwell (she’s fine now) and was an award winning product designer. But I needed to stay at home to listen to her breathing, as she coughed incessantly, and wrote my first book to help keep my mind off of the worry. I then hid the book in a cupboard for five years until her health improved. I’m currently waiting for a publishing date and I’ve wanted to build a sustainable bookish merchandise business for quite a while, so now felt like the right time to go for it!

How important is sustainability to you?

This is a big part of my business ethos. All of the products are sustainable and made to be sent back and recycled. They are made from sustainable cotton in a green energy factory. Even the packaging is plastic free and the paper can be used as a colouring-in page!

Which is your personal favourite?

This is a hard one because I love all of the designs! I do wear my Should be writing, but am probably procrastinating, t-shirt a lot!

And I absolutely love my, Today’s good mood is sponsored by books, large shopping tote. It’s so soft and hard wearing. Plus it has loads of room for my manuscripts and notebooks.

What are your goals for the New Year?

Personalised products will be something I’m looking to add next year. For now it’s hectic with how popular this has become so quickly! I’ve been really lucky that lots of writers and readers have been buying my brand and posting about it online because the t-shirts are so comfortable and fun to wear. The gift products are beautiful quality too. They are made to last.

Do you have any advice for other authorpreneurs?

My advice would be to use your skills from any part of your life. They are never wasted. I trained in marketing and graphic design at college and didn’t know how useful that would be for me as a writer. Also, do your research. Make sure there is a market for your work and test products out.

Finally, have fun with it!

Thanks for visiting Lizzie and good luck with the business. Now I really should get back to writing!

Today is publication day for a brand new version of The Suspects.

Much like the characters inside it, this book’s been on a rollercoaster ride but I’m delighted with the new cover and hope this new edition from Bloodhound Books will appeal to some new readers.

It’s also available as an audiobook for the first time which is very exciting!

Huge thanks to everyone who has supported my novel along its journey. I’m thrilled with the reviews it’s had so far including:

“An engrossing read!”

“I thought I was good at guessing the culprit when reading a whodunnit, but I got whiplash my mind was turning so fast in this one! So well written, so craftily plotted, such a great read.”

“I swear my blood pressure went up whilst reading this fantastically engaging and propulsive book.”

You can find out more or buy it here

It’s Double Publication Day!

The Silence and The Secret are now available from Bloodhound Books.

https://geni.us/The-Silence

https://geni.us/The-Secret

This blog’s been a bit quiet lately but I’m back at my keyboard and I have news!

Earlier this year my lovely publisher, Darkstroke (originally Crooked Cat) announced they were closing down. As a writer it’s easy to forget that it’s a tough world out there for publishers, too.

Small presses have received some criticism lately because of a few bad apples but the best ones like Crooked Cat/Darkstroke are very selective about the books they accept, NEVER ask their authors to pay for anything, and give good royalties. Being small, they’re able to give their authors more individual attention, and being independent, they have the freedom to sometimes take a risk on unknown authors and niche books. I’ll always be grateful Crooked Cat took me on. As well as publishing my books they introduced me to a fabulous community of authors, many of whom became friends.

However, I’m so excited that my novels have now found a new home at another brilliant small press, Bloodhound Books. I’ve read some absolute crackers from this publisher so it’s thrilling to get the chance to join their kennel.

The Silence and The Secret will be published by Bloodhound Books on October 19.

The Suspects and The Alibi will follow shortly.

I’ve been busy over the summer checking the updated edits and signing off proofs. My covers were in need of a refresh so I was intrigued to see what Bloodhound would come up with – and wow! I hope you like them as much as I do.

If you’ve read and enjoyed these books, I’d be so grateful if you could let others know about them. They’re available for pre-order now at a special price https://geni.us/Silence-Secret

I’m hoping my old reviews will be transferred to the new versions. If you’ve read them and haven’t left a review, it would be amazing if you could do so now. Reviews on Amazon make a huge difference to a book’s success on publication day because the algorithm gives books with a larger number of reviews greater visibility.

Helen Matthews, author of the brilliant new psychological suspense The Girl in the Van shows the importance of settings in a novel and explains why you can take the girl out of Wales, but you can’t take Wales out of the girl

I was born in Cardiff and stayed there until I went to university in Liverpool. After that, I went travelling then settled in London. Some years later, I changed career and my husband and children relocated with me to rural Hampshire. So it’s quite a few decades since I lived in Wales.

