Category: author

Meet the Publisher – Crooked Cat Books

Published on by Anne-Marie OrmsbyLeave a comment

2017 has been a great year in may ways for me – one of the reasons for that was finally finding a publisher for my novel Purgatory Hotel. After publication I have had the great fortune to come into contact with a great many writers who I have been busy chatting to about their own books which has been an amazing experience.

In a bonus interview I was able to get an audience with the mysterious Crooked Cat. In a rather surreal turn – the publishing house known as Crooked Cat Books agreed to an interview. But it turns out that the reason I am now a published author is because of an actual cat. A talking one….

 

Welcome to my blog!

 

Thanks so much for inviting me. And may I say what lovely wallpaper you have here. Not sure about the lampshade though.

 

 The lampshade? Its not from Ikea…is that a problem?

Who are Crooked Cat Books?

 

I are Crooked Cat Books and I are six years old. I’m based in France, but I used to live in Great Britain, and I’m a Cat, albeit a bit Crooked. I have around 220 books to my name (well, I didn’t write them), and about 90 authors. And I have rather a following across social media.

 

What inspired you to start an independent publishers?

 

I wanted to give really good storytellers an opportunity to have their voice heard, and being independent helps that. I’ve seen lots of stunning stories over the years and am proud that these are now being read by hundreds of thousands of people across the world. I embrace two things – that authors are the best people to talk about and promote their books, and that they sometimes feel they just want to hear it – to get advice – from other authors.

 

What is your favourite genre to read?

 

I love a bit of crime, me, though there are days when something chick-litty doesn’t go amiss. Having said that, we all like a bit of fantasy, don’t we? Oooh – I’m not sure I have a favourite.

 

Do you have a favourite author?

 

Always the next one I meet!

 

Crooked Cat has a variety of genres in its catalogue, what is it that you look for in a story that hooks you?

 

A really interesting and engaging person writer behind it. Knowing the story is only half of…er…the story, and we’re not only looking for a great hook, well-written, but someone that is a bit of a self-starter, confidence in engaging with their readers, willing to learn and share. If this isn’t you, you’re not going to do well as a published author these days.

 

What do you do when you aren’t publishing books?

 

I eat. I sleep. I chase mice and things.

 

If you could have a night of drinks and literary discussion with any writers (alive or dead) who would you choose?

 

Evelyn Waugh and David Hasselhoff, authors of Brideshead Revisited and Making Waves: The David Hasselhoff Autobiography, respectively.

Many thanks to you for chatting with me, and agreeing to appear on my blog, I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have.

That is my pleasure. I’m sorry about your lampshade.

 

You can enter the world of Crooked Cat Books and its cattery of authors here;

Crooked Cat Books Website

Facebook

 

 

Behind the Book – Winter Writerland

Published on by Anne-Marie OrmsbyLeave a comment

Winter WQriterland coverBeatrice

 

Continuing my conversations with authors and the inspirations behind their work, I had the great pleasure of chatting with Beatrice Fishback. Beatrice hails from New York and lived for 20 years in the UK where she picked up a love of all things British. She now lives in Carolina but still uses the UK as a setting for her work. Her most recent novel Winter Writerland takes place here so I decided to pick her brains on the subject matter.

This is also a perfect choice for something to read over the Christmas holidays – as long as you don’t mind a spot of murder with your mince pies…..

 

Tell us the basic premise of your novel?

Daisy McFarland is an American spinster who has retired to England after teaching elementary school for thirty years. An aspiring novelist, Daisy looks forward to attending the Crime Writer’s Conference in Branick for the third year in a row during the Christmas holidays. What she doesn’t anticipate is finding a body floating in the frozen lake and who could have possibly committed this dastardly deed.

 

The story features a murder at a writers Conference -Did you take any inspiration from any real life crimes? 

I can’t say I took any inspiration from a real life crime but I love to watch Midsomer Murders, Lewis and a selection of other U.K. dramas. In fact, I’m hooked on all of them to include Father Brown.

