The Write Stuff with... M Jonathan Lee

It's publication day for M Jonathan Lee's latest book 337 and it's my pleasure to welcome him to the blog to talk about writing.

*TRIGGER WARNING* reference to suicide 

In conclusion, life can be weird so why can’t stories be weirder?

I first got into writing when I was at school, aged 11. For an English class, I’d written an adventure story where an explorer had to find his way through a jungle to find his friend. On the last page, a pygmy hidden in the trees shoots a blow-dart at him and he dies. When my teacher read it, she went ballistic telling me that I couldn’t just kill off the lead character! From that moment on, I knew that that was exactly what I wanted to do: write books that broke the rules. 

I wrote The Radio to do just that. After my brother committed suicide, it seemed more important than ever to do everything I said I would and it felt easier to express how I felt by fictionalising it. I thought that if I could write it down, in years to come, my friends or family would have my book as a sort of legacy. Everything in the book regarding the deceased son, right up to him jumping off the top of the multi-storey car park, is all entirely true. I find inspiration everywhere. 

Fascinated by the human condition and the reasons people behave the way they do, I do find ideas for books everywhere. For example with A Tiny Feeling of Fear, my third book, the twist was inspired by an event in my own life. I was literally living the life of going to work in an office each day and pretending to be fine to then coming home and having the worst time. I realised that my work-self and home-self may as well have been different people with the same name and then when I went to a work presentation and the presenter was called also Jonathan Lee, I thought it wouldn’t be that weird to have it happen in a book. 

Author Interview: Deborah Masson

Today's it's my stop on the Out for Blood blog tour and it's my pleasure to be chatting to author Deborah Masson about the latest book in the DI Eve Hunter series.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how your writing journey started? 
I’m a full-time mum to two mini-monsters and my writing journey began when my eldest was around two years old. I needed something ‘just for me’ and to keep the old grey matter ticking over whilst at home bringing up the kids, so I started scribbling in the afternoons whilst she napped. 

Those scribblings led on to entering short story and flash fiction competitions and then eventually to a Professional Writing Academy online course, followed by two Faber Academy online courses. My debut, Hold Your Tongue, was the result of those courses.

If you had to give an elevator pitch for your latest book Out for Blood, what would it be? 
DI Eve Hunter and the team are back uncovering a hidden Aberdeen and the gaping divide between the elite and those on the fringes of society.

A young man, the son of an influential businessman, is discovered dead in his central Aberdeen apartment.

Hours later, a teenaged girl with no identification is found hanged in a suspected suicide.

As DI Eve Hunter and her team investigate the two cases, they find themselves in a tug-of-war between privilege and poverty; between the elite and those on the fringes of society.

Then an unexpected breakthrough leads them to the shocking conclusion: that those in power have been at the top for too long - and now, someone is going to desperate lengths to bring them down...

Can they stop someone who is dead set on revenge, no matter the cost?

Out for Blood is the second book in your DI Eve Hunter series, what characteristics would you say best describe Eve? 
Determined, bloody-minded, conscientious and loyal.

Emma's Review: One Family Christmas by Bella Osborne

 Reviewed by Emma Crowley

A big family. A whole lot of secrets. A Christmas to remember…

This year, Lottie is hosting one last big family Christmas at the home she grew up in – just like her Nana would have wanted.

But when her relatives descend on the old manor house, Lottie gets more than she bargained for. Every family has its secrets, but in this family, everybody has one!

So, between cooking a Christmas dinner, keeping tensions at bay and a stray dog out of mischief, she has plenty on her plate (and not just misshapen sausage rolls and a frozen turkey). And then her first love shows up – nine years after he walked out of her life.

Can Lottie make their last family Christmas one to remember… for the right reasons?

Book Links: Kindle or Paperback

Emma's Review: If Every Day Was Christmas by Donna Ashcroft

 Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Snow is falling, fires are crackling merrily, and Lockton tradition has everyone hanging a promise they’re determined to keep this Christmas on the tree in the village square…

Meg Scott has promised to make a success of her first solo Christmas. She runs a year-round Christmas shop in the little Scottish village, and is a fan of all things mulled, sparkly and festive. So when her warring family shows up on her doorstep, ready to spread discord and tension, Meg is determined not to let them ruin her favourite time of the year.