I left Wales but Wales has never left me. I haven’t cut my ties, nor would I want to. Being Welsh is more than a nationality, it’s an identity that grips you and won’t let you go. In my new novel The Girl in the Van, published on 17 March by Darkstroke Books, the central character, Laura flees her home in Penarth (a coastal town near Cardiff) and moves to London following an unspeakable tragedy. These are Laura’s feelings as she returns to Wales for the first time in two years:

I’m driving west from London when the bridge across the River Severn, dividing England from Wales, looms into view. My heart lifts. After being uprooted, the pull of Wales is a visceral thing. There’s a name for it: hiraeth – a kind of call to your inner self from a half-forgotten place or time. I’m surprised it still has this power. When I fled Wales two years ago, I was desperate to escape everything from my old life.

The bridge is painted a pastel shade of green. When she was young, Ellie used to say “It’s all minty”. Today the spearmint hue chokes me with memories. I’m making a detour and visiting my mother in Cardiff. None of what’s happened is Mum’s fault, but she blames herself because it happened on her birthday. She’d love to take away my anguish and carry the burden for me, but she can’t do that. No one can.

The characters in my novels aren’t me but sometimes I give them thoughts and feelings I’ve experienced personally. And why not? Those feelings are authentic.

Returning to Wales or even hearing a snatch of music sung by a male voice choir sparks strong emotions if you’re Welsh-in-exile.  My close family has dwindled or moved away but I still have good friends, a love of the coast, mountains and people and, of course, the rugby. Before the pandemic, I usually made it to one Six Nations rugby match in Cardiff each year.

In two of my three previous novels. I’ve featured Welsh main characters. My debut After Leaving the Village juxtaposes the lives of two women, one from a village in Albania; the other, Kate, a journalist, who grew up in a village in Wales. Desperate to wean her son off online gaming, Kate tries to recreate the feeling of a village community on her London street. Some scenes are set in West Wales where Kate grew up and this passage describes the scenery around  a church where she goes to visit the grave of a friend from her youth.

At the next crossroads, the signpost has been uprooted and dumped in the hedge. There are few landmarks and it’s hard to be sure which way the arrows were pointing originally. Taking a wild guess, she turns inland and follows the road uphill, changing down to a lower gear. Her guess proves right. As she approaches the brow of the hill the grey stone tower of Eglwys Dewi Sant comes into view. The church is situated at the highest point, with panoramic views over the countryside and out to sea. Exposed to the elements, it seems to be floating on an ocean of fields. Sun, the colour of weak tea, peers through the clouds painting the landscape in its autumn colours. Shrubs and bare trees encircle the churchyard; all the trees are bent over at the same angle, backs to the Atlantic they bow their heads towards England, towards Mecca.

She could just keep driving straight on past but she doesn’t. She parks untidily, hops out, runs up the worn steps under the lychgate and into the church yard to find Rhys’s grave.

Kate’s village is fictional but has elements of many places in Wales I’ve visited.  In The Girl in the Van I’ve been bolder and risked setting scenes in real places in Wales. (Roads, house names and the school where Laura taught are made up – I wouldn’t want to offend).

If you can get past the scary stuff, you could use The Girl in the Van for as a travel guide for a mini-break. Start off just outside Cardiff and visit the fascinating Welsh Folk museum at St Fagans, where ancient houses, churches and farms have been transported from all over Wales and reconstructed on site. In my novel, this is where Laura meets her former partner, Gareth for a showdown.

You won’t be able to visit the actual house where Laura goes to see her mum but it’s actually my childhood home, where every room was painted a different shade of blue, as I’ve described. Instead, you could go to the Victorian seaside town of Penarth, where Laura once lived with Gareth and Ellie.

Sun beat down on the pebble beach where a group of youngsters about Ellie’s age were playing ball games. Elderly couples were strolling along the promenade, and near the entrance to the Victorian pier a young mum was sharing her takeaway fish and chips with a child in a pushchair. The sea sparkled, and the view across the Bristol Channel to the nature reserve islands of Flat Holm and Steep Holm made me unbearably sad. I turned my face inland to the terrace of shops and cafés, painted in blue, yellow and shocking pink.

End your mini-break in Tenby, stopping on the way to visit Dylan Thomas’s boathouse home and writing shed at Laugharne. It’s inspiring to stand in the spot where one of Wales’s literary giants created his poetry and there are some great coastal path walks in the area.