 

Why did you choose the setting you chose and do the locations hold any real life significance to you?

Last summer I attended the Swanwick Summer Writing School. There I met some wonderful new friends. Chatting over a glass of bubbly we thought the place was the perfect Agatha Christie setting for a cosy. We began to brainstorm and by the time I left the conference I had the skeleton idea for this tale.

 

Is your sleuth Daisy based on anyone?

I seem drawn to writing about mid-life women. Maybe because when I began my writing career I was approaching this season of life. My character in “Dying to Eat at the Pub,” another cosy mystery, is also about a woman who now faces life married to a retired man and she’s anything but ready to sit in front of warm fire and die in her recliner.

 

What/who inspires you most as a writer?

When I read stories that bring fiction alive, I’m inspired to give writing another try in the hopes that the next attempt will be that much better than the last. I especially enjoy Alan Bradley’s series about a much younger sleuth named Flavia de Luce. I love his attention to detail and descriptive settings.

 

Do you have a favourite author? Besides Alan Bradley, I enjoy Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and never tire of his Sherlock character.

 

What are you working on next? My challenge is whether to start another novel, or finish the one that’s nearly completed. I love beginning a new story with fresh characters. But I have half of the sequel to “Dying to Eat at the Pub” and I’d like to see that published in the New Year.

 

You can catch up with Beatrice here;

www.beasattitudes.net

www.facebook.com/Beasattitudes

And treat yourself to a copy of Winter Writerland for some cosy Christmas reading material;

Winter Writerland on Amazon

Behind The Book – Social Anxiety Revealed

Published on by Anne-Marie Ormsby2 Comments

Very excited with this week’s author chat as I got the chance to interview Miriam Drori – who actually was my editor on Purgatory Hotel. Herself an established writer, her most recent release was non-fiction looking at the subject of Social Anxiety. Mental health and the study of it has always been an interest of mine, and indeed features in my own work and life and I was very pleased that Miriam was willing to discuss the background to writing her book.

SAR Cover

 

 

Tell us the basic premise of your book?

Social Anxiety Revealed explains all the different aspects of social anxiety. It makes extensive use of quotes from many people who have experienced social anxiety and who agreed for me to use their words anonymously. This enabled me to show how, despite the similarities, we’re all individuals and that social anxiety affects each of us in different ways.

The book is intended for everyone – sufferers and non-sufferers, because everyone knows or will come across someone who has the condition.

The reviews call it a no-nonsense book that’s well-written and easy to read. I’m glad, because that’s how I meant it to be.

 

You have previously written fiction – what inspired you to move to this subject?

Ah, it only seems as if this is what I did. In fact, I wrote this book before any of the fiction. The book was inspired by two discoveries: that social anxiety is much more common than many people think, and that most people are unaware of its existence. I became passionate about putting this right by raising awareness of it. If more people knew and understood it, many more sufferers would get the help they need to tackle it.

After I tried and failed to get the book published, I turned my attention to writing fiction and eventually got a romance (Neither Here Nor There) accepted by Crooked Cat Books. That was followed by the historical novella, The Women Friends: Selina, the first in a series and co-written with Emma Rose Millar. When Crooked Cat began to publish non-fiction, I proposed my book about social anxiety and it was published, after being revised by me, in August 2017.

 

Were you inspired by any personal experiences?

Certainly, and some of those experiences appear in the book. I think it’s what makes this book unique. There are many self-help books that claim to show how to overcome social anxiety and are written by experts. Some of these have proved very helpful for some sufferers, while others have been unable to gain any benefit from them. I approach the topic from the other side of the patient/therapist divide and hence appeal to a wider audience.

 

How did you research for this subject?

For several years, I belonged to an online forum for social anxiety sufferers. All the topics in the book came up in discussions on the forum. One or two were topics I specifically raised on the forum so that I could include opinions on them in the book.

