Introducing Roseanna Hall
My 25th mystery – “Watch the Wall, Miss Seeton” – was published in the year I had my 70th birthday. Having noticed that even the Author's Notes from some modern best-selling authors use four-letter-words, I felt like a throwback to gentler time and wondered about retirement.
Then I learned that Catherine Aird was still writing mysteries in her 90s (she has just published a new Sloane and Crosby mystery at the age of 93, and has the next one planned) so I felt that age was no excuse for retiring. But what should I write? Back in 2020 we were entering the world of Covid, closely followed by the events in Ukraine. To kill more people, even in light-hearted fiction, felt like self-indulgence.
Instead, I decided to abandon Plummergen and write about a different fictional village – one where no-one was ever murdered. I could not do that as Hamilton Crane, because purchasers would expect a Miss Seeton mystery. I couldn't even do it under my real name (Sarah J. Mason), because all eight of my books had also been mysteries. That meant I needed to choose a new name, so I headed off to my family tree in search of one.
My pseudonym for the new series comes from my grandfather’s grandmother: Roseanna Hall. She married John George, and I would have loved to use the name of their daughter (my great-grandmother) but, as you’re all mystery fans, you’ll understand that I couldn’t claim I was Elizabeth George!
The first book by Roseanna Hall is “Moving to Combe Tollbridge”. It is published today by Farrago and the series title is An Exmoor Harbour Tale because, although it is set in the present day, its location is very much in Lorna Doone country. I have already submitted the second tale (working title "Adrift in Combe Tollbridge"), and am assembling my ideas for the third.
When my publisher first read this one, he suggested there was scope to introduce more drama and tension, but I argued that people already have plenty of sources of drama and tension, and might welcome something more relaxing.
I hope you will enjoy my Roseanna Hall stories, and I apologise to those of you who would have loved another Hamilton Crane, but we all need to know when to stop.
At present Goodreads still won't accept that my Roseanna Hall account belongs to the author of Roseanna Hall's book, so the only place you can read more about me as Roseanna Hall is https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/.... Fortunately, Amazon does accept that I'm three different authors!
PS - For connoisseurs of book jacket art, Amazon's page for the paperback of Moving to Combe Tollbridge (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moving-Combe...) currently shows an early draft which included a helicopter. The page for the Kindle edition shows the helicopter-free cover art which actually appears on the paperback. Any of you who buy the paperback will discover that the back cover image is a subtly-modified version of the front cover image.
Then I learned that Catherine Aird was still writing mysteries in her 90s (she has just published a new Sloane and Crosby mystery at the age of 93, and has the next one planned) so I felt that age was no excuse for retiring. But what should I write? Back in 2020 we were entering the world of Covid, closely followed by the events in Ukraine. To kill more people, even in light-hearted fiction, felt like self-indulgence.
Instead, I decided to abandon Plummergen and write about a different fictional village – one where no-one was ever murdered. I could not do that as Hamilton Crane, because purchasers would expect a Miss Seeton mystery. I couldn't even do it under my real name (Sarah J. Mason), because all eight of my books had also been mysteries. That meant I needed to choose a new name, so I headed off to my family tree in search of one.
My pseudonym for the new series comes from my grandfather’s grandmother: Roseanna Hall. She married John George, and I would have loved to use the name of their daughter (my great-grandmother) but, as you’re all mystery fans, you’ll understand that I couldn’t claim I was Elizabeth George!
The first book by Roseanna Hall is “Moving to Combe Tollbridge”. It is published today by Farrago and the series title is An Exmoor Harbour Tale because, although it is set in the present day, its location is very much in Lorna Doone country. I have already submitted the second tale (working title "Adrift in Combe Tollbridge"), and am assembling my ideas for the third.
When my publisher first read this one, he suggested there was scope to introduce more drama and tension, but I argued that people already have plenty of sources of drama and tension, and might welcome something more relaxing.
I hope you will enjoy my Roseanna Hall stories, and I apologise to those of you who would have loved another Hamilton Crane, but we all need to know when to stop.
At present Goodreads still won't accept that my Roseanna Hall account belongs to the author of Roseanna Hall's book, so the only place you can read more about me as Roseanna Hall is https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/.... Fortunately, Amazon does accept that I'm three different authors!
PS - For connoisseurs of book jacket art, Amazon's page for the paperback of Moving to Combe Tollbridge (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moving-Combe...) currently shows an early draft which included a helicopter. The page for the Kindle edition shows the helicopter-free cover art which actually appears on the paperback. Any of you who buy the paperback will discover that the back cover image is a subtly-modified version of the front cover image.
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