Dylan Thomas’s writing shed on the coastal path at LaugharnHelen Matthews outside Dylan Thomas’s writing shed

The Girl in the Van opens in Tenby with its fabulous beaches,  offshore islands, Georgian architecture and connections to famous people marked by blue plaques. Laura has travelled in her secondhand campervan to stay on a campsite with a group of strangers. It’s here she  meets (or rather discovers) Miriana, who is cowering in her van. Who or what is Miriana hiding from? Why does Laura’s life take a strange and dangerous turn when their paths cross?

View of Tenby

Despite featuring stunning locations, The Girl in the Van is a chilling suspense thriller. As you’d expect, part of the action takes place in dark or dingy settings – a rough estate in Croydon; a drug addict’s home in a rundown area of Newport. In fiction, as in life, bad and frightening things happen to good people and sometimes in beautiful places. There’s no template for this so expect to read about love and loss, grief and recovery, terror and resilience, light and shade as the characters guide you to a nail-biting and terrifying climax.

About the book

A tormented mother. An abandoned girl. A deadly game of survival.

What happened to Ellie?
Traumatised by events, Ellie’s mother, Laura, can’t bear to stay in the Welsh seaside town where she lives with her partner, Gareth. She escapes to London, breaking all ties with him, and refusing to tell anyone her new address.
After two years of living alone and working in a mundane job, Laura buys an old campervan and joins a singles holiday. Here, she meets Miriana, a teenage girl who bears a chilling resemblance to Ellie. As Laura uncovers Miriana’s story, she’s shocked by the parallels to her own life.
But stories can be dangerous, and someone out there will stop at nothing to prevent the truth about Ellie from coming out…

You can download The Girl in the Van or buy the paperback here

About the Author

Helen Matthews writes page-turning psychological suspense novels and is fascinated by the darker side of human nature and how a life can change in an instant. Her latest novel The Girl in the Van was published on 17 March by Darkstroke Books. Previous novels include suspense thriller After Leaving the Village, which won first prize in the opening pages category at Winchester Writers’ Festival, and was followed by Lies Behind the Ruin, domestic noir set in France, published by Hashtag Press. Her third novel Façade was  published by Darkstroke Books in 2020.

Born in Cardiff, Helen read English at the University of Liverpool and worked in international development, consultancy, human resources and pensions management. She fled corporate life to work freelance while studying for a Creative Writing MA at Oxford Brookes University. Her stories and flash fiction have been shortlisted and published by Flash 500, 1000K Story, Reflex Press, Artificium and Love Sunday magazine.

She is a keen cyclist, covering long distances if there aren’t any hills, sings in a choir and once appeared on stage at Carnegie Hall, New York in a multi-choir performance. She loves spending time in France. Helen is an Ambassador for the charity, Unseen, which works towards a world without slavery and donates her author talk fees, and a percentage of royalties, to the charity.

Find out more:

https://www.helenmatthewswriter.com

https://www.Instagram.com/helen.matthews7

https://Facebook.com/HelenMK7Writer

A few weeks ago, I went to a murder mystery evening in Windsor. We were all guests at the fictional gala dinner on the eve of the Too Many Cooks TV cookery show finale, hosted by celebrity chef Steve Patterson. Guests would be dying to know if Steve Patterson was the same as he was portrayed on television – or even nastier.

But the real question turned out to be, is £100,000 a prize worth killing for?

So, a three-course dinner and a juicy mystery – what’s not to like?

Of course it wasn’t long before someone was murdered, and together with the other sleuths on our table we talked to the suspects, examined the evidence and tried to figure out whodunnit. The actors moved around the tables chatting to guests, and all manner of secrets, lies and grudges tumbled out – along with several bright red herrings. The acting was great and we felt part of the story.

The Thai green vegetable curry main course was too fiery to taste (making me wonder for an awful nanosecond if I was the next victim) but the starter (wild mushroom and artichoke feuillette with tarragon cream) and dessert (deep apple and cinnamon pie with sauce anglaise) were delicious.

We didn’t stay the night because we live close by but the Sir Christopher Wren hotel where the event was held has a lovely riverside setting on the edge of Eton Bridge and some rooms have castle views. Windsor’s such a small town you can walk everywhere and there’s plenty to do including visiting the castle, watching the Changing of the Guard, having afternoon tea in the town where the concept was invented, hiring a boat or taking the amphibious Duck Bus tour around the sights and on the water.

