Welcome to my stop on Kat Armstrong’s A Pair Of Sharp Eyes blog tour with Love Books Tours!

Many thanks to Kelly @ Love Books Tours for arranging the following interview with Kat Armstrong…..

For those who don’t know already, could you tell us about yourself and your book(s) please?

I’ve done a variety of jobs over the years, but writing has been a common thread since the beginning. In my forties I took an MA in Creative Writing and my persistence finally paid off this year when I secured a contract for my first novel, a historical murder mystery called A Pair of Sharp Eyes. The story is set in Bristol where I grew up.
I’m fascinated by the eighteenth century, especially the lives of ordinary people then. The slave trade is the backdrop to my story; the wealth it generated for Bristol’s merchants ultimately explains why my heroine travels to the city to find work. There her adventures begin.
Where did/do you get your ideas from?

The best are unexpected. A character arrives like an interesting stranger, and I have to stop and pay them attention.

Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?

Sometimes a character might echo something said in real life, but that’s the extent of it.

How do you pick your characters’ names?

I used to find it difficult to come up with my characters’ names. Now I love the chance to add colour to the narrative with vivid names. I make sure all were current in the early 1700s, and many in A Pair of Sharp Eyes are specific to the West Country. I collect likely names from gravestones, subscription lists, trade directories and contemporary texts.
My heroine Coronation Amesbury was named for a different reason. Researching his family tree my father discovered a Georgian ancestor who christened his son ‘King.’ The spirit of mockery amused my father – King George was destined to become a Cumbrian hill farmer – and inspired me to give Coronation a staunchly Protestant father who marked his devotion to William of Orange by naming his daughter in memory of William’s ascension to the English throne. The name certainly suits Coronation, who considers herself the equal of most people she meets.

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

Read a lot. Read a lot more. Write a first draft. Throw it away. Write a second. Edit, edit, edit. Tear it up. Write it again. Realise most of those scenes aren’t needed. Write new ones. Edit, edit again. It took me three years to write A Pair of Sharp Eyes. For me that was quick.

Who are your top 5 favourite authors?

Shakespeare. Defoe. Austen. Dickens. Hardy. Modern novelists: J.M. Coetzee, W.G. Sebald, Hilary Mantel, Anne Tyler, Sarah Waters.

If you could meet any author, who would it be and what would you ask them?

I’d invite Henry Fielding to watch the Albert Finney/Susannah Yorke film version of Tom Jones with me because I’m sure he’d love it. Fielding would be a wonderful person to spend time with: he was funny, humane, learned and worldly-wise.

Were you a big reader as a child?

I learned to read aged three, much to my mother’s pride, and my first reading memories are the Ladybird books, a chunky compendium of fairy tales I was given for Christmas when I was about five, and unlimited quantities of Enid Blyton. From there I read virtually all the childhood greats from The Water Babies to the Narnia books (I was equally keen on North American classics like Anne of Green Gables and The Girl of the Limberlost as I was on The Little Princess and The Would-Be Goods). I was lucky that my mother read vast amounts of children’s literature and YA – she was an English teacher and a voracious reader of practically everything – so I had access to lots of teen fiction too. I enjoyed it so much, historical fiction and time-slip stories in particular, that I found it hard to graduate to adult fiction until I came across Agatha Christie on holiday one summer. Her detective novels bridged the gap, and my extensive reading of them in my adolescence came in handy years later when I started writing murder mysteries of my own.

When did you start to write?

When I was 7 or 8 I used to write in a den I made in the back garden from planks, pieces of corrugated plastic, and offcuts of carpet. It was no designer shepherd’s hut, and my parents were remarkably tolerant to let me leave it there for years, in full view of the house. The neighbours must have been furious.
If you could re-write the ending to any book what would it be and what would you change?
Is there a book you wish you had written?

There are lots of books I wish I’d written, and it would be presumptive to re-write another author’s ending. Perhaps I can dream of imbibing the genius of Jane Austen and complete the ending of her unfinished Sanditon, giving the heroine the kind of happy ending that doesn’t involve a wedding. Come to think of it, what Phoebe Waller-Bridge did with the last episode of Fleabag. I definitely wish I’d written that.

