Pauline Rowson's Blog - Posts tagged "novel"

I'm delighted to announce that my third marine mystery featuring the flawed and rugged Inspector Horton, The Suffocating Sea, is to be published by Isis Publishing, the World’s leading publisher of unabridged audio books, as an audio book and digital download. You can read more information on my official web site http://www.rowmark.co.uk

The Suffocating Sea will be released in CD and cassette form in August 2009. It will be read by Gordon Griffin, an actor with over forty years experience who has appeared in a number of plays and television performances, and who also reads audio books by James Patterson and Patrick O’Brian. The Suffocating Sea will be on sale in CD and Cassette form around the World and available from Audible as a download.

The Suffocating Sea is the third in the marine mystery series of crime novels featuring Inspector Andy Horton and set in Portsmouth and the Solent. It has recently been chosen as the Best of British Crime Fiction by The Book Depository. It was released in paperback in January.

Audio books are the only means for some people to have access to books because of sight problems so that is excellent news and now with more people listening to music on the go having the novel in a format that can be downloaded will also attract new readers.

I've just started working on the new Inspector Andy Horton marine mystery; the sixth in the series. At first it all seems rather messy, lots of ideas and threads and none of them joined up enough to make a worthwhile plot, until yesterday that was.

I do all my plot outlines and characters in pencil before starting the creative process but this time something was urging me to start typing on to screen and get on with the creative process right away. Perhaps it was because I'd left Andy in the last novel in a turmoil and I needed to continue with his thinking. Or perhaps it was because one germ of an idea I had would take hold on screen during the creative writing process and flourish into a full blown infection. Anyway it worked (I think) I have now begun Andy Horton number six.

What I have written so far (two thousand words) might never see the final light of day because it will be changed many times before I am happy with it, but it's a start. Only another ninety eight thousand words to go before the first draft is complete. So I'd better sign off now and get on with it.

My radio phone in interview with Alex Dyke on Wight FM on 16 April was lots of fun. It was great to talk to people via a phone-in and to answer questions they’d e mailed in regarding my novels and how I write. I'd love to do more radio phone-ins so hope I can link in with other radio stations on this soon.

I was also delighted to find that the Captain sailing the Wightlink ferry from Portsmouth to Fishbourne, on my way over to the Isle of Wight for my radio interview, was Captain Paul Marshall who was the Captain on the St Clare at the time of my eight hour marathon book signing event in May 2008. He left the bridge on Wednesday - in the capable hands of his chief officer I hasten to add - to come and say 'hello' and chat while we waited to sail into Fishbourne.

All in all a pleasant couple of days on the Isle of Wight, where my thriller, In For The Kill is set. The Suffocating Sea (an Inspector Andy Horton crime novel) also ends on the Isle of Wight. You can read all about my novels, business books and more on my official web site www.rowmark.co.uk

This week sees the official publication of the new Marine Mystery crime novel featuring my flawed and rugged Portsmouth detective, Inspector Andy Horton.

Dead Man’s Wharf, which is published in hardcover, is the fourth in the marine mystery series. It is set against the backdrop of the Solent on the South Coast of England.

I'll be signing copies of Dead Man’s Wharf and others in the series at The Hayling Island Bookshop during Independent Booksellers Week on Saturday 20 June at 11am. Before then I am in Cornwall, Bristol and Dorset for book signings.

For more information visit my official web site at http://www.rowmark.co.uk

I’m delighted to announce that I have just signed a contract with Severn House for the publication of the fifth DI Andy Horton Marine Mystery crime novel, BLOOD ON THE SAND, which will be published on 26 February 2010 at the same time as the paperback version of DEAD MAN’S WHARF.