The murder mystery event was organised by Murder 57 Ltd who stage murder mysteries throughout the year in lots of locations. More information here

Books to devour

Not only did I really enjoy the evening, it made me think about how food and whodunnits are a perfect concoction.

Culinary cozy mystery writer Jessica Thompson’s devilish whodunnits include delicious recipes such as apple strudel, chocolate oatmeal snickerdoodles, and chilaquiles verdes in A Caterer’s Guide to Love and Murder (available here) and Mexican hot chocolate and lemon rosemary cupcakes with ricotta frosting in A Caterer’s Guide to Holidays and Homicide (available here) featured in a recent publication day post.

She explains why food and crime are a winning combo and how her passion for the genre led to publication:

SONY DSC

“Sorry to burst this bubble, but I did not actually invent a new subgenre when I started writing culinary cozy mysteries as a lot of people think. I would LOVE to take the credit, but it was already a thing long before I found it. I was just walking through the local library, looking through random books, (I think I might have been looking for mysteries,) when I found a cute mystery that looked clean and was about food. When I cracked it open and found out that it was a mystery with recipes, I was so excited!

I was already fascinated with cooking, always chasing the way to make homemade versions of my favorite foods, and devouring mysteries (although usually audiobooks.) So when I discovered this subgenre, the clouds parted, heavenly choirs sang, and … I don’t know … enlightenment dawned.

I won’t say which book it was, because when I took it home and read it, it was awful! The mystery was predictable and formulaic, the recipes were outdated and unremarkable, and the dialogue was just painful. As I complained to my husband about it (not online, cuz homie don’t play that) I remembered my policy whenever people complain.

You can’t complain unless you’re volunteering to help.

While I couldn’t help that writer, maybe I could contribute to the genre. I already loved reading mysteries, was regularly creating recipes, and I was looking for a new long-term goal. It was also strangely encouraging that the book I had read was so bad. Like the bar was low enough that it wasn’t intimidating.

I read on, but when I found the line “It looked like the ongoing feud was still going on,” I finally threw the book down and decided that if that book could get published, and even be a bestseller, then so could I!

I outlined and wrote for a long time, on and off, but it was only after I came out of the writing closet and made some writing friends (or more like discovered that some of my friends were secretly writing, too) that I finally finished the first draft.

After that, I had no idea if it was at all close to being publishable! Since I didn’t know what I didn’t know, I hired a content editor who was a friend of a friend of a friend. When she got back to me with only small notes and changes, I fixed it up and started querying.

I have always suffered from too realistic of goals. My long term goal that I thought might not even be achievable, was to get published by the time I was forty years old. I had found the genre when I was thirty-two and started querying right when I turned thirty-six. By the end of that first year I had gotten lots of rejections from agents, turned down one publisher, signed with a second, and then gone through the expedited process of publishing with a house that likes a quick turn around. That was last year. Now I have two Amazon bestselling culinary cozy mysteries, A Caterer’s Guide to Love and Murder and A Caterer’s Guide to Holidays and Homicide, plus an anthology of short stories in the works, and I’m outlining my third book in the series.

The genre has been good to me. I’m not an amazing writer, but I do hope that I’m getting better. Maybe it’s all about a writer finding the right genre for them, their interests, their abilities, and their passions. Good luck to all you writers out there! I hope you can also find your perfect genre, whether it already exists or you have to invent it.

I think all writers must stand together to defeat the evil forces of short attention spans and illiteracy, so reach out to me if you need an advocate, a critique partner, or just a friend. “

https://Jessicathompsonauthor.com
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Do you have any recommendations for a murder mystery event or a great culinary whodunnit? If so, I’d love to hear from you!

I’m excited to share with you a teaser from the latest in Val Penny’s fabulous Edinburgh Mystery series. If you’ve read the other books in this collection featuring Hunter Wilson or The First Cut in the new Jane Renwick series, I’ve no doubt you’ll want to read this. And if you haven’t but love police thrillers, why not snap up some of the earlier stories to read before Hunter’s Rules comes out on New Year’s Day 2022?

Hunter’s Rules is the sixth book in the series which has been described as being “up there with Ian Rankin”. It’s great to catch up with the detective and his team in this story. From the opening, it’s clear this is going to be a thrilling read – and with Hunter himself becoming a suspect, the stakes are higher than ever.

Extract

“Well, I have just one more surprise for you.”

