On the Virtual Road – Blog Touring

Zoë Sharp

For the past ten days since the new Charlie Fox novel, BAD TURN, came out, I’ve been on the road—virtually speaking. I’ve travelled halfway around the world without ever leaving my desk. I’ve been Blog Touring—or perhaps that should be Tour Blogging?—rather than the physical kind of touring. And it’s been fun.

Of course, in the past I’ve travelled all over the place to libraries and bookstores for the publication of various books in the series, quite often using a trip to the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention to kick things off. As Bouchercon is held in a different city/state every year (even making it over to the UK several times) it means that the starting point has also always been different.

with apologies to Q and 007

But, this time around I knew I wasn’t going over to Bouchercon and work-in-progress projects are beginning to pile up. So, doing another blog tour, ably organised by the fearsomely efficient Ayo Onatade, seemed like a good choice.

I’m told that sometimes authors rely on their blogger hosts doing a series of reviews but I hesitate over this way of doing things. What happens if one of the reviewers involved really doesn’t like the book? After all, I would have thought they have far too many books on their teetering TBR piles to read it first, just to make sure.

So, I prefer to do guest posts and articles on topics related to the book, mixed in with a few reviews where blogger/reviewers are happy to do them.

For the BAD TURN blog tour, I wrote six guest posts. Some of them were to the blog host’s suggested topic and others were of my own devising. I tried to make them relevant to the book without being outright BSP. (For anyone who may not know, BSP stands for Blatant Self-Promotion.)

For Shotsmag Confidential, Ayo asked me to write something about the European setting I used for much of the book, so I explained why I’d chosen to take Charlie to Italy and rural France, and how I researched those locations.

French chateau that caught my eye

For Anne Bonny Book Reviews, I wrote a piece for Abby Slater-Fairbrother about ‘borrowing’ characteristics or mannerisms from real people to create fictional characters. And also using names of people who have volunteered or bid to be included. There were more than usual in this book and integrating them was a challenge I really enjoyed.

Judith Baxter at Growing Younger Each Day wanted to know about the couple Charlie ends up working for—Eric and Helena Kincaid. So, I explored the nature of their somewhat dysfunctional crime family and looked at what made them tick.

Another location piece was on New Jersey for Tina Hartas at TripFiction as part of her ‘Talking Location With’ feature. I explained why I chose to set the start—and end—of the book in New Jersey, and even where the idea for the cover image came from.

  

Rural New Jersey (Jeff may well recognise this one...)

Sarah Hardy at By The Letter Book Reviews wanted to know about the changes that had taken place between Charlie’s first outing as a teacher of self-defence in a northern English city, to the later books where she’s working in close-protection for a top New York agency. Charlie’s certainly evolved through the thirteen books so far. And I hope she has a way to go yet!

Finally, I was asked to write a piece about HEroes vs SHEroes in crime thrillers for Sharon Bairden at Chapter In My Life. The way women were portrayed in the early thrillers I read frustrated me enough to want to write my own. Sharon also recalled the practical workshop I taught at Crime & Publishment earlier this year. I demonstrated how to defend yourself using a table fork and evidently it made quite a lasting impression…

The tour ends today but it seems a shame not to gather all these extras together and offer them to my readers as Bonus Features. Rather like the ‘Making-Of’ and ‘Behind the Scenes’ documentaries I used to love when I bought lots of movies on DVD. Hm, now that’s got me thinking…

I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks, firstly to Ayo, who organised the tour for me, and to all the bloggers mentioned above, who invited me to contribute to their blog sites. And I’m hugely grateful to the other bloggers who very kindly reviewed BAD TURN: Liz Barnsley at Liz Loves Books; Judith Baxter who, as well as the guest post, also did a review on her other blog, Books And More Books; Karen Cole at Hair Past A Freckle Book Reviews; Jen Lucas at Jen Med’s Book Reviews; and Noelle Holten at Crime Book Junkie. (You are all goddesses of the literary world.)

This week’s Word of the Week comes courtesy of EvKa, a regular in the Comments section. It is aibohphobia, meaning an irrational fear of palindromes. It was deliberately constructed to be one, but is a rather splendid word regardless.

Upcoming Events

I will be appearing with fellow crime author Martin Edwards at the Rochdale Literature & Ideas Festival. We’re presenting ‘A Brief History Of Crime’ at The Royal Toby Hotel in Rochdale, at 6pm on Thursday, October 17.

Murder in the Lakes

It is my pleasure to introduce a delightful English writer, Martin Edwards - delightful, not only because he is such a nice person, but delightful because of what he gives to mystery readers.

