Hello Liz. Thank you so much for joining me today and for inviting Novel Kicks onto your blog tour. Can you tell me about your novel, Deadly Reckoning?

The short answer is: A body, a missing child, and a vengeful sister dash detective’s Jazzy Solanki and Annie McQueen must race against the clock to stop a killer with a personal grudge. This one is all about coming to terms with her Jazzy’s relationship with her sister and her brother there’s a lot of twists and a lot of turns in it themes are all about nature versus nurture mental health coping with PTSD and with all of that going on struggling to catch a killer who’s quite diabolically clever

Which songs would make up a playlist for your book?

I’ve just been looking at some songs that might relate to Deadly Reckoning and one that springs to mind has got to be a Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads.
I played it a few times whilst I was writing to get me in the mood for writing about Jazzy’s sister, Mhairi, who is the antagonist in Deadly Reckoning.
Another one I listened to, will probably seem a strange choice, but those of you have read the book will understand. It is Wild Mountain Thyme and there’s two versions that I really like one is by The Silencers and the other is by the Red Hot Chilli Pipers not Peppers but Pipers and both Scottish bands.
Another song that appealed to me whilst I was writing it was Tainted Love by Soft Cell – an all time favourite and quite appropriate for Deadly Reckoning

What are the challenges and advantages when writing a book that’s part of a series?

The advantages are of writing a series are that as an author you get to know your characters more and more as the series goes on and, in each book, you can reveal a little more about each of the characters. I’ve got two main characters in Jazzy and Queenie and their stories tend to be front and foremost but I’ve also got stories in my mind about the rest of the Jazz Queens and that’s Fenton (Haggis) and Geordie (Misty Thistle) so the advantages are that you you get into their lives they become real characters to you. The disadvantages are that you become too attached to them and sometimes you don’t want to put them through the mill and I have to say we’re writing crime fiction so, yeah, we need to put them through the mill.

What’s your typical writing day like? Do you have any writing rituals?

I don’t have a typical writing day because I’m a bit of a procrastinator but when I’m writing I do have I’ve got some multi-coloured fairy lights lit in my room – when you’re writing dark fiction you can’t have too much light in your life. I have my candle on – I like to have a multi-sensory environment. If I’m editing or doing social media I tend to have a musical accompaniment of some description – usually from my playlist, but other than that no I don’t really have any rituals… I mean I don’t wear my knickers on back to front or anything like that although I’ve heard that some authors do.

Continue reading →

by