“Another one? Oh, Hunter,” she said.

“I’ve booked the honeymoon suite here for us tonight, and if everything has gone according to plan there should be a bottle of champagne chilling there for us. Shall we go upstairs and check?”

Hunter and Meera continued walking towards the elevators, and he pressed the button indicating they would be going up. They stood close together, gazing into each other’s eyes, but it was not long until the furthest lift arrived. They shifted slightly towards those doors and made room for anybody getting out.

Nobody got out.

A young woman lay motionless on the floor, and the inside of the car was drenched with blood.

“Oh God, not another one,” Hunter said. He stared at the raw flesh in the sockets where the girl’s eyes should have been. What kind of monster would choose to murder someone this way? He turned away from the horrific sight of the young woman’s butchered face. He gagged. Then swallowed the bile. He daren’t contaminate the crime scene with his own vomit.

Meera knelt beside the victim and felt her wrist. “Hunter, this one is still alive. Call an ambulance. Do it now!”

Hunter immediately went into professional mode. He stepped a few yards away from the scene and called the ambulance. The soles of his shoes were covered in blood. Then he phoned Fettes police station. Desk Sergeant Charlie Middleton answered.

“Police Scotland, how can I help?”

“Charlie, the eye thief has struck again.”

“Fuck.”

Blurb

A bloody scene brings Hunter and Meera’s romantic plans to an abrupt end.

A young woman was attacked in a hotel lift. She has life changing injuries, but she is alive. Hunter notes that her wounds are like those inflicted on two women who previously died.  

Can Meera keep the injured woman alive long enough for her to identify her assailant? Is the same person responsible for all three crimes? When Hunter is identified as a suspect in the crime, can he establish his innocence and lead his team to solve the crime and keep Edinburgh safe?

Where to buy

Hunter’s Rules will be published by darkstroke books on 1st January 2022.

You can pre-order the kindle version or buy the paperback of Hunter’s Rules here

If you enjoy stories with a dark edge including mysteries, thrillers, suspense and horror, search darkstroke books on Amazon.

About the Author

This is the sixth book in The Edinburgh Crime Mysteries series of novels. Val Penny’s other crime novels, Hunter’s Chase Hunter’s Revenge, Hunter’s Force Hunter’s Blood and Hunter’s Secret form the rest of this bestselling series set in Edinburgh, Scotland, published by darkstroke.

You can also start at the beginning of The Jane Renwick Thrillers with The First Cut.

 Her first non-fiction book Let’s Get Published is also available now and she has most recently contributed her short story, Cats and Dogs to a charity anthology, Dark Scotland.

Val is an American author living in SW Scotland with her husband and their cat.

Get in Touch

www.valpenny.com

https://www.facebook.com/Authorvalpenny

www.facebook.com/valerie.penny.739

www.facebook.com/groups/296295777444303

https://www.facebook.com/groups/167248300537409

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17300087.Val_Penny

https://www.bookbub.com/profile/val-penny

My guest in the coffee shop today is Jessica Thompson, bestselling author of culinary crime fiction including the wonderful A Caterer’s Guide to Love and Murder. Today is Publication Day for her second book A Caterer’s Guide to Holidays and Homicide – I can’t wait to sink my teeth into this one!

Keep reading for more details but first the author’s kindly agreed to answer some questions.

SONY DSC

Hello, Jessica and Happy Publication Day! What can I get you?

Hot chocolate is my jam! No matter the weather. I try to avoid caffeine so I’ll pass on the tea and coffee.

No problem at all – one hot chocolate coming right up. I see you’ve brought some books with you – what are you reading at the moment?

I’m SO close to my goal of reading all of Agatha Christie’s books, so I’m reading a collection of the Miss Marple short stories while I gather my courage before saying goodbye in Curtain.

That’s impressive! AC wrote so many books. I have a feeling I might know the answer to the next question but who is your hero (real or fictional)?

Mostly my mom but also Agatha Christie.

If you could choose a superpower, what would it be?

Flying. Definitely. I regularly had flying dreams all the way into college.

Oh me too! And do you have a favourite film?

I love a charmingly funny movie, like Dan In Real Life or Mostly Martha.

Why did you choose to write in the culinary crime genre?

As soon as I discovered culinary mysteries were a thing, I knew where I was meant to be. Mysteries? Love ’em! Food and recipes? Lemme at ’em! But both together means a subgenre that’s made for me!