Martin - the researcher and writer

A practicing solicitor, Martin spends his free time immersed in the world of crime fiction - from writing novels and short stories (A CWA winner in 2008) to editing anthologies of crime fiction and chairing the nominations sub-committee for the CWA Diamond Dagger.  For a look at Martin's amazing breadth of involvement, you should take a look at his website http://www.martinedwardsbooks.com.  You can also follow his blog at www.doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot.com.

I first met Martin at Crimefest several years ago, where I was blown away by his general and specialized knowledge of the genre.  He won, by a mile, a quiz that was held towards the end of the conference.  I discovered it wasn't his first win.  The following year he won again, and he is now banned from entering, because no one else has a chance!

Martin - the competitor, with vanquished Simon Brett, David Stuart Davies, and Meg Gardiner

He has several series.  His latest book, The Hanging Wood, is the fifth in the Lakes District series.  He has finished the sixth in the series, The Frozen Shroud, which will be published in 2013.  I'm about halfway through The Cipher Garden, and I can see why Martin likes the Lake District so much.  His prose evokes a sense of place so strong that I have vivid mental images of where the story takes place.  I will have to visit the area when I am in the UK next.

Please welcome one of our genre's outstanding writers - a person who gives back more than he takes - Martin Edwards.

Stan - Thursday

_____________________________

Of all the pleasures known to a writer, finishing work on a novel comes high on the list. At the moment, I’m in the happy position of having completed the editorial work on my sixth and latest Lake District Mystery, The Frozen Shroud, which gives me a chance to accept Stan Trollip’s kind invitation to contribute to this terrific blog.

Another great pleasure of writing life is research, and it doesn’t get much better than having the excuse of “I’m off to research my book” to justify a trip to the Lakes. At any time of year, and even when it’s raining (which, to be honest, is often), it’s a magical part of the world.

The idea for writing a series set in the Lake District sprang from a conversation I had a few years ago with my then editor, David Shelley. He’d just published a stand-alone psychological suspense novel I’d written for him. In fact, I had a vague idea that Take My Breath Away might not be a stand-alone. It featured a true crime writer called Nic Gabriel, a character about whom I felt I had more to say. But David said he’d like me to start a brand new series – with a rural setting.

This was quite a departure for me, and at first I wasn’t sure. I’d written seven novels set in Liverpool and featuring lawyer Harry Devlin, and Take My Breath Away was set in London. I was keen to return to writing about Harry (and eventually, I did, with Waterloo Sunset, which was huge fun to write) and although I live on the edge of the countryside, I’ve worked in a city for years and felt more comfortable writing urban novels. However, I’d recently written a short story set in the North England countryside at the time of the appalling foot and mouth epidemic, and I decided it was time to get out of my comfort zone.

I suggested to David that I try writing a series set in the Lake District, and he was keen from the outset. I was aware that at that time, surprisingly few mystery novels had been set in the Lakes, and no British novelist had set a crime series there. It seemed like a great opportunity, and so it proved. So I owe a lot to David (who is now the editor for J.K. Rowling, so his career has moved into the stratosphere rather more rapidly than mine.)

The Coffin Trail, the first Lake District Mystery, was the most successful book I’d written up to that time. It reached the shortlist of six for the Theakston’s prize for best crime novel of the year, along with books by the likes of Ian Rankin, Susan Hill and Val McDermid. And the very positive critical reception encouraged me to keep going.

From the start, I decided that the backdrop to the series should be the developing relationship between DCI Hanah Scarlett, head of Cumbria’s cold case squad, and historian Daniel Kind. That relationship continues to develop – rather slowly, I have to admit, but they make some sort of progress in The Frozen Shroud!

Each story is set in a different part of the Lakes – a small area, but extraordinarily diverse. Many scenes in The Arsenic Labyrinth, for instance, take place in and around Coniston and the nearby Coppermines Valley. In The Frozen Shroud, I venture to Ullswater. Parts of the area around the serpentine lake are amazingly quiet and remote, despite being only a few miles as the crow files from the traffic teeming on the M6 motorway.

The research trips were tremendous fun. A visit to the dramatic waterfalls of Aira Force, close to where Wordsworth saw those legendary daffodils, a steamer trip from Pooley Bridge, a climb up Hallin Fell to enjoy the fantastic views, and the writer’s obligatory pub visit, to the bar of the hotel in the tiny hamlet of Howtown, were among many highlights.

The result is one of my darker novels, set in a remote community on the far side of the lake. Three deaths have occurred in Ravenbank on Hallowe’en, over a span of one hundred years – what can be the connection? History collides with the present in a book that takes the series in a new direction. I’m eagerly awaiting publication next spring.

In the meantime, I’ll soon be casting around for ideas for the next book. It’s a tough life for a writer - perhaps I need to start wandering around the lakes and fells again, in search of inspiration!   

Martin Edwards - Thursday