Frances di Plino's Blog, page 15

Reviews, Readers, Rock Gods and a Gift

I’ve got a few things to cover in this blog post, so bear with me because there is a gift at the end for reading all the way down.
Amazon reviews - Makers, breakers or irrelevant?I was asked to guest post on this topic over on Multi-Story.co.uk. I know that many indie writers struggle to get reviews from regular review sites and bloggers, and so rely on family and friends to boost their visibility on Amazon, but you might want to rethink this strategy after reading my article: http://www.multi-story.co.uk/guestspot.html
Reviews from total strangersUltimately, what we really want and need are comment from readers. Those lovely people who have bought our books and take the time to give feedback on them. One way of achieving this is for your book to be picked as a book club read. Bad Moon Rising featured on the Crime Scene Reader book club. Here is a link if you're interested in finding out how blunt and honest readers can be: Reader Reviews
Name a Rock God CompetitionThis competition is now closed. I’ve had some wonderful (and weird) suggestions, which I’ll be poring over to make a shortlist. Watch this space to find out who won.
And finally, here's the gift: a free collection of short stories to while away an hour or twoWish You Were (Not) Here (Pentalpha Publishing Edinburgh) is a collection of seven short stories. On Saturday 30th June and Sunday 1st July the book will be free on all Amazon sites. Please help yourselves to a copy.
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com

Waging War to Shake the Cold - review

In Waging War to Shake the Cold the author, Chic McSherry, has achieved something I didn’t think was possible – he made me empathise with someone who was basically unlikeable at the beginning of the novel. When I started reading, I wanted Kats, an ex-army veteran turned gangster, to be apprehended and made to pay for his actions, but by the end I wanted him to succeed in his endeavours - causing such a change of heart is no mean feat on the author’s part.
We follow Kats as he unwittingly causes the death of an innocent woman. From her he picks up some information on which much of the storyline hangs, although Kats himself is unaware of this at the time. For me, this is the only part of the plot that comes across as less than credible. It feels a bit too much like a plot device that this person should not only be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that she just happens to have the evidence with her for Kats to pick up.
Apart from the above quibble, this is a well told and compelling story. I found it hard to put down once I got into it – and that was even while I was unsympathetic to Kats!
Kats retires from active duty in Iraq to find that the country is offering less than nothing to its returning heroes. Unable to find work and becoming increasingly frustrated with the attitude of those he left behind, Kats is drawn into a life of crime. The villains in this story are psychotic and violent, but they act always in character, so the violence is both credible and chilling. Kats himself is not above using techniques learned while in the army to get any necessary information, but again, he acts in character, using just enough to get the job done and not simply for the sake of inflicting pain on another.
Throughout I felt as if I were in the shady and frightening world inhabited by the gangsters controlling Glasgow’s underworld – not a comfortable feeling. And this is not a comfortable book, but it is a gripping one. I defy anyone to stop reading halfway.
                      

Behind Closed Doors - Review

Behind Closed Doorsintroduces us to a new detective – one that I hope is going to feature again and again in future books. Beatrice Stubbs came to life for me in a way few fictional characters do. She irritated me at times, but not because she wasn’t well written, quite the opposite in fact. She annoyed me in exactly the same way a close friend would. I wanted to yell at her when she did something I considered dumb, hug her when she felt down and cheer her on when she got things right. In other words, J J Marsh has created a living, breathing person with whom readers can identify.
The plot is well crafted and original. DI Stubbs has been seconded to Zurich to uncover the truth behind a series of supposed suicides, which are, in fact, carefully crafted murders – each one designed to fit the ‘crime’ for which the killer has deemed the victims guilty.
We know fairly early on who is orchestrating everything, but not how or why, and it is this need to know which keeps the reader turning pages.
Behind Closed Doorsstraddles the boundary between literary fiction and crime writing, but it sits comfortably in both camps. It is, quite simply, a very well constructed crime novel written by an author in total control of her material.
I can’t wait for the next Beatrice Stubbs novel. My only concern is that the author has set the bar so high this is going to be a hard act to follow.
              
 

Wish You Were (Not) Here - free for two days

For two days only you can download FREE Wish You Were (Not) Here (Pentalpha Publishing Edinburgh), a collection of short stories with death (or thoughts of committing murder) featuring in most of them.
As with Bad Moon Rising, the cover has been crafted by the very talented JD Smith Designs.
Get the collection FREE while you can – offer closes midnight tomorrow.
                      
 

Ghost in the Machine - Review

Ghost in the Machine by Ed James is a well thought out and well conceived police procedural. The fact that we see events unfold through the eyes of one of the lowest cogs in the policing wheel makes for a refreshing change.
Scott Cullen, just a lowly DC, has many things to worry about, not least of which is his career path. But his desire for promotion doesn’t stop him from following his hunches, even when told categorically not to do so by his very annoying boss, DI Bain.
Of all the characters in this novel, only Bain felt a touch unreal. I felt his constant carping comments, although probably okay in moderation, were overdone. In these days of PC policing, I wasn’t convinced Bain would get away with his attitude and insults. This feeling did interfere with my enjoyment from time to time. I would strongly advise the author to tone it down slightly for the next in the series.
The use of settings to evoke both location and atmosphere is very well done. I felt as if I was right there with Scott as he moved from place to place.
Without giving away too much of the plot, it’s safe to tell you that a missing person case quickly turns into a hunt for a serial killer. There aren’t that many twists and turns, but finding out who the guilty party might be isn’t at all straightforward. The killer’s identity only becomes obvious quite late in the novel.

There is a nice use of social media to tie the victims and suspects together and we get to see how such sites work from both user and provider points of view. I’m pleased to say the technology wasn’t overpowering, as is sometimes the case when an author knows more than the reader. James used just enough techie info to make us part of the investigation but stopped well short of showing off.
There are a few minor editing issues – some words missing, others repeated. Punctuation awry in places. A bit of repetition. Nothing that a good editor wouldn’t have fixed in a jiffy. This, and my feeling that Bain wasn’t quite as credible as the rest of the cast, is all that troubled me with the book.
If there had been a four and a half star option on Amazon and Goodreads, that’s what I’d have given. I’d definitely read another one in the series.
             

 

There's a killer in my head

When my husband finished reading the final draft of Bad Moon Rising and told me he was appalled – couldn’t believe what I’d written – I knew I was on to a winner. What he disliked (too mild a word, but it will have to do) was the fact that I had identified so completely with my serial killer. He (the husband, not the killer) was profoundly disturbed by the sections written from the killer’s point of view and couldn’t quite come to terms with the thought of this monster being created in his beloved wife’s head.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him I hadn’t created the character, he’d been in my subconscious, hiding behind other characters, and simply pushed his way to the forefront of my mind when I needed him.
Murderers, rapists, torturers and others, even more unpleasant, are all there, waiting their turn to come to life on the page. They are not all content to wait, though. I can be in a supermarket checkout queue, doing the mundane stuff, like unloading the trolley and one of them will have sliced someone’s body with a razor by the time I’ve finished packing the goods into bags.
Anyway, I don’t know why my husband was so horrified about the maniac in Bad Moon Rising – he’s been reading my short stories for years and they all have a dead, nearly dead, or soon to be dead victim in them. He once commented that he feared I was planning his murder and using my short fiction to work on the perfect crime. I reassured him that as long as I was writingit, he had nothing to worry about. Just because part of my mind is focussed on evil deeds doesn’t mean I actually want to carry them out – well, I don’t as long as he doesn’t upset me too much.
And this is where the non-writer doesn’t understand the workings of a writer’s mind. We have all these people living in our heads, all clamouring to be heard. It’s a kind of madness, I suppose. A creative multiple personality disorder. If our characters are going to work on the page they have to be real – to us and to our readers.
I had to get under the skin of my killer and allow him to get under mine. I had to let him come to life with a past, present and future. I didn’t want him to be one-dimensional. My aim was to have the readers feel ‘there but for the grace of God go I’. It wasn’t easy, but I was determined to make my audience feel at least a tiny bit sorry for him. And it’s because I succeeded that my husband was disturbed. He didn’t like the way