 

Do you have a favourite author?

That’s a hard question, as my favourite author changes frequently. I know I particularly like reading stories in which I (the reader) understand more than the narrator. Such stories include The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.

 

Who would you most like to sit down to dinner with to discuss social anxiety?

My sixth form (years 12 and 13) teachers, who wrote on my school reports that I needed to change my behaviour, making me feel that I was to blame for my problems. I would explain to them, if they listened at all, that I wasn’t capable of changing all by myself at that stage in my life, and that they should have seen to it that I got help, although I expect that would have been asking for too much in the 1970s.

 

What are you working on next?

I’m back in the world of fiction, but still with social anxiety, as my main character suffers from it. He is overwhelmed, to say the least, when he finds himself on the way to Japan to try and sell a computer system. And that’s not all. Karaoke is also on the agenda!

 

Wow that sounds fun! Looking forward to reading Miriam’s next book – big thanks to her for letting me interview her.

You can follow Miriam on the links below, and get yourself a copy of Social Anxiety Revealed.

Miriam

 

Links

Social Anxiety Revealed                                The Women Friends: Selina         Neither Here Nor There

Miriam Drori can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest, Wattpad and on her website/blog and social anxiety blog.

 

Behind the Book – The Silence

Published on by Anne-Marie Ormsby3 Comments

The Silence

 

This week I was very fortunate to get to speak to Katharine Johnson, author of thriller The Silence. Ever since my early obsession with the Agatha Christie novel Sleeping Murder I have had an interest in stories about secrets and repressed memories, and this book fits that bill perfectly.

Naturally I wanted to get behind the book and find out where Katharine got her inspiration from for this dark tale.

 

Tell us the basic premise of your book?

Doctor Abby Fenton has a rewarding career, a loving family, an enviable lifestyle – and a secret that could destroy everything. When human remains are discovered in the grounds of an idyllic Tuscan holiday home she is forced to confront the memories she has suppressed until now and relive the summer she spent at the villa in 1992. A summer that ended in tragedy. The nearer she gets to the truth the closer she comes to losing her sanity. In order to hold onto the people she loves most, she must make sure they never discover what she did. But the reappearance of someone else from that summer threatens to blow her secret wide open

 

What made you choose the location of Tuscany and do the locations hold any significance for you personally.

I chose Tuscany because I love its multi-layered character. Beautiful locations often harbour a gruesome history. I wanted the backstory of The Silence to take place somewhere beautiful so that in Abby’s memory it would have a dreamlike quality, making it hard for her to decide if the events were real, and also somewhere hot so that as the temperature rises so do the tensions among the dysfunctional family she’s staying with.

I also felt that because many of these tiny mountain villages are so remote and the vegetation so fast-growing that it would be easy for a crime to remain hidden for many years. But with the trend for foreigners to restore old houses and turn them into holiday homes it was inevitable that the secret would be uncovered at some time.

Tuscany does have a personal significance for me. I’ve lived in Florence and have had a house near Lucca since 2003 where I wrote much of The Silence.

 

The book deals with secrets and the effects they can have on a person – did you find it difficult at all getting into the mind of your lead character?

The main character in my previous book was a 21 year old man with a violent temper living in the 1930s so by comparison writing Abby was a breeze! The thing about Abby is that because she’s very good at compartmentalising, her adult life is very normal – she could be any mum you see at the school gates and she has two little girls so I can relate to that. The dark secret obviously required imagination as my life is far less interesting but that’s what I love about writing – putting myself inside someone’s head and thinking, how would I deal with that situation?

 

What made you want to become a writer?

I’ve loved writing since childhood and wrote my first book aged nine about the adventures of a naughty chimp, probably influenced by Paddington stories which I loved. I’ve written for a living all my adult life but mostly as a magazine journalist. I’ve written about yachts, planes and automobiles but my favourite subject is houses. I’ve visited so many intriguing places with stories to tell although often these stories couldn’t be included in the feature, including a house that was haunted by Katherine, wife of John of Gaunt, one where a horrific suicide took place and one which the police interviewed me about because they were investigating the owner.

