Please forgive me, but I’d like to take a few minutes out. Away from the COVID 19 apocalypse we’re all living through and share a secret I’ve been hugging for weeks.
People who follow my blog may have seen a post on January 2nd about second chances. In it, I had voiced my wish for a second chance at being a writer. A month ago, that wish came true when the powerhouse that is UK digital publisher, Bookouture, offered me a two-book contract.
During 2019 I wrote my third book, but significantly, my first thriller. It was a completely different experience to writing the Eden Books – not to mention a steep learning curve.
This time I’d written something diligently plotted, full of twists and turns, rather than a character-led novel like the two I’d already published. It was exciting, frustrating, baffling… and yes, I almost threw in the towel at about the halfway mark. But I finished it and in January, I began the dreaded querying phase; the process of emailing publishers, begging them to read my book.
Fellow writers will empathise with just how exposing – and often withering – this experience is. However needs must, so aiming high, I contacted Bookouture with my manuscript straight after the Christmas holidays.
Imagine my surprise and delight then when I heard from one of its highly regarded Commissioning Editors, Therese Keating, telling me that she’d very much enjoyed reading my novel (which then had a working title of The Godson) and that she was interested in publishing it.
But there was a snag. In order to sign me up, Bookouture needed a second novel; a follow up thriller to secure a two-book deal. Cut to me having a meltdown for several days while I watched my big break disappear round the U-Bend.
Somewhere hidden in the bowels of my laptop was a started novel. Something sinister, twisty – a manuscript I had parked, unsure whether I wanted to go to such a dark place in my soul. I pitched the idea to Bookouture. It had potential. ‘Potential’s good,’ I thought, wondering how on earth I could write a book in half the time my three other novels had taken to complete.
So, without further chapter and verse, a way forward with Book Two was agreed – with huge amounts of creative input from Therese, and for which I’m very grateful.
Today the secret is out. I’m hugely thankful to Bookouture for signing me as an author and can’t wait to share the first thriller with readers in the autumn.
If you’ve read this to the end, thank you for indulging my good news and taking a break from the utter misery elsewhere. Yes, I do feel guilty, sharing a moment of optimism, but throughout this terrifying time, babies will be born, people will fall in love, celebrate anniversaries and birthdays and achieve personal bests. Because even during a state of international emergency, life goes on.
Be safe, be well, and keep turning to books, music and film to escape.
Louise’s debut novel, How to be Brave, was a Guardian Readers’ pick in 2015 and a top ten bestseller on Amazon. The Mountain in my Shoe longlisted for the Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize 2016. The Sunday Mirror called Maria in the Moon ‘quirky, darkly comic, original and heartfelt’. It was also a Must Read in the Sunday Express and a Book of the Year at LoveReadingUK. The Lion Tamer Who Lost was described as ‘engrossing and captivating’ by the Daily Express. It also shortlisted for the RNA’s Romantic Novel of the Year and longlisted for the Polari Prize 2019. Call Me Star Girl hit number one on Kobo. It also longlisted for the Not The Booker Prize and won the Best magazine Big Book Award 2019. I Am Dust is out in ebook now.
When iconic musical Dust is revived twenty years after the leading actress was murdered in her dressing room, a series of eerie events haunts the new cast, in a bewitching, beguiling, moving and terrifyingly dark psychological thriller…
Blurb: Beth is running from her past – and her abusive ex-boyfriend. She’s building a new life, but can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching her.
The Blurb : A vicious serial killer roams the Irish Midlands… with his sights set on the next victim. A successful businessman has found the perfect recipe for getting away with murder. No bodies, no evidence. No evidence, no suspect. High art and low morals collide when graduate Sharona Waters discovers a multi-million euro art scam in play. She delves in, unwittingly putting herself on a direct trajectory with danger as the killer accelerates his murder spree. When Sharona gets drawn into the killer’s orbit, she peels away his public persona and exposes the psychopath underneath. Suddenly, the small town has no hiding place…
In recent years, he has walked thousands of miles for charity, raising awareness of the little-known disease Spinocerebellar Ataxia, following his own diagnosis in March 2015.
But has Ataxia slowed him down? Well, not so you’d notice. During the progression of his illness, Iain has clocked up thousands of miles, raising money and awareness for the condition; dozens of routes that kicked off with the London City Bridges Challenge for Ataxia UK in September 2015, (his first kilted-walk) followed by his 50th birthday walk in Hyde Park, and ended with a “stroll” along the French Riviera from Monte Carlo to Cannes; walking (with an ever-increasing reliance on his walking stick) in Paris, Nice, Cannes, Milan, Parma, Pisa, Florence, Ljubljana, Amsterdam, 500 miles along the Mediterranean coast of Spain, a 4-day walk around the coast of Isle of Arran (an island just off Iain’s beloved Scotland), and a walk along the Canal Du Midi in France along the way: this ‘walk’ first signalled the end of Iain’s walking days when he sustained a heavy fall near Toulouse, suffering knee-ligament damage.
But enough from me. You get the picture; Iain McGeachin is a very busy man who likes a challenge, so let’s find out more in his own words…
The Blurb : 1960s New York, and Emma Bowden seems to have it all – a glamorous Manhattan apartment, a loving husband, and a successful writing career. But while Emma and her husband Jonathan are on vacation at the Hamptons, a child drowns in the sea, and suspicion falls on Emma. As her picture-perfect life spirals out of control, and old wounds resurface, a persistent and monotonous voice in Emma’s head threatens to destroy all that she has worked for… Taut, elegant and mesmerising, Don’t Think a Single Thought lays bare a marriage, and a woman, and examines the decisions – and mistakes – that shape all of our lives.
Julie was born in East London but now lives a rural life in North Essex. She is married with two children. Her working life has seen her have a variety of jobs, including running her own publishing company. She is the author of the children’s book Poppy and the Garden Monster. Julie writes endlessly and when not writing she is reading. Other interests include theatre, music and running. Besides her family, the only thing she loves more than books is Bruce Springsteen.
No Way Out is the third book in Cara Hunter’s brilliant DI Adam Fawley thriller series and it’s been creeping up my #TBR list all summer.