If you wrote an autobiography, what would your title be?

I would never write an autobiography. At gunpoint, how about ‘How to Become a Novelist in a Hundred Tortuous Steps’?

If you could invite any fictional character for coffee who would it be and where would you take them?

I’d like to know what Virginia Woolf’s Orlando would make of where we are today re gender and identity. And if it was Orlando it would need to be somewhere flamboyant. The Café Royal?

What are you working on right now?

A sequel to A Pair of Sharp Eyes, called The Darkest Voyage.

Tell us about your last release?

N/A

Do you have a new release due?

A Pair of Sharp Eyes is published by Hookline Books on September 10 2019.

What do you generally do to celebrate on publication day?

This will be my first launch event, but the best way to celebrate would be to write non-stop all day and add a few thousand words to my work-in-progress. Like many writers I’m not much of a party animal I’m afraid.

How can readers keep in touch with you?

Via my website, katarmstrongwriter.com, or my publisher: editor@hooklinebooks.com
Is there anything else you would like us to know?

If you want to publish, find other writers and swap work. It will save you a lot of time.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, Kat 🙂

Blurb

Coronation hears of the murders before she even reaches the slave port of Bristol – six boys found with their throats slit. Horrified, she questions the locals’ readiness to blame the killings on Red John, a travelling-man few have actually seen. Coronation yearns to know more about the mystery. But first she has to outsmart the bawds, thieves and rakes who prey on young girls like her: fresh from the countryside and desperate for work. When the murderer strikes shockingly close to Coronation, she schemes, eavesdrops and spies on all around her until the shameful truth is out.  

Buy Link 

https://amzn.to/2xybjGO

happy reading 🙂

Authors, Phillipa Ashley

and Kim Nash

have joined forces with the Museum of Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, to create a book festival where book lovers are invited to meet some of the UK’s most popular authors.

The Chase BookFest will be held at the Museum of Cannock Chase, Valley Road, Hednesford on Saturday 21 September 2019.

The event is Cannock Chase’s first book festival devoted to women’s popular fiction and thrillers. It has attracted a host of star names including Milly Johnson, Cathy Bramley, Miranda Dickinson, Iona Grey, Nicola May, Mark Edwards and many more best-selling and award-winning popular novelists.

Readers will be able to enjoy author readings and join in question and answer sessions and discussions with favourite writers from the local area and further afield.

They can even have tea with an author by booking onto ‘Tea and Conversation’ audiences with Sunday Times best sellers Milly Johnson in conversation with Cathy Bramley, Romantic Novel Awards winner Iona Grey, best-selling crime thriller writer K.L. Slater and number one best-selling novelist Mark Edwards.

A pop-up Waterstones book shop will be on site for the day along with a variety of book and craft stalls and a unique book-themed ‘Yarnbombing’ display outside.

Bestselling author Phillipa Ashley said: “The support for previous events shows how much popular fiction is loved by readers.  We’re thrilled that the Museum has been so supportive of this event and of fiction in general.”

Author and Head of Publicity at publisher Bookouture, Kim Nash said: “We’ve been so lucky to get so many amazing authors on board and would love to thank them all for being so enthusiastic about the festival.’

Lee Bellingham, Museum Services Manager for Inspiring Healthy Lifestyles, said: “The museum has been hosting very popular ‘Meet the Author’ events for some time now, and along with local authors Phillipa Ashley, Kim Nash and the book loving members of staff, we thought it would be lovely to have a book festival here. We are thrilled to be the venue for the first ever Chase BookFest.

Events like this showcase the museum not just as a home for local history, but as a community venue for arts and cultural activities. We look forward to welcoming authors from around the country to Cannock Chase for the day.”

The day runs 10am until 4pm with tickets available for £3 by calling the museum on 01543 877 666. Tea and Conversation with an author costs £5 and includes tea or coffee and cake, and Q&A Panels cost £3.  Don’t miss the chance to meet your favourite author, book in advance to avoid disappointment. 