 

Do you have a favourite author?

So many! Overall it would have to be Barbara Vine. I love the way most of her characters are people on the outside of things and much more interesting than they appear

 

Who would you most like to sit down to dinner with to talk about books and solving crimes?

Patricia Highsmith – she could really get into the mind of a criminal

 

What are you working on next?

I’m really excited that my next novel The Secret will be published by Crooked Cat Books in 2018. Like The Silence it is about a secret harboured by Villa Leonida in the fictional mountain village of Santa Zita but this secret goes back to wartime. It’s about two girls growing up in Mussolini’s Italy. Their paths diverge after one of them marries into the family living in Villa Leonida where she discovers nothing is as she imagined, leading to a secret which has devastating consequences…

 

 

Well I am loving reading The Silence so I cant wait for the next book Katy! Thanks for chatting with me, look forward to another chat about your journey back to the sinister Villa Leonida……

 

Katharine Johnson

Grab a copy of The Silence here;

http://mybook.to/TheSilence

 

You can keep up with Katy by following the links below!

https://katyjohnsonblog.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Katharinejohnsonauthor/?ref=bookmarks

http://www.twitter.com/kjohnsonwrites

Newsletter http://eepurl.com/cy3CEn

 

 

Behind the Book : The Girl in the Gallery

Published on by Anne-Marie Ormsby1 Comment

Girl in the Gallery

I was drawn to this book by Alice Castle as I was aware that it was set in Dulwich, as was her last book ‘Death in Dulwich’. Being as I used to frequent the area when I lived in Peckham I was instantly snared, I love reading books set in London as I find it so much easier to get into stories when I know the setting well. London and a murder mystery – my ideal book – lucky for me Alice agreed to discuss her book ahead of its release on 19th December.

Tell us what your latest book is about

Hi Anne-Marie, thanks so much for hosting me! My latest book, The Girl in the Gallery, is a cozy crime murder mystery with a dash of romance. It’s set in the very beautiful Dulwich Picture Gallery, open to the public for 200 years this year. The book opens when my single mum amateur sleuth, Beth Haldane, stumbles on a terrifying new exhibit when she pops into the gallery before work. It’s the second in my London Murder Mysteries series, the first, Death in Dulwich, was published earlier this year, but you can read either as stand alone stories.

 

Did anything specific inspire the storyline?

My storyline is inspired by Dulwich Picture Gallery itself – it’s stuffed with amazing art, and the building itself is very unusual. At its heart is a mausoleum, containing the dead bodies of the original collectors in marble coffins, on display to the public. Weird and quite creepy! I have always thought it would be a brilliant location for a murder mystery.

 

Tell us more about Dulwich and any other London locations you use, do they hold meaning?

I love Dulwich. I lived there for four years, after returning from nearly a decade in Belgium. I found the area, and the people, really welcoming. I am repaying them by setting a series of grisly murders in their midst, which I really hope they won’t take the wrong way. It is a perfect, village-like setting, where people know everything about each other – or think they do. It’s a modern St Mary Mead, the place where Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple solved unspeakable crimes. I was really thrilled when a reviewer of my first book in the series, Death in Dulwich, said my heroine Beth Haldane was a modern Miss Marple. I’m planning to venture away from Dulwich with other books in the series but, like Beth, I will always have a soft spot for SE21.

 

Do you have a favourite author?

I have loads – Agatha Christie, of course, then Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, PD James, Ruth Rendell, Val McDermid, MC Beaton, Simon Brett… the list goes on. I love whodunits! I do read other books, I’m in a book group and I plod through whatever’s chosen, but I always come back to a nice murder mystery in the end.

 

What made you want to be a writer?

