Hello, Anna, and welcome to my blog. Tell us how long you’ve been writing and what genre(s) you prefer to work in.
Thank you, Kath, for asking me.
I’ve been writing in one way or another for many years but novels only started when my husband was working away for weeks at a time and the children were grown up. That gave me time.
The first book I wrote was One Dark Night, a historical romance with plenty of adventure, and I thoroughly enjoyed the research that goes into making sure the setting is true to the lives our ancestors endured or enjoyed. I put it away in a drawer, like thousands of other authors before me, and it was about nine or ten years before I published it on Amazon.
The first book I published was Hide in Time, a time travel story. I found when I was writing it that I preferred working on the historical sections. The contemporary settings can be written quicker but I could feel myself enjoying writing the historical sections more. So my third book is a sequel to the historical book, One Dark Night.
However, I plan to write in other genres later. You will know that this is not the best plan to ‘get rich quick’.
I certainly do! Do you read the same kind of book you write or do you follow a wider selection of genres?
Definitely a wider selection. I enjoy cosy crime, thrillers, historical adventures, humorous books, and more. All have something to offer. I don’t read horror or erotica (it feels voyeuristic to me) and I rarely read fantasy though I really enjoyed a couple of Lexi Revellian’s stories about dragons.
I agree about erotica. We all know how to do it! Anything you’ve got a hankering to write which you haven’t so far?
Yes, there’s something brewing. I have a file into which I stuff bits of paper when something occurs to me which might be useful. I can’t tell you much more, not even the genre, it could even veer towards horror or fantasy. I’m female, I’m allowed to change my mind.
Oh, intrigue! Is there any published work of fiction that you wish you’d written – and why?
This is a hard question and if I spent a year or two thinking about it (what luxury) then maybe I’d get it right. The one which occurs to me now is ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens. I would definitely like to have written that. I guess I like tales with a strong theme, something I can take away and mull over, something that contributes more than just entertainment to my life. Edmund Burke (18th century Parliamentarian) said, ‘Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.’
If it hadn’t already been written, I’d have a go at A Christmas Carol with gusto.
It’s up there as one of the favourite books with most people, I think. Can you tell us what your next book is about?
It centres around the theme ‘All that it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.’ This is a paraphrase of a quotation attributed to Edmund Burke again, though this is often disputed.
It’s a sequel to One Dark Night where the two enemies, Karl and Daniel, have become almost friends. Karl always has a mission in mind and his latest is to rid the Isle of Wight of corruption, poverty and wreckers of cargo ships. Daniel, protective of his hard-won wife, wants her to stay at home. Lucy has other ideas and follows him, thereby getting into life-threatening situations.
For anyone who has read One Dark Night perhaps you’d like to know that in this book, Karl finally finds a lady worth loving.
How does it all turn out? Someone once described my writing as being like Thomas Hardy’s and you probably know that he didn’t stick to the rules.
Under a Dark Star, Book Two in The Dark Moon Trilogy, is due for publication in the late summer, preferably this summer!
Thanks, Anna. I look forward to that. Here's a little information about One Dark Night - so you can catch up before the sequel comes out.
You can find it on Amazon here.
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