GUEST POST FROM JO
Crime pays, so they say. And, to a large extent where books are concerned, this is true. My crime novels far outsell my women’s fiction novels. So, having turned to a life of crime (fiction) in 2021, why am I still writing women’s fiction? That’s a good question!
Crime and detective fiction are undoubtedly my first loves. From the moment I opened Richard Scarry’s The Great Pie Robbery at a very young age, I was hooked, and my reading taste has never really changed. At fifty-seven, you’ll still see me picking up the latest Robert Galbraith or Michael Connelly over any of the millions of women’s fiction titles.
I thought though, when I first started writing, that I couldn’t write a crime novel for some reason, and it wasn’t until the first Covid lockdown that I decided to see if I could. I could! And I did, and The Write Way to Die was born ten weeks later. It was my version of a crime novel though; not a police procedural, or a typical detective novel, but two middle-aged women who are definitely more gin and japes than jam and Jerusalem bumbling their way to finding a killer. It’s a book full of black humour, and I loved writing it. Equally so, the next two books in the series, Bang to Rights and The Wipeout Round. I will be starting on book four very soon – I’m just waiting for the idea to fully germinate in my brain!
So, why have I just published an emotional and quite dark women’s fiction book, The Bonfire Buddleia? I think the answer to that lies less in the books I’ve read and more in the life I’ve lived. I still feel I have many stories to tell about real life, real relationships, and the absolute highs and lows of this rollercoaster ride we call life. What it is to be human: to love, to lose, to feel very deeply; to suffer and to rise from the depths of despair. Serious stuff! I do miss the humour when I’m writing this type of book, and you will still find snippets of fun and funny stuff. If I can make a reader laugh or cry, then I have got the writing right.
Although I will be returning to my Folkestone-based crime series for the next book, I wouldn’t rule out more women’s fiction, or even a love story, sometime in the future.
About The Bonfire Buddleia:
Abandoned by their father, sisters Mags, Cami and Rose are raised by the cold and bitter mother. Finding their own private ways of coping with their unhappy childhoods, the sisters each bear hidden scars of the past. Until, that is, next-door neighbour, ‘Uncle Ken’ dies, and skeletons that have remained buried for decades begin to surface. Can the sisters unite to confront their demons and draw a line under the past, or will the revelations destroy them?
“Unforgettable. This book is a rare gift, a vivid and compelling tribute to sisterhood, its power to unite and transform.”
Julie Wassmer
Author of the Whitstable Pearl Mysteries
Jo Bavington-Jones on Amazon https://amzn.to/41xZApm
Thank you, Jo, for this great post.