Meanwhile, Christmas-hating Tom Riley-Clark has been called to the Highlands to help his old friend at The Apple Cross Inn. He’s ready to work hard and has no time for mince pies, tinsel or hanging a promise on the tree: the thought of every day being Christmas is his worst nightmare, and you wouldn’t catch him dead buying a bauble. So everyone is surprised when Christmas-loving Meg and grinch Tom start to get cozy under the mistletoe.

But Tom has a big secret about his past, and in a small town like Lockton it’s hard to keep anything hidden for long. Will everything fall apart when Meg discovers who he really is? The pair are about to learn the hard way that some promises are impossible to keep…

Amazon Links: Kindle or Paperback

Emma's Review: Cathy's Christmas Kitchen by Tilly Tennant

 Reviewed by Emma Crowley 

As the snow flutters down in the little village of Linnetford, escape to a cosy farmhouse kitchen, scented with the rich aromas of fruitcake and gingerbread, where a love of baking is about to unite two lonely hearts…

Cathy cooked at her mother’s side her whole life and could bake a fairy cake before she could ride a bike. Now she is facing her first Christmas without her beloved mother, she’s determined to use her memories for something positive. She decides to organise a weekly cooking class, sharing her mother’s precious recipes with other lonely souls.

There’s just one small spanner in the works: teenager Tansy, who attends Cathy’s classes even though she’s rude to everyone there and seems to hate every minute. Cathy is poised to ask Tansy to leave, but her uncle, physiotherapist Matt, begs her to give the teenager another chance. And Cathy can’t resist Matt’s sparkling hazel eyes and incredibly kind heart…

But just as Cathy is feeling she might find joy again, her ex returns to Linnetford, desperate for a second chance. With Matt becoming distant as his life gets more complicated, it seems so easy to return to the safe embrace of someone she knows so well. Can Cathy avoid the temptation of falling back in love with the man who broke her heart and let Christmas bring her the greatest gift – that of happiness?

Amazon Links: Kindle or Paperback

Emma's Review: The Six Tales of Christmas by Anne Marie Ryan

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

It's almost Christmas and snow is falling in the Cotswolds. Simon and Nora are gearing up for the festive season - but their bookshop is in trouble.

Nora is delighted when a customer buys a book that's been on the shelves for years, but that won't be enough to keep the bailiffs away.

Fuelled by mulled wine and mince pies, Nora and Simon hatch a plan to rouse community spirit, sending out six books to lonely villagers. The books change the recipients' lives, but is it too late to change the bookshop's fate?

Book Links: Kindle or Paperback

Emma's Review: The Violinist of Auschwitz by Ellie Midwood

 Reviewed by Emma Crowley

In Auschwitz, every day is a fight for survival. Alma is inmate 50381, the number tattooed on her skin in pale blue ink. She is cooped up with thousands of others, torn from loved ones, trapped in a maze of barbed wire. Every day people disappear, never to be seen again.

This tragic reality couldn’t be further from Alma’s previous life. An esteemed violinist, her performances left her audiences spellbound. But when the Nazis descend on Europe, none of that can save her…

When the head of the women’s camp appoints Alma as the conductor of the orchestra, performing for prisoners trudging to work as well as the highest-ranking Nazis, Alma refuses: “they can kill me but they won’t make me play”. Yet she soon realizes the power this position offers: she can provide starving girls with extra rations and save many from the clutches of death.

This is how Alma meets Miklos, a talented pianist. Surrounded by despair, they find happiness in joint rehearsals, secret notes, and concerts they give side by side––all the while praying that this will one day end. But in Auschwitz, the very air is tainted with loss, and tragedy is the only certainty… In such a hopeless place, can their love survive?

Amazon Links: Kindle or Paperback

Extract from Fallen Angels by Gunnar Staalesen

Today it's my stop on the blog tour for the latest book in the Varg Veum series, Fallen Angels by Norwegian author Gunnar Stallesen, which has been translated into English by Don Bartlett. 

Exploring his own dark memories may be the only way to find a killer

When Bergen PI Varg Veum finds himself at the funeral of a former classmate on a sleet-grey December afternoon, he's unexpectedly reunited with his old friend Jakob guitarist of the once-famous 1960s rock band The Harpers and his estranged wife, Rebecca, Veum's first love.

