A NEW BABY!

 A NEW BABY!

Well - new book anyway.

Blood in the Garden - trial cover

Well, book five is finished. It's been read and given a 'light editing' by John Nutting, who edits a specialist magazine for the canning industry, write articles for motorcycle magazines and was the one-time editor of the 009 News, a dedicated narrow gauge railway magazine. 

Then it was given a more thorough edit by my better half, who was a sub-editor on a national newspaper for 25 years. Not only does she spot my grammatical mistakes but is very good at suggesting how pedestrian passages can be improved and made much more interesting. 

I've been through the manuscript thoroughly four times - checking all 82,000 words, so, hopefully, we've corrected all the mistakes I made originally. I say, hopefully, because I bet one or two may have been missed. But I'm not too bothered, because even books by well-known authors, who have the services of professionals to read and check their work, have mistakes in them. As Esther Rantzen famously said, 'That's Life'.

Blood in the Garden - trial cover

When I was happy with it I sent it to Eddie, who works at the printers I use, who I trust to format it so it's ready for printing. I've now got the proof back to check. I've also got to insert a suitable dedication and make sure the detail of the other books at the back are up to date. But I still haven't finished. 

I had to write a 1,000 word synopsis to send to Paul, who does a fantastic job of designing my covers. He spent his working life as a graphic designer working on magazines, so knows his way around cover design. I'm now eagerly waiting for him to send me his ideas then we can decide what we're going to use. (The trial covers in this blog are my attempt but I know that Paul will come up with something much better.) So you can see, an independent author has a lot more to do than just write the book.

I feel that Blood in the Garden is a little different than the other titles in the series. It still has the same main characters, is still set in the 1950s and the actions still happens around this corner of the country. But, whereas the other books tended to be plot driven, I think this one is more about the dialogue and the interaction of the characters. It remains to be seen if it's as well received as the others. I do hope so.

Blood in the Garden - trial cover

Strangely, this book has taken a lot longer from inception to now than the other four. I can only think that the pandemic has had something to do with it. Now, I'm wondering what to write next. It will be another crime book and I've started on an idea for more contemporary story but I'm wondering if I should stick to DI Russell and the 50s. What do you think?