For those of you who would like a taste of what is to come for Andy Horton look no further…

Blood On The Sand by Pauline Rowson
The fifth Inspector Horton Marine Mystery Crime novel
 
Inspector Andy Horton’s holiday peace is shattered when stepping out across an abandoned golf course on the Isle of Wight on a cold, grey January, he finds himself facing a distraught young woman with a gun in her hand leaning over a corpse in one of the discarded bunkers.   When she professes to be the dead man’s sister and psychic, Horton’s old adversary, DCI Birch, is convinced she is mentally disturbed and the killer, but Horton is not so sure.  He feels a strange affinity towards the woman, and a sense of recognition even though he’s convinced they’ve never met.  When it’s revealed that the dead man was working on a top-level environmental project on behalf of the European Commission, Horton is urged by Superintendent Uckfield to go undercover. His mission is to trap a clever killer. Then another death changes everything.  With no clear suspects, and a confusion of possible motives, a frustrating, complex case is complicated still further by Horton’s growing feelings and concern for the woman.  As he goes in search of the truth, aided by Sergeant Cantelli, Horton uncovers a web of intrigue that ripples down the years, and which someone is determined should never be revealed.
 
And just to recap the DI Horton series in order:

TIDE OF DEATH
DEADLY WATERS
THE SUFFOCATING SEA
DEAD MAN’S WHARF
BLOOD ON THE SAND

I’m also hard at work on the next one! For details of all my books you can visit my official web site at http://www.rowmark.co.uk

I received the large print edition of The Suffocating Sea, the third in the DI Andy Horton series of marine mystery crime novels last week, and it looks good. This will now be on sale on line or to order through bookshops, and also available on loan through libraries. In addition, The Suffocating Sea is available as a talking book, which can be bought as a download or in cassette and CD format, or on loan through the library service. Of course, it is also available in paperback and hardback.

The reviews are back on Amazon.co.uk along with the ratings, (they disappeared for a while because of a technical glitch). Not all reviews are good, that is to be expected, what one person thinks a killer read another considers 'tripe'. My murder mystery novels have been classed as police procedurals, although I like to think of them as detective novels. They are not for the lovers of hard boiled crime fiction, the gruesome kind but more of a light entertaining read, although having said that some readers have described them as 'complex' and 'gripping'. Anyway, whatever, I am glad that Amazon has sorted out their technical glitch.

It’s the start of the Frankfurt Book Fair this week, and this year I won’t be going, although my novels are on the Frankfurt Book Fair web site with details of the rights available. It looks as though it might be a lively book fair in terms of protests. At least five groups, including Tibetan activists, have registered with the city to carry out protests. Let’s hope everything goes off peacefully!

I am looking forward to the London Book Fair though in April 2010, which I will be attending. I know it seems a long way off, but the time flies past. By then I’ll have a new Andy Horton published called Blood on the Sand. Can’t wait to see the cover design.

Back to this week though, and on Thursday I’m giving a talk and book signing at the 60+ festival being held in Portsmouth. I will be at Portsmouth Central Library on 15 October at 2.30pm.

Apart from that it’s on with the writing. Andy Horton number six is coming along nicely.
The Suffocating Sea

I was asked the other day how I feel when I tap out the immortal words THE END at the completion of a novel.

The timing of the question was quite eerie because I was just reaching the final pages of the copy edits of my latest DI Horton marine mystery crime novel Blood on the Sand which is being published by Severn House in February next year. It is the fifth in the Inspector Horton series. Reaching the end of this my feelings were relief mixed with anxiety: is it good enough? Should I re-write one more time? Could I have changed anything? Too late…I’ve pressed the send button and it’s gone to my editor. The next time I’ll get to review this will be at proof reading stage and all the anxieties over what, if anything, I should have changed will return. But by then it really is too late to make changes.

So how do I feel when I tap out the immortal words THE END at the completion of a novel? (Although I don’t actually tap out THE END).

It really depends on which draft I am writing. After the first draft there is a feeling of elation - I have finally managed to reach THE END after bashing out, as quickly as I can, somewhere between 80,000 to 100,000 words. With the second draft comes a greater sense of satisfaction that all the ends are beginning to tie up neatly. The third and fourth drafts fine tune the novel and by the time I’ve reached the fifth and sixth I’m beginning to know it backwards, up side down and inside out and can no longer see where the glaring holes are – time to get a second opinion from my editor. But always, no matter how many drafts it takes to get to the final version, when I reach the END I feel a shiver up (or should that be down?) my spine. This can be a shiver of satisfaction or excitement or both, and if I feel that then hopefully my readers will feel it too. And I’m pleased that Inspector Andy Horton has survived another case and will live to solve a new one.



Tide of Death