Please see the museum Facebook page and website, museumofcannockchase.org, for timetables and start planning your BookFest!

Welcome to my stop on Kristy McCaffrey’s Cold Horizon blog tour with Love Books Tours!

Blurb

Ambition and courage at the top of the world …

Lindsey Coulson likes to scale mountains. With her sister, Alison, she has made a name for herself climbing the tallest and most treacherous peaks in the world. But when Alison dies on a K2 expedition—the second highest mountain on earth—Lindsey stops climbing. Unable to shed her grief, it becomes clear she must return to the wilderness and only one place will do—K2, the Savage Mountain.

Tyler Galloway has finally secured a permit from the Pakistani government to bring an American team to K2. When Lindsey Coulson inquires about joining the expedition, he gladly brings the famed mountaineer on board. Her strong climbing resume precedes her, and she’ll be a welcome addition to the small crew he has assembled. But K2 is a force unto itself, as is Lindsey. Both will test his limits. And both will test his heart.3

Author Bio

Kristy McCaffrey has been writing since she was very young, but it wasn’t until she was a stay-at-home mom that she considered becoming published. A fascination with science led her to earn two mechanical engineering degrees—she did her undergraduate work at Arizona State University and her graduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh—but storytelling has always been her passion. She writes both contemporary tales and award-winning historical western romances.

With the release of Deep Blue, Kristy is launching The Pathway Series, a project she’s been developing for years. Each book will combine her love of animal conservation and environmental awareness, while also shining a light on unique and diverse locations around the world. Come along for high adventure with honorable heroes, determined heroines, and Kristy’s trademark mysticism.

An Arizona native, Kristy and her husband reside in the desert where they frequently remove (rescue) rattlesnakes from their property, go for runs among the cactus, and plan trips to far-off places like the Orkney Islands or Machu Picchu. But mostly, she works 12-hour days and enjoys at-home date nights with her sweetheart, which usually include Will Ferrell movies and sci-fi flicks. Her four children have nearly all flown the nest, and the family recently lost their cherished chocolate Labrador, Ranger, so these days a great deal of attention is lavished on Ranger’s sister, Lily, and the newest addition to the household—Marley, an older yellow Labrador they rescued in early 2018. Both dogs are frequently featured on Kristy’sInstagram account, so pop over to meet her canine family.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” – John Muir

Connect with Kristy

Website: http://www.kristymccaffrey.com

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/didEqv

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKristyMcCaffrey

Twitter:  https://www.twitter.com/McCaffreyKristy

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristymccaffrey/

Buy Link 

https://amzn.to/2Yzi9b9

ICYMI…..

#DeepBlue by Kristy McCaffrey @McCaffreyKristy #BlogBlitz #Interview #LoveBooksTours

happy reading 🙂

Hi and welcome to my Flashback Friday feature 🙂

On the first Friday of each month I like to have a little look back at what I was reading during the same month in previous years, since starting my blog!

Here are my reviews from September 2018 and previous FBF’s…..

Their Final Act (DI Alec McKay Book 3) by Alex Walters @mikewalters60 #BlogBlitz #BookReview @Bloodhoundbook @sarahhardy681

Guess Who I Pulled Last Night? by Nikki Ashton @NikkerAsh #BookReview

Truth and Lies by Caroline Mitchell @Caroline_writes @AmazonPub #BlogTour #BookReview

The Trailing Spouse by Jo Furniss @Jo_Furniss #BookReview

I Give You My Heart by SarahJane Ford @sjfordauthor #BlogTour #BookReview & #Giveaway with @rararesources

#FlashbackFriday with @jasminehaynes1 @GuyFSAuthor @VivWrites & @writermels

‏

Have you read any of the above?

Ooooo, I didn’t see that coming!

It has been so great to catch up with DCI Timothy again. Due to other blogging commitments this is the first chance I’ve had to continue with this excellent series and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this story. I think this has been my favourite book yet, but I’ll probably say that about them all!