A teacher at my infants’ school. I can’t even remember her name, but she very kindly praised a sentence I’d written and I thought to myself, ‘this is something I can do.’ Good teachers are so wonderful and not nearly treasured enough.

 

If you could have a night of drinks and literary discussion with any writers (alive or dead) who would you choose?

Oh, I think Dorothy Parker would be a must, and then Shakespeare might be fun, Jane Austen of course… I think that lot might be daunting enough! I’m sure I wouldn’t open my mouth in that august company, but I’d be taking notes for my next novel, that’s for sure.

 

Will there be a 3rd instalment for Beth Haldane to solve?

There definitely will be a next installment, I am writing it now. It’s called Calamity in Camberwell and this time, Beth is on the trail of a missing friend, with plenty of obstacles thrown in her way. And she’s giving online dating a try! I’m hoping it will be out by mid-2018. After that, there’ll be plenty more mysteries to solve, if I have my way.

 

Get yourself over to Amazon now and pre-order The Girl in the Gallery here!

While you are there, grab the first Beth Haldene mystery Death in Dulwich

Alice

Alice Castle

MyBook.to/GirlintheGallery

MyBook.to/1DeathinDulwich

Facebook

Blog: DD’s Diary

Twitter: @DDsDiary

 

 

Behind the Book: Barnabas Tew and the Case of the Missing Scarab

Published on by Anne-Marie OrmsbyLeave a comment

 

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This book has several elements that drew me in – firstly its set in my home town of London, which is always a plus. Add to that its set in Victorian London, which is even cooler. Then add a Private Detective and Egyptology and there you have the recipe for a brilliant adventure novel! And of course – there being a whole trip to ‘The Land of the Dead’ thing set this firmly on my radar.

The author Columbkill Noonan hails from beautiful Maryland, USA, so I was very excited when she agreed to have a long distance chat with me about her book.Columbkill Noonan

 

Tell us the basic premise of your novel?

 

Barnabas Tew is a somewhat neurotic, extremely anxious, and rather particular sort of person. He also happens to be a somewhat sub-standard private detective. Through luck (or misfortune, depending on your perspective!) he is whisked off to the Egyptian afterlife to solve a case for Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead. Things just keep going wrong from there…

 

Why did you choose Victorian London and do the locations hold any real life significance to you?

 

I love historical fiction, and I love London, and everything that is quintessentially British. I’m also fascinated with ancient mythologies, so I figured I’d marry the two.

 

Did it take a lot of research for your locations and story line?

 

It did! I spent a lot of time researching the Egyptian gods and goddesses. But I think researching is fun, so it wasn’t really like work at all for me.

 

If you could have a few drinks and an evening of conversation about the afterlife with any 3 famous figures (alive or dead) who would you pick? 

 

Eleanor of Aquitane, for one. Was she really as much of a pip as history makes her out to be? If so, then I want to hang out with her for sure. Cleopatra, for pretty much the same reasons. And lastly…Genghis Khan. Was he so warlike out of a need to preserve and protect his people from invasions? Or was he just kind of a jerk? I need to  know…

 

Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you think it would be like?

 

I do believe in an afterlife, and I rather hope that it’s not like the ancient Egyptian idea! I tend to think of it in terms of the Buddhist or Hindu theology, where a person would be reborn until they figure things out and then they can get off the merry-go-round, so to speak. Heaven sounds pretty nice, though. It would be great if that’s how it was. I guess I’ll find out…someday!

 

What are you working on next?

 

The sequel to “Barnabas Tew and the Case of the Missing Scarab”, of course! Can’t just leave him hanging. He and Wilfred are off to the Viking afterlife, and they are really in way over their heads this time.

 

 

‘Barnabas Tew and the Case of the Missing Scarab’ is published by Crooked Cat Books available in paperback and Kindle.

