Release date - 7th May 2018
Book length - 244 pages Publisher - Bloodhound Books Book Depository - www.bookdepository.com Amazon UK - www.amazon.co.uk Amazon US - www.amazon.com I want to thank Sarah from www.bloodhoundbooks.com for the opportunity to take part in this blog tour and for providing me with a fascinating guest post from the author - thank you Leigh Russell. ABOUT THE BOOK Julie is devastated to learn that her husband, Paul, is having an affair. It seems her life can’t get any worse - until she comes home to find his dead body in their bed. When the police establish he was murdered, Julie is the obvious suspect. To protect her son from the terrible situation, Julie sends the teenage boy to his grandparents in Edinburgh while she fights to prove her innocence. With all the evidence pointing to her, the only way she can escape conviction is by discovering the true identity of her husband’s killer. But who really did murder Paul? The truth is never straightforward… GUESTPOST WRITING A STAND ALONE After focusing on writing series for several years, writing a stand alone has been an interesting experiment for me. Not content with a departure from the characters who people my series, I also decided to do something else that I hadn’t previously attempted, by writing in the first person. To begin with it felt strange to be doing that, but it’s exciting to set ourselves writing challenges, and sometimes they work out. The Adulterer’s Wife has only just been published, so it remains to be seen how successful my experiment will be. So far all my sixteen published novels have been written in the third person, and that has always been my preferred approach. Writing in the third person allows a writer the freedom to explore the narrative from different viewpoints. I like taking my readers inside the mind not only of my detectives, but also of my victims and, most especially, of my killers. The Adulterer’s Wife is written entirely from the point of view of one narrator. Writing in the first person like this has several drawbacks. The main challenge I faced was restricting the reader’s experience to just one narrative voice. Readers are only privy to that one character’s knowledge and ideas, which can be limiting. That one narrator is bound to be ignorant of so much that is going on in the minds of other key characters in the book. With multiple points of view, it’s relatively easy to let readers know more than the main character. So in my series books, the reader might know the identity of the killer, and who they are planning to murder next, and where, while the detective is casting around helplessly for leads. This can really help to increase the tension for the reader. It’s a slightly more sophisticated version of the technique exploited in pantomimes, where the audience can see that ‘He’s behind you’! Writing in the first person makes this difficult. Another new experience for me in writing The Adulterer’s Wife was the need to introduce a completely new set of characters. In my series, the main characters have already been established before I even start thinking my next book. I’m careful to ensure that each of my books works fine as a stand alone, so readers don’t need to have encountered my characters before, but I already know them. They frequently surprise me once I start writing, but there’s no denying that some of the ground work has already been done. My main characters have names and ages, personalities and relationships. They have homes and careers. Writing The Adulterer’s Wife, I was starting from scratch with all my characters. So, now that I have completed a stand alone novel, would I consider tackling another one? The honest answer to that is that I have absolutely no idea. I never intended to write even one stand alone, yet The Adulterer’s Wife is written. I’m still not quite sure how that happened. So it may well be that an idea for another stand alone novel will occur to me one day. It could happen tomorrow. I’ll genuinely know nothing about it until an idea hits me and I feel compelled to try and write it down. And it could be absolutely anything, and take my readers absolutely anywhere. Firmly wedded to my preferred genre of contemporary crime, I seriously doubt that I’ll ever write a humorous romance, or even a dystopian novel. But who knows? That’s another aspect of writing a stand alone that is new to me. With a series, I have at least a vague idea of where my characters may be heading in their next book. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict that my detectives working on the Murder Investigation Team will be looking into unlawful deaths, or that their families will continue to support or plague them, as they have done in previous books. The story is new each time, with a different killer driven by his or her own particular motivation, but my detective is a constant thread running through the series. And whenever I begin a new book, I have my main character waiting for me. By contrast, the characters in a stand alone have no existence at all, on the page or even in my imagination, before the book begins to take shape. Like all freedoms, that is both terrifying and exhilarating. So while I look forward to returning to my old friends, my series characters, I may take a holiday from them again one day and create a different set of characters, just for the fun of it. All it takes is one idea... and that may already be lurking at the back of my mind, waiting until I have time to work on it. AUTHOR BIO After many years teaching English in secondary school, internationally bestselling author Leigh Russell now writes crime fiction full time. Published in English and in translation in Europe, her Geraldine Steel and Ian Peterson titles have appeared on many bestseller lists, including #1 on kindle. Leigh's work has been nominated for several major awards, including the CWA New Blood Dagger and CWA Dagger in the Library, and her Geraldine Steel and Ian Peterson series are in development for television with Avalon Television Ltd. Journey to Death is the first title in her Lucy Hall series published by Thomas and Mercer. For more information: Website - www.leighrussell.co.uk Twitter - twitter.com/LeighRussell DON'T FORGET TO CHECK OUT ALL OF THE OTHER STOPS ALONG THE WAY!!!
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WelcomeHi fellow bookworms. My name is Linda and I'm a reviewer & blogger, wife & mother who loves all things books! Currently ReadingUPCOMING BLOG TOURS
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