Timothy is back within a team having recovered from being attacked (read the previous books first, if you haven’t already!). He’s still not 100% though and it shows at times. It’s also having an impact on his marriage. I enjoy that we see this personal side to the character’s story. It makes them all the more real.

In Stains of Suspicion a body is found under a tarpaulin in a carpark and it’s assumed by the witness that it is the body of a child but, is in fact a tiny older lady. The family are located and informed and an investigation begins. It soon transpires that the lady has died of a heart attack, but how did she covered herself up?? Her car is also missing. It doesn’t make much sense and the team have their work cut out if they are to prove this lady was indeed murdered.

To add further intrigue to the story, a man they believed to be the victim’s brother insists that this lady isn’t his sister. So, who is this woman and whatever happened to his real sister??

The victim’s family are interesting to say the least. There are four children, one of whom was adopted and all as different as they can be. They have odd relationships. The (older) husband is suffering with dementia and is now in a care home but seems to have been quite controlling and abusive in the past. This woman’s life is quite a mystery. I enjoyed following the team as they put the pieces of the puzzle together and figured out the facts.

The suspense had me completely gripped and I was totally shocked when the truth was revealed. This killer is nothing short of brutal! Their matter of fact attitude made my blood run cold. Another brilliant murder mystery, full of surprises and intriguing characters. I highly recommend.

I’ve already started the next book in the series, The Calibre of Death.

Watch this space for my review!

ICYMI…..

Local authors

The Bridport Dagger by Alison Lingwood

Q&A with author, Alison Lingwood

A Wild Kind of Justice by Alison Lingwood #BookReview

happy reading 🙂

Welcome to my stop on Clio Gray’s Deadly Prospects blog blitz with Love Books Tours!

Many thanks to Kelly @ Love Books Tours for arranging the following interview with Clio Gray…..

Where did/do you get your ideas from?
I have a massive Paper Museum (over 100 box files) filled with articles, book extracts and snippets I’ve read and come across for the past thirty five years (scary! Destined to be a librarian!) so I usually start from some interesting historical fact and read up and research it further, and then connect it to another and another until I have the bones of a story.

Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?
No, although I do occasionally pinch characteristics – for example, I saw a man at an airport with an incredibly long and rectangular face and that I have used.

How do you pick your characters’ names?
I’ve got a little booklet with loads of names written down that I have come across over the years. Whenever I come across one that interests me, in it goes. And when I need one I flip through until I find one (or adapt one or another) that fits

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?
Dogs walked, fed and rested, cats fed so they don’t start yowling annoyingly, I just turn on the laptop, pour a cool glass of home-made wine (not very alcoholic!), pull the blinds, switch on the table lamps, read what I wrote the previous day and start writing.

Who are your top 5 favourite authors?
Oh good grief! Too many to choose from!
Mervyn Peake has to be up there, along with the poet Charles Causley. Have recently been very impressed with Olga Tokarczuk, and Lucy Cooke’s book ‘The Unexpected Truth about Animals’ had so much interesting stuff in it I went out and bought. Perhaps my favourite is Rev. J Wood, one of those polymath Victorians who wrote about anything and everything and his pages are crammed to bursting with unusual facts and amazing illustrations.

Were you a big reader as a child?
Yes! Library visit every Saturday Morning, and mother always had loads of books around the house. I remember the first one I ever owned, when I was three. In fact I think I still have it somewhere.

When did you start to write?
When I moved up to Scotland I couldn’t get work for five long years. That’s when I started scribbling a first novel – pretty awful, although honestly I’ve read worse! So glad it never got published or I would be ashamed of it every day.

If you could re-write the ending to any book what would it be and what would you change?
I’ve just read Soji Shimada’s Murder in the Crooked House and the ending was so ludicrous it had me practically throwing the book across the room. Ingenious, but utterly preposterous. Would like to have taken some of the ideas in it and rewritten the whole thing!