 Buy the book from Amazon.com

Buy the book from Amazon.co.uk

 

Connect with Columbkill Noonan for news about her next book;

Visit Columbkill’s Website

Facebook

Twitter

 

 

Behind the Book – ‘Oh! What A Pavlova’ by Isabella May

Published on by Anne-Marie OrmsbyLeave a comment

 

IMG_3235I recently had the good fortune to have a chat with author Isabella May about my book Purgatory Hotel. While we were talking I managed to ask a few questions of the lady herself as her new book held an interest for me.

Despite the light-hearted name and appearance of  the book, its subject matter of domestic violence is a darker element that has been misrepresented so many times in the past. I was eager to see how she handles it. Plus there’s cake so, you know……

 

Tell us the basic premise of your novel

It’s a tricky one to condense down into an Elevator Pitch… but here goes:

One woman’s bid to flee her abusive relationship amidst the lure of cake, travel, many an unsuitable man, and the whispering of Glastonbury’s ley lines.

 

Did you take any inspiration for your story from real life?

I think it’s impossible for reality and fiction NOT to cross at some point. Whilst Kate’s story is fabricated, I have been through Domestic Violence myself, and I had a burning desire to dispel some of the myths that surround it. In particular, the misconception that only the uneducated and working class fall prey to abuse. DV does not discriminate! I also wanted to shine a light on the increasing phenomenon of the victim living two very different lives: one ‘for the cameras’ – ie. friends/family/the office… and the other, the very much darker existence that plays out when the curtains are drawn, the front door locked.

 

What do you think is the most accurate depiction of domestic violence on film or in a book? 

I have yet to come across anything that accurately sums it up in its entirety, and I honestly think that’s because it is virtually impossible to do so. The one thing I have learned is that domestic violence doesn’t discriminate or pigeonhole. No two experiences are ever the same and the contrast from victim to victim is vast, all of which only highlights the need for open-mindedness. My own novel is in no way representative of the average domestic violence experience either. It’s just Kate’s story, but it does serve to life the lid on that all too common assumption: only the uneducated are abused.

 

What do you think the biggest, most represented myths around domestic violence are? 

1: It can only happen to women. Many men are also affected.

2: That it is reserved for those who are poor, uneducated and working class. Anybody from any walk of life can find themselves in this situation.

3: That physical abuse happens on a daily basis. In Kate’s situation (in many situations) it doesn’t. The emotional abuse tends to play out as a daily ritual to grind the victim down. But the physical side of things can be sporadic, often with no ETA, taking the abused by complete surprise when they have let their guard down.
Onto a lighter subject…..Cake is a big theme in the book, what’s your favourite cake?

If I was really pushed to choose, then the classic Victoria Sponge. It’s so hard to beat, especially with fresh whipped cream and a cuppa to cut through it all. But I adore most cake (with the exception of anything from a Clean Eating recipe… or containing chunks of stem ginger!)

 

Why did you choose the setting you chose, and do the locations hold any real life significance to you?

I had long felt (and still do!) that Glastonbury is under-represented in mainstream fiction. It was high time it took centre stage. As for the other locations, many of them I have visited, and as I adore travel, it was a great way for me to pay homage to some fabulous international cities… and their cake!

 

Did it take a lot of research for your locations and story line?
I had to jog my memory as to some of the sights, sounds and smells. Pinterest made the perfect place to do that… as well as get sidetracked by its millions of hygge-esque pictures.

 

I’m intrigued by the mention of Glastonbury ley lines in the synopsis… can you tell me anything about the role they play?

The ley lines are a metaphor really for all of the spiritual signs that Kate collates throughout the story. They get louder and louder as the plot develops. But will she act on their advice? Or will fear and procrastination have its way?

 

What are you working on next?

