Taking a chance

The year is nearly at an end and I couldn’t let it pass without a little reflection on how different it has been for me. This was the year of the great change, from thirty years of writing romance to becoming a published crime writer.

Murder Among the Roses was a book of the heart. A story that had been sitting, half-formed, in the bottom of my desk for years. It was a story I longed to tell but with a constant demand for my romances, I’d had no time to write.

Then the world changed.

Lockdown

In the bleakness of lockdown, the shocking daily statistics on the news, many of us considered the future and whether indeed we would have one.  It was an “if not now, when?” moment.

I delivered the last book on the contract for my romances, informed the wonderful editor that I’d worked with for twenty years, that I was taking six months out to write a story that wouldn’t go away, and I set to work.

It wasn’t easy. Writing crime, I quickly discovered, has different requirements than romance. Many more characters for a start. But I set my story in a familiar place, Maybridge, which has featured in many of my romances. It gave me a frame,  a place where I felt at home.

The characters

I already had my heroine, my sleuth, and her family and that life changing moment when she found the bones of long buried baby.

Gradually I found my other characters, her extended family, her neighbours, a friend she’d found at a bleak moment and someone from the past. And 85,000 words later I had my story.

Oops…

My first audience was at the Romantic Novelists’ Association conference, where the first 1,000 words were read out by someone who knew nothing about the story, or who had written it.

She did a good job. It got a laugh and then, as I was listening I heard the exact moment when it fell flat.

Backstory.

In an effort to create sympathy for my character, instead of driving the story forward, I’d slipped into backstory. After more than seventy books I’d made a classic rookie mistake.

I couldn’t wait to get home to fix it and then, after another read through to check that I hadn’t put a brake on the story anywhere else, I sent it out into the world, high on hope.

Back to the beginning

I was starting over in a new genre and this is a tough business. I’ve been a part of it long enough to know that even with a long and successful career behind me it wasn’t going to be easy to find a publisher.

There were rejections . I expected that. I was even prepared to publish the story myself.

Then an email arrived from a senior commissioning editor at Joffe Books saying that she loved the book…  I was waiting for the inevitable “but”.

It didn’t come.

She wanted to talk to me, suggested a time and, after that conversation. she offered me a contract for a three book series. I gave me the kind of notes that come from a great editor to strengthen the book.

A two-book year!

So this year there have been two Maybridge Murder Mysteries starring my amateur sleuth, Abby Finch.

The first, Murder Among the Roses, now has over 1000 5* ratings on Amazon, and some truly wonderful reviews.

The second, Murder Under the Mistletoe, published at the beginning of November, (still at the launch price of 99p/99c) already has nearly 700 5* ratings.

As  2024 approaches, I am hard at work on the third book in the series which will be published in late spring.

What further adventures await both Abby Finch, and her creator I have yet to discover, but the lesson is learned. This life is not a rehearsal.

Carpe diem. Seize the day.

Wishing you all a wonderful New Year, filled with adventure, achievement,  joy and a whole load of diems carped.