Is there a book you wish you had written?
The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx, or Dirt Music by Tim Winton. Both are modern masterpieces.

If you could invite any fictional character for coffee who would it be and where would you take them?
I wouldn’t! I hate coffee and I hate going out and I hate chatting

What are you working on right now?
I’m working on what I’m loosely calling my Albanian Trilogy. It involves the Pfiffmaklers, a family-based Travelling Theatre group who get tangled up in the fights for Independence in the troubled area of Serbia, Croatia and Albania. The second one also ties in with Philbert and his pig from The Anatomist’s Dream and gives them an ending of sorts.
I’ve also just completed a sequel to The Legacy of the Lynx

Tell us about your last release?
My last release was Hidden Pasts, the third in the Scottish Mystery series. Set on Hestan Island and having reverberations with a great many things going on today (problems in Crimea, subjugation of minorities, fear of The Other) despite being set in the mid 19th-c. And a spot of murder, naturally.

Do you have a new release due?
Archimimus, the life and times of Lukitt Bachmann will be published by Urbane in October 2019
How a boy from the mountains is turned into an assassin…

What do you generally do to celebrate on publication day?
I don’t. By the time that happens I’ve already moved on to something new!

How can readers keep in touch with you?
I’m always delighted to hear from readers and can be reached through my website or my publishers

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, Clio!

Blurb

Deadly Prospects is book 1 in the Scottish Mystery series. 1869, Sutherland, Scotland. For years the people of this remote area of the Highlands have lived a hard life. Now a local Gold Rush has attracted the Pan-European Mining Company to the area, and Solveig McCleery is determined to re-open the Brora mines and give the population the riches they deserve. But when work starts on re-opening the mines, the body of a prospector is discovered, and odd inscriptions found on stones near the corpse. Before the meaning of these strange marks can be deciphered another body is discovered. Are these attacks connected to the re-opening of the mines? Will Solveig’s plan succeed in bringing peace and prosperity back to the area? Or has she put in motion something far more sinister?

Buy Link 

https://amzn.to/2lwZTQR

ABOUT CLIO GRAY

Clio was born in Yorkshire, spent her later childhood in Devon before returning to Yorkshire to go to university. For the last twenty five years she has lived in the Scottish Highlands where she intends to remain. She eschewed the usual route of marriage, mortgage, children, and instead spent her working life in libraries, filling her home with books and sharing that home with dogs. She began writing for personal amusement in the late nineties, then began entering short story competitions, getting short listed and then winning, which led directly to a publication deal with Headline. Her book, The Anatomist’s Dream, was nominated for the Man Booker 2015 and long listed for the Bailey’s Prize in 2016.

Welcome to my stop on Anne Coates’ Dancers In The Wind blog tour with Love Books Tours!

Many thanks to Kelly @ Love Books Tours for arranging the following guest post by Anne Coates…..

Minor characters – major roles

When I first wrote Dancers in the Wind I hadn’t envisaged it as the beginning of a series. Then Urbane offered to publish it, and Matthew Smith saw it as the first of a trilogy (but has happily agreed to book number four!). For this reason I am truly grateful that I took time to ensure that my “minor” characters were more than two-dimensional and had back-stories and lives of their own.
Received wisdom is that any “chain” is only as strong as its weakest link. This applies to characters in film, TV programmes, theatrical performances
– and books. One bad actor can ruin a whole production. When writers introduce a character they don’t have to give all the details of their lives but they weave information into the narrative and their reactions gradually reveal their personalities. Although a character may have minor role, the impact they have on the plot may be of major importance.
The parents of my protagonist, Hannah Weybridge, have cameo parts as they have moved, much to their only daughter’s chagrin, to France. Hannah feels deserted on more than one level. Her baby’s father, Paul, is not on the scene and her best friend Liz Rayman has gone off to work for a charity in Somalia. Both of them are “off stage” so to speak but hopefully the reader will want to know more about them and follow their fortunes in later books.
In writing Dancers I created a world set in 1990s London for Hannah and her friends. Linda, Dave, James and Joe are involved in the story and fortunately for them they survive and move with Hannah into Death’s Silent Judgement. But there are other characters who have grown with the series. In Dancers, Sam who works at the Lost Property Office at Kings Cross and is DI Tom Jordan’s informant, wormed his way into this author’s heart. All the groundwork was there for him to have a bigger role in the sequel. However there are characters I have taken great delight in killing off – sooner or later they get their comeuppance – and others whose deaths I have mourned.