My second novel is called The Cocktail Bar. Once again, it is set in Glastonbury and it will be published on 13th February 2018. Here’s a bit of blurb:

 

Rock star, River Jackson is back in his hometown of Glastonbury to open a cocktail bar… and the locals aren’t impressed.Seductress Georgina is proving too hot to handle, band mate Angelic Alice is messing with his heart and his head, his mum is a hippie-dippy liability, his school friends have resorted to violence – oh, and his band manager, Lennie AND the media are on his trail.But River is armed with a magical Mexican elixir which will change the lives of the Three Chosen Ones. Once the Mexican wave of joy takes a hold of the town, he’s glad he didn’t lose his proverbial bottle.

Pity he hasn’t taken better care of the real one…

download

You can get a copy of the book here; Oh! What A Pavlova – in paperback and on Kindle

You can follow Isabella May on her website and social media here:

www.isabellamayauthor.com

 Twitter – Isabella May

Facebook

Instagram – @isabella_may_author

 

The Long Road : A Writers Journey.

Published on by Anne-Marie OrmsbyLeave a comment

Twelve years ago I was living in a different town, married to a different man and living a very different life.

Put simply I was a very unhappy person, afraid to try and get out of an abusive marriage.

But I like to think that despite the dark days, a lot of good came from those very unhappy times, I learned a lot, I became a better person in the years that followed my eventual departure from the relationship and I also wrote a lot of fiction as a way of escaping from the trap I’d got myself into.

One story, which I named ‘Purgatory Hotel’ was a fixation of mine for a long time. It was inspired by a Nick Cave lyric – ‘In God’s hotel, everybody’s got a room.” While that lyric ran around my head I got to thinking about what if the afterlife was a hotel, specifically what if Purgatory – the waiting room – was a hotel? What if you did something really bad and you got sent there, with all the other bad people and you had to repent until you got to check out and go to Heaven?

And so my novel was born, a story about a girl who wakes up in Purgatory and can’t remember how she died or what crime she committed to get sent to the in between world.

I created a whole world, an afterlife of my own imagining, a decrepit old hotel, mouldering out on the edge of forever with a library full of books where everybody’s lives are being written in dusty old books as they happen. The writing stops when the breathing stops.

And my anti-hero, my victim/perpetrator has to read her whole life, each tragedy, each sordid detail, and each terrible decision as part of her punishment until she can remember her awful crime and why she ended up dead. After all you can’t ask for forgiveness when you don’t know what you did wrong.

The main characters, Dakota and Jackson became people to me, their dark hours became mine, and their brief happiness’s a source of joy to me. All this darkness born out of an unhappy life. And looking over my words now I can see the inspiration, the parallels I pulled from my own unhappy existence and placed in a fictional world. Part escapism, part exorcism.

Then twelve years after I first scribbled the ideas out on the back of my payslip envelope, a publisher said yes.

Crooked Cat Books are an indie publishers and they were just one of dozens I submitted my twisted little tale to. Lucky for me, they saw something worth printing.

So this November ‘Purgatory Hotel’ will be published and I feel like at last I can let go of my characters, stop trying to change them and leave them be, let them be who I made them to be.

Writing is hard, not because it’s a mammoth task. For me writing is hard because I don’t know when to stop, I can’t say how many edits I made to the book over the years, how many name changes, how many lines I’ve deleted. There were years when I just totally ignored it and left it behind as though I was over it and would never do anything with it.

I even self-published it under a different name but I knew I was not happy with it yet and pulled it back. All writers are different, all have their own process, my process is to sink deep into that world, write and write and not think too much about it until I go back to re-read it after I’m done. And then I find I need to add more, say more. A line of great significance in the story – “You should know by now, it’s never over.” Might as well have been me talking to myself.

The road from that day where I first scribbled the notes for the novel has been long, but it’s amazing how much life can change in 12 years, I have left the dark corridors of Purgatory behind.

I served my time.

I am glad to say the sun shines brighter these days, I am happily married and I can honestly say I am more grateful than ever for the good things in my life.

 

Purgatory Hotel will be released through Crooked Cat Books this November.

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