Yes I’m a big fan of foodie fiction, and the mystery angle in yours is the cherry on top! What do you find the hardest aspect of writing a novel?

Editing! Ugh, gouge my eyes out! Outlining and writing the first draft is the easy part.

Tell me about it! For me it’s those pesky typos that seem to multiply every time you make a correction. What are you working on next?

I’m editing a classic mystery called Shoot Shovel and Shut Up and putting together an anthology of spooky stories from my writing friends.

Wow, you are busy! Which is all great news for us readers. Thanks so much Jessica

If you haven’t read Jessica’s first book yet, you can get it here

Now let’s take a look at the new book:

Deck the Halls…with a personal chef, a snowed-in lodge and a sprinkling of murder!

“Watch the knives!”

While acting as personal chef for a friend’s mountain retreat, Violet and her husband Jake must set aside their stress over infertility and create a magical and delicious holiday – until tragedy crashes the party.

Being snowed in and unreachable from town, Violet and Jake end up hired for a different kind of job – finding out which of the guests committed murder and why someone’s trying to fame the hostess. Violet must find a balance between following her gut and keeping it all under control until the police can reach them, while still managing the kitchen. But can she sniff out the killer before anyone else bites the big one?

A Caterer’s Guide to Holidays and Homicide will give you a culinary holiday you won’t forget!

It’s published by Darkstroke and is available here

More about Jessica

When Jessica discovered mystery novels with recipes, she knew she had found her niche.
Now Jessica is the author of the Amazon best-selling culinary cozy mystery, “A Caterer’s Guide to Love and Murder,” and the second book of the series, “A Caterer’s Guide to Holidays and Homicide,” is out today. She is active in her local writing community and is a member of the Writers’ League of Texas and the Storymakers Guild. She received a bachelor’s degree in Horticulture from Brigham Young University but has always enjoyed writing and reading mysteries.
As an avid home chef and food science geek, Jessica has won cooking competitions and been featured in the online Taste of Home recipe collection. She also tends to be the go-to source for recipes, taste-testing, and food advice among her peers. 
Jessica is originally from California, but now has adopted the Austin, Texas lifestyle. She enjoys living in the suburbs with her husband and young children, but also enjoys helping her parents with their nearby longhorn cattle ranch.

Get in touch

Website Jessicathompsonauthor.com
Instagramhttps://instagram.com/jessicathauthor/
Facebookhttps://facebook.com/jessicathauthor/
Twitterhttps://twitter.com/jessicathauthor/
Pinteresthttps://pinterest.com/jessicathauthor/
Goodreadshttp://goodreads.com/jessicathauthor/
Bookbubhttps://www.bookbub.com/profile/jessica-thompson-ede71ffc-5762-4778-a116-3c3a048cb45f

What a pleasure to spy Karen Moore in the coffee shop today, eyeing up the croissants! Karen’s the author of Torn, a superb read for lovers of Italy-based dark crime fiction. Having lived in Italy for ten years and been a travel guide, she knows the place inside and out. Her new novel Release is hot off the press – more details below.

Hi Karen, what can I get you today?

Hi Katy, my usual please – a double macchiato and an almond croissant.

Coming right up! I’m excited to read your new book. A lot of fiction set in Italy is romantic or historical whereas your books are thrillers. Why did you choose to write in this genre?

My favourite genre for both reading and writing is anything dark – thrillers, crime, suspense – that is gripping and fast-paced. I particularly like Nordic Noir, with its iconic characters and often bleak settings, and underlying social issues. I’m fascinated by the way people react when faced with dilemmas and situations outside their comfort zone and I try to explore this in my writing.

I love novels that are driven by a difficult dilemma. What’s the story behind your new story?

The inspiration for my first novel Torn originally came from news reports on the distressing migrant situation in the Mediterranean, with large numbers of people trying to flee from Africa into Europe via Sicily in appalling conditions. Many didn’t survive the journey. Little seemed to be done at the time to bring this under control.

My new book, Release, was inspired by the fact that this situation continues today, although on a smaller scale and with a different focus. That, together with the feeling that I hadn’t quite finished with the characters in Torn, nor they with me.

Although Release is a sequel, it is written as a stand-alone novel for anyone who may not have read Torn.