© Anne Coates, 2019

Blurb

SHE IS HUNTING FOR THE TRUTH, BUT WHO IS HUNTING HER?

Freelance journalist and single mother Hannah Weybridge is commissioned by a national newspaper to write an investigative article on the notorious red light district in Kings Cross. There she meets prostitute Princess, and police inspector in the vice squad, Tom Jordan. When Princess later arrives on her doorstep beaten up so badly she is barely recognisable, Hannah has to make some tough decisions and is drawn ever deeper into the world of deceit and violence.

Three sex workers are murdered, their deaths covered up in a media blackout, and Hannah herself is under threat. As she comes to realise that the taste for vice reaches into the higher echelons of the great and the good, Hannah realises she must do everything in her power to expose the truth …. and stay alive.

ABOUT ANNE COATES

For most of her working life in publishing, Anne has had a foot in both camps as a writer and an editor, moving from book publishing to magazines and then freelancing in both. Having edited both fiction and narrative non-fiction, she has also had short stories published in a variety of magazines including Bella and Candis and is the author of seven non-fiction books. Telling stories is Anne’s first love and nearly all her short fiction as well as Dancers in The Wind and Death’s Silent Judgement began with a real event followed by a ‘what if …’. That is also the case with the two prize-winning 99Fiction.net stories: Codewords and Eternal Love.

Buy Link 

https://amzn.to/2lJsgLW

happy reading 🙂

Welcome to my stop on Joe Hakim’s The Community blog tour with Love Books Tours!

Many thanks to Kelly @ Love Books Tours for arranging the following interview with Joe Hakim…..

For those who don’t know already, could you tell us about yourself and your book(s) please?

Hello. I’m Joe Hakim. I’m a writer and I live and work in Hull. The Community is my first novel, but I’ve been trying to scrape by as a freelance creative-type for a few years now. I’ve worked a lot in spoken/word and performance poetry, and I’ve also dabbled in theatre and short fiction.

The Community is a scifi/horror novel set in my hometown. It’s about a group of estranged friends who find themselves drawn back together by a mysterious sinister force.

Where did/do you get your ideas from?

That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I could rattle on about the interplay between the conscious and subconscious, but no one wants to hear about that do they? They want a solid bit of advice and I don’t blame them.

I think when the germ of idea pops into your head, if you ask it a simple question and it will grow into something more tangible. It’s the ‘what if?’ thing. There are many strands that have gone into The Community – some of which I’m still trying to untangle myself – but the thing that really set the ball rolling was a simple question: ‘What would happen if an alien entity invaded the place where I live?’

Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?

If I answer this question with a ‘yes’, I’m potentially committing career (and relationship) suicide, so I’m going to say ‘no’.

In all seriousness, I think most writers cherry-pick aspects of people they’re familiar with or interact with. A turn-of-phrase, a personality quirk, an anecdote… writers are thieves. It’s part of the process. And of course, some aspect of the writer will usually pop up in the characters as well. That’s why it’s best to avoid getting into relationships with writers.

Only joking.

How do you pick your characters’ names?

Funnily enough, I find picking characters names a bit of a nightmare. I put in place-holder names to begin with, and then I agonise over finding more suitable names: scouring the phonebook, looking at the spines of the books that I own, sticking the telly on, things like that. And then, after a couple of days I come to terms with the fact that I’m massively overthinking it and stick with the initial placeholder names.

Every. Bleeding. Time.

