Author Interview: Rebecca Bradley

Today it's my pleasure to welcome Rebecca Bradley to the blog for a chat about her latest book Love Lies Bleeding. 

Welcome back to the blog Rebecca, can you give us a quick recap on your writing journey?
Thanks for having me, Sharon. It’s great to be here again. I published my first novel, Shallow Waters, the first book in the DI Hannah Robbins series, in December 2014. In May 2015 I officially retired from the police service on medical grounds and I’ve been a full-time writer since. I’ve released eight books in the Hannah Robbins series, two standalone novels and two books in the DI Claudia Nunn series. A new series set in Sheffield. 

I’m also working on a secret side project which I hope will come to something positive next year. Keep your fingers crossed for me. It’s the most difficult project I’ve attempted.

If you had to give an elevator pitch for your latest book Loves Lies Bleeding, what would it be? 
When a women is found stabbed in her home Hannah enters the world of women who love lifers. 

A murdered woman brings Detective Hannah Robbins into the world of women who love lifers.

Audrey King, a teacher of young children, did nothing but fall for Wendell Hayes. A man serving life for slaughtering his family. She’s found dead in her home with the murderous signature of the very man she visited, but there’s no way he could have killed Audrey from inside prison.

Hayes, the son who took a hammer to his parents, his pregnant sister and her husband, horrifies detective Hannah Robbins. The threats he made against her when she arrested him for those murders still haunt her. Yet she must confront him if she is to get to the bottom of this brutal crime.

But Hayes isn’t the only one haunting Hannah’s slowly fracturing mind. A previous case where she was the victim is destroying her. Can she find justice for Audrey before her world spirals out of control, or will she take the investigation down with her?

The Write Stuff with... Rebecca Bradley

Today it's my pleasure to be kicking off the Fighting Monsters blog tour and to welcome crime author Rebecca Bradley back to the blog to talk about 'Writing What You Know'.

Write what you know… writers often trot out this old piece of advice to young/new writers and then go on to provide them with their version of what it means. I have seen and heard multiple different connotations. To do with feelings and emotions, human instincts, that to write what we know is not in fact what we know in a literal sense of what has happened to us in life, but an emotional knowledge, because how otherwise could we write about fantasy or science fiction if we were only writing what we physically knew? 

But, for me, I did, I wrote what I knew, what I had done in my life for over fifteen years. Because I was a serving police officer, with 7 years in uniform and 8 years in a specialist CID department. I started to write while I was still working, then continued long after I finished. I was medically retired due to ill health a few years ago.  

The advice is good though, about using the emotion, because it is this emotion that keeps readers attached to the book. Keeps them turning the pages. Drives them forward. So I try to bring the reality of what it really feels like to work in a policing environment to my police procedurals. 

Author Interview: Rebecca Bradley

This afternoon it's my pleasure to welcome Rebecca Bradley back to the blog to tell us a bit about her novella Three Weeks Dead which was published last week, as well as give us a bit more of an insight into her writing process. 

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing journey?
Firstly, can I say thank you for having me on the blog, Sharon. I appreciate you having me, especially when I messed up last week!

This question - Ah, it’s a bit of a long-winded one, but I’ll try to keep it short. 

I started writing properly when a big birthday approached. It took me a long time to write my first novel, Shallow Waters, because I was learning. There was a lot of rewriting and editing that needed to happen, but I was lucky enough to get some help along the way in the form of early agent and editor feedback – before I was signed. 

When I felt it was ready, I submitted to agents, signed up with one, but eventually we went our separate ways and I decided to publish Shallow Waters myself. I couldn’t have predicted how well it would do. Reviews were amazing, sales were great and the support from everyone has been brilliant. 

The follow-up, Made to be Broken took less time to write but was filled with much angst. And Three Weeks Dead was much more fun to write, though I mistakenly thought writing a novella was going to be easier than a novel – I was wrong!

If you had to give an elevator pitch for Three Weeks Dead, what would it be? 
How far would you be willing to go to save your wife?
Especially, if she had only been buried a week ago…

Having already published 2 books in the series, what inspired you to now write a prequel novella? 
The novels are mostly from the point of view of DI Hannah Robbins, but during Shallow Waters one of her team, DC Sally Poynter is put through the mill, so I thought it would give readers a bit of insight into how she started life on the Major Crime Unit. The prequel is Sally’s first case and is set when she first joins the unit, so we see her vulnerable, slightly nervous side. You know that, new kid in the office feeling?

Guest Post: Writing the Difficult Second Book by Rebecca Bradley

I have to start this post by thanking Sharon for having me on the blog today, for giving me the space to talk and to share my experience of writing that difficult second book, my difficult second book, Made to be Broken. Thank you, Sharon. 

My first book Shallow Waters was released in December 2014, that's a long stretch of time between first book and the second.

With Shallow Waters I had all the time in the world to write it. There was no one waiting for it, there was no deadline, there was no one with any expectations, and I had no previous work out in the world with which anyone could compare it to. Book one for a new author is a walk in the park in a lot of respects, other than the steep learning curve of writing that is. But, learning to write is an ongoing process and it is one I don't think I will ever come to the end of. I hope to always be learning and improving and creating better work.

Now, book 2, is a different beast altogether. I had readers. Readers who had read Shallow Waters. Readers who had enjoyed Shallow Waters. Readers who had said they couldn't wait to read the next in the series. And while all those things where exciting and thrilling and boosted my confidence as a writer, they did, at the same time freeze me in my tracks. In my bum in seat, fingers on keyboard, brain functioning in head, tracks.

Why would my readers wanting more from me terrify me this way? Because now there were readers waiting for another book, readers with expectations, expectations that book 2 would live up to the enjoyment they felt when reading book 1. They now had something to compare it to.

Debut Spotlight: Rebecca Bradley

Over the last 12 months or so I have started to read a lot more crime/thriller novels again, having been my genre of choice as a teenager, so it's been great discovering new authors books to read especially debut authors such as Rebecca Bradley whose novel Shallow Waters was published in December. So it was my pleasure to invite Rebecca to the blog to find out a little more about Shallow Waters.

When the naked, battered body of an unidentified teenager is found dumped in an alleyway, post-mortem finds evidence of a harrowing series of events. 

Another teenage death with the same MO pushes DI Hannah Robbins and her team in the Nottingham City division Major Crimes Unit, to their limits, and across county borders. In a race against the clock, they attempt to unpick a thick web of lies and deceit to uncover the truth behind the deaths. 

But it doesn't stop there. 

When catching a killer isn't enough, just how far are the team willing to push themselves to save the next girl? 

Your debut novel Shallow Waters was published in December, can you tell us a little bit about it? 
Shallow Waters is the story of secrets and lies wrapped up in a police investigation led by, DI Hannah Robbins, into the brutal murders of two teenage girls. While it is definitely a police procedural, it is also about the people. We each carry something with us that we don't tell everyone and it is during this investigation that secrets are tested. As the investigation takes the Nottingham City division Major Crimes Unit across county borders it pushes each member of the unit to their own personal limits and we have to find out what those limits are.