Their rekindled friendship is thrown into jeopardy by the discovery of a horrific murder, and Veum is forced to dig deep into his own adolescence and his darkest memories, to find a motive and a killer.

Tense, vivid and deeply unsettling, Fallen Angels is the spellbinding, award-winning thriller that secured Gunnar Staalesen's reputation as one of the world's foremost crime writers.

Although the latest to be published in English, it is actually one of the author's earlier books which is now available in English for fans of translated fiction to read and enjoy. As part of the blog tour I have an extract for you to read below.

The part of the room I was in now was full of contrasts. The majority of the furniture was old-fashioned, in a kind of imitation baroque style, with ornate legs and upholstered in a smooth, brown-and-green patterned material. Two modern, black leather armchairs, two others in a burlap fabric and a child’s spindle-back chair completed and reinforced the impression of a lack of system. 

In the traditional sixties style wall shelving were a radio, a record turntable, a CD and cassette player and in the middle of the floor a TV set with a VCR underneath. Beside the bowlegged baroque sofa was a rack crammed full with newspapers, and in all the free spaces, on the wall shelving, the table, floor and shelves were piles of newspapers, magazines, books and sheet music. Strewn across the floor were Lego blocks, dolls, Playmobil pieces, sketch pads and crayons in the most delightful chaos I had experienced since I was divorced. 

Emma's Review: The Lost Village of Daniela Sacerdoti

 Reviewed by Emma Crowley

1945, Italy. Two sisters give birth to two little girls on the same night, huddled under blankets, deep in the black woods that surround the village of Bosconero. They hold their babies close as footsteps approach. If they make even the slightest sound, the German soldiers will find them…

1996. Luce Nardini searches the cobbled streets of a remote Italian village for a house with a faded blue door. Since her only child left home, and with her estranged husband more distant than ever, she’s been completely untethered. Discovering why her mother cut all contact with her family and the village she loved feels like Luce’s last hope at understanding who she is.

Inside the house, she’s relieved to find the grandmother she never knew living out her final days. With a longing look at an ornate wooden box on her nightstand, her grandmother is just beginning to tell the heart-wrenching story of a little village ravaged by war, and why Luce’s mother swore never to return, when then the unthinkable happens: an earth-shattering disaster that shakes the little village of Bosconero to its core.

Feeling more lost than ever before, Luce fears that the secrets of her past have been buried forever. Her only hope is to win back the trust of the small community and find her grandmother’s little wooden box amongst the rubble of the village.

But will the surprise arrival of the husband she thought she’d lost help sew Luce’s family back together, or tear it apart for good? And will anything have prepared her for the devastating betrayal she finds hidden inside the box…?

Amazon Links: Kindle or Paperback

Extract from The Last Days of Ellis Island by Gaelle Josse

Today I’m pleased to share an extract from The Last Days of Ellis Island by Gaelle Josse which has been translated into English by Natasha Lehrer. 

New York, November 3, 1954. In a few days, the immigration inspection station on Ellis Island will close its doors forever. John Mitchell, an officer of the Bureau of Immigration, is the guardian and last resident of the island.

As Mitchell looks back over forty-five years as gatekeeper to America and its promise of a better life, he recalls his brief marriage to beloved wife Liz, and is haunted by memories of a transgression involving Nella, an immigrant from Sardinia.

Told in a series of poignant diary entries, this is a story of responsibility, love, fidelity, and remorse.

Emma's Review: A Christmas Wedding by Fiona Ford

 Reviewed by Emma Crowley

London, 1943: Dot Hanson has never forgotten the thrill of seeing the beautiful Christmas displays at Liberty’s department store as a young girl.

Never in her wildest dreams did she think she would one day work there, or that she would fall in love with the store’s manager, her childhood sweetheart Edwin Button.

But in spite of the life Dot has built for herself, and the tight-knit community around her, she lives in the shadow of a terrible secret. And as the bombs continue to fall across Britain there is more heartache still to come.

All Dot wants is a family of her own with the man she loves by her side.

Will her dreams come true in time for Christmas?

Book Links: Kindle or Paperback 

Extract: The Mersey Estuary: A Travel Guide by Kevin Sene

Today I have something a little different for you, an extract from The Mersey Estuary: A Travel Guide by Kevin Sene.

Stretching for around thirty miles to the coast, the Mersey Estuary is perhaps best known for Liverpool’s spectacular waterfront and the Mersey Ferry. But there are many other hidden gems along its shores, including waterside parks, sandy beaches and poignant reminders of the days of steamships and sail.

The Mersey Estuary is hugely varied. Docks and industrial works sit alongside nature reserves and waterside parks. Even its appearance is transformed during the day as mudflats and sandbanks are covered by the incoming tide.

The headwaters lie in the hills of the Peak District, but the tidal influence begins in Warrington. Here a tidal bore arrives on the highest tides, and there are many signs of the town’s seafaring past.

Emma's Review: The Girl Without a Name by Suzanne Goldring

 Reviewed by Emma Crowley

September 1940. As the bombs of the Blitz fall on London, Ruby and Stevie are falling in love. United by a shocking experience when they were evacuees, Ruby believes that she understands Stevie like nobody else can. But then Stevie is sent abroad into danger and as Ruby waits, desperately, for letters with foreign stamps that never come, she begins to fear that he is lost forever.

August 2004. Billie has rushed to her father Dick’s hospital bedside. A terrible stroke has robbed him of his speech, and he is a shell of the man he was before. But when Billie finds a crumpled black and white photo in his wallet of a smiling, dark-haired girl she doesn’t recognise, Dick frantically tries to talk. Billie knows that he is trying to tell her something important, and she must ask the questions her father cannot. All she has to go on is the name he is just able to mumble. Ruby.

Billie tracks down Ruby’s aunt, her only surviving relative, and learns that Ruby’s life contained great love, but also great tragedy. Billie is determined to find out what happened to this brave woman, last seen leaving her home for a secret weekend away. Why did nobody miss her? And how is she connected to Billie’s beloved father? Can Billie lay the ghosts of the past to rest, even if it means revealing the darkest secrets of her father’s life and breaking her own heart?

Amazon Links: Kindle or Paperback

Extract from The Coral Bride by Roxanne Bouchard

When I was contacted by Anne at Random Things Tours about taking part in this blog tour, I knew that realistically I would not be in a position to read Roxanne Bouchard's latest book The Coral Bride but still wanted to support this author and book so instead I have an extract to whet your appetites.  

But first a little about the book which is available now in eBook format with the paperback being published next week. 

When an abandoned lobster trawler is found adrift off the coast of Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula, DS Joaquin Moralès begins a straightforward search for the boat’s missing captain, Angel Roberts – a rare female in a male-dominated world. But Moralès finds himself blocked at every turn – by his police colleagues, by fisheries bureaucrats, and by his grown-up son, who has turned up at his door with a host of his own personal problems.

When Angel’s body is finally discovered, it’s clear something very sinister is afoot, and Moralès and son are pulled into murky, dangerous waters, where old resentments run deep.

Monday 24th September

Leeroy Roberts insisted his sons keep scanning the sea, again and again, with the radar and searchlights. They were aboard the Ange-Irène, his eldest’s shrimp trawler. Bruce and Jimmy, and Guy Babin were out on deck with spotting scopes, but Leeroy stayed inside the wheelhouse to watch the radar and automatic pilot. Even with the naked eye, he could see a long way when the moon was that full. 

Leeroy ducked into the galley and emerged with a thermos of coffee, packet of cupcakes and four mugs. He set these down on the ledge inside the front window, then he opened the door and called the men over. They filed inside from the cold night air to rub their hands, pour themselves a coffee and wolf down a sugary snack or two. Bruce peered at the computer screen to check the chart and the heading they were on. 

His younger brother was still grumbling. ‘We’re way off course! I told you, we’re not going to find anything here. We should be looking further north.’ 

Jimmy had been going on like that for an hour or more. Bruce kept his mouth shut. This was his boat and he knew best how to navigate these waters. He had weighed all the possibilities and persuaded his father to head south, the way the tide was going, then follow the Labrador Current. Leeroy trusted his eldest son’s wisdom. 

But the youngest wouldn’t give up. ‘Stop messing around with your fancy calculations, will you?’