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

Not really, no. And I’m not being obstinate or anything like that. Because I work in a lot of different mediums which involve a lot of collaboration, I tend to a bit all over the place. It pains me to admit it, but the only kind of routine I have is a shamefully boring one. When I get up, I set about the business aspect of what I do, which is send emails, chase up invoices, admin work and expenses, stuff like that. I used to avoid doing that stuff as much as possible, because it’s the antithesis of creativity and art, but if you want to function – and more crucially earn money – as a freelance artist or creative of any kind, you have to wrap your head around that aspect of it. And as I’m getting older, I find that if I get up and get that out of the way early in the morning, it leaves me the rest of the day and night to focus on the most important part of what it is I do: the creative bit.

I write every day, but I have no set pattern or system. It shifts according to the needs of the work.

Sorry if I’ve bored everyone’s socks off there.

If you could meet any author, who would it be and what would you ask them?

Alan Moore.

How’s it going Alan?
Were you a big reader as a child?

Yes. I was very fortunate. Due to various familial vicissitudes which I won’t go into here, I spent a lot of my childhood with my Grandma Topsy. She was big into reading, very insistent actually. She believed that reading and literacy in general was an essential part of life. I became a member of Carnegie Library on Anlaby Road (in Hull) when I was three years old, and for years she would take me every Saturday to get more books and to buy comics.

When did you start to write?

I distinctly remember writing stories and poems from an early age at primary school, but I think that’s a bit of a cop-out answer.

I still find it strangely uncomfortable referring to writing as a ‘career’, but my first published piece of writing appeared on thisisull.com, an arts and culture website based in Hull, sometime around 2005. That was when it all started for me.
If you could re-write the ending to any book what would it be and what would you change?
Is there a book you wish you had written?

I’m going to have to give another cop-out answer here. I’ve honestly never read something and thought: ‘Well, what you should have done is…’

And again, there are many, many books that I love and admire, but I’ve always been aware that the reason I’m reading them is because I could have never written them. If that makes sense.

If you wrote an autobiography, what would your title be?

‘I’ve Got A Thing For Vinegar: The Joe Hakim Story’

If you could invite any fictional character for coffee who would it be and where would you take them?
Kilgore Trout. There’s a place near me that make Scotch Eggs that are the size of a baby’s cranium. I think he’d be well into them.

What are you working on right now?

I have a collection of short stories, ‘Full of Pins’, which is currently being rejected by all good agents and publishers everywhere.

I’m working on an interactive theatre piece called ‘Omni-Science’ with Brick by Brick theatre company. It’s wild, check it out:
https://brickbybricktheatre.weebly.com/

I host a weekly arts and culture show on BBC Radio Humberside every Thursday 7-10. Tune in, I need the listeners.

I’m about to embark on a project with photographer Graeme Oxby.

I’m in the very early stages of what I hope will be my next novel. It’s set in a very specific time period, so I’m having to do a lot of research, so I’m consulting with my Wise Owls at the moment.

Tell us about your last release?

‘The Science of Discontent’. It’s an album of spoken word and music, a collaboration with my mate Ashley Reaks:
https://ashleyreaks.bandcamp.com/album/the-science-of-discontent
What do you generally do to celebrate on publication day?

Get drunk.

How can readers keep in touch with you?

You can find me on that twitter @JoeHakim_ . Remember the underscore at the end, or you’ll end up harassing some poor guy in America. Oh, and keep it clean people.

Is there anything else you would like us to know?

They will fill the void within you all.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, Joe 🙂

Blurb

A northern coastal city. A sinister, extra-dimensional intelligence is taking hold…

Joe Hakim draws the reader into the heart of a disenfranchised community impacted by strange forces beyond its control. A group of friends: separated by time, choices, and circumstance are reunited by their shared encounters with an uncanny presence that looms over their lives. The seeds were sewn in their childhoods, now they must try and understand what is happening, before it is too late.

Raw and uncompromising, The Community fuses social commentary with a dose of sci-fi horror, to cast a light on an existence spent in the Void.

Buy Link 

https://amzn.to/2kcE1dd

happy reading 🙂