That’s great to hear. Can you tell me a bit about how you write? Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I’m more of a pantser. My first novel started as a germ of an idea and went on to develop a life of its own and just grew and grew. With Release, I was determined to adopt a more structured approach. Although I had the outline and various plot points in my head, new ideas kept popping into my mind and the characters started to behave in ways I’d not imagined. I like the freedom and flexibility that being a pantser brings and being able to change direction if need be.

If you could invite just two authors (alive or dead) to dinner, who would they be?

I’m fascinated by Daphne du Maurier and Charlotte Brontë, both strong, independent women of their time, with a flair for creating spellbinding stories. Both led interesting lives that would make them intriguing dinner guests. I’d like to know more about their inspiration, iconic settings, and compelling characters, and how they defied the social mores of their era to become distinguished published authors.

That sounds like an amazing dinner party! If you could be a fictional detective, who would you choose?

In keeping with the setting of my two novels, I would have to choose the Sicilian detective Inspector Montalbano from Andrea Camilleri’s books. Judging by the Italian TV series, he has such a wonderful life in the fictional Sicilian town of Vigata: solves the odd case, morning swims in the bay outside his house, fabulous fresh seafood lunches alfresco, an attractive consort always in tow. And all that sunshine!

Taormina, Sicily

Wonderful! My last visit to Sicily was cancelled because of the pandemic but I hope to reschedule before too long. Every time I watch Montalbano I want to be there (although perhaps not in the middle of a murder investigation). Do you have an idea what you will be working on next?

I’ve started work on a third novel in the series where we meet some of the characters several years later, although the action has now moved away from Sicily and the characters are facing new challenges.

Fascinating – look forward to reading it. Thanks for visiting the Coffee Shop today Karen and good luck with your new Release!

About Release

A threat returns. An attack with fatal consequences. A life lived in fear.

When Hanna’s estranged mafioso husband, Luciano, is released early from a Sicilian prison, she fears he will come after her and her young daughter, Eva.

The revelation leaves her with a dilemma. Invited to Sicily to attend her best friend’s wedding, can she really take the risk? 

But even staying at home in North Wales may not be safe. Something strange is going on at her old cottage in the hills. As the lines between Sicily and North Wales blur, Hanna uncovers a criminal operation that leads her to fear for Eva’s life all over again.

Will Hanna ever be able to release herself from Luciano’s grip? Or will her discovery lead her into even deeper danger?

Book links

Both books are available in e-book and paperback format on Amazon: 

Release – http://mybook.to/releasenovel

Torn – http://mybook.to/darkstroketorn

Contact links

www.facebook.com/karenmooreauthor

www.twitter.com/KarenMo35731701

Author biography

Karen Moore is a British thriller writer based in Cheshire. She lived in Italy for ten years and worked as a tour guide in Europe, the USA and Canada, followed by a career in PR and marketing. Release is her second novel. 

I hadn’t read anything by this author before but was grabbed by the stylish artwork and comparison to books like Friend Request, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train.

I see my son’s scooter lying in the undergrowth. Time stands still. Where is he? Deafened by my own heartbeat, I keep looking but I can’t see him. This is all my fault. My punishment for the things I did, and the things I should have done.

All I ever wanted was to keep my son safe. I married the perfect husband, built the perfect home. I’ve tried to give Finn the life I never had.

Everything was going so well. Until now.

It’s just small things at first – a punctured tyre, an open gate that I’m sure I locked. But then I see the photograph of two young girls, and a night I’ve tried to forget.

I know I have to stop pretending that nothing is happening. I can’t escape the truth.

Someone knows my secret. But what do they want from me?

My review

I love stories where the main character is confronted by someone from their past who knows their secret and this one more than lived up to my expectations. Nicci’s constructed an apparently perfect life for herself and her little boy and put her own troubled childhood behind her. She works as a dentist’s receptionist for her husband Ian but having grown up in the care system she’s also ideally placed to help at-risk teenagers. Ian however doesn’t approve which is putting a strain on their marriage. He also has very different views on how she should bring up her son Finn who he believes needs to man up.

Although to the reader, Ian’s behaviour is creepy and controlling, Nicci because of her past is at first oblivious to this. The past timeline shows the dark and dangerous world she was led into by her friend Donna and the shocking consequences. Now Donna’s back on the scene, how far will Nicci go to protect her child?

This is a dark and disturbing domestic noir that I found impossible to put down. It’s brilliantly written with lots of twists. I consumed it in one go and would highly recommend it to other fans of domestic noir.

A Good Mother is published by Bookouture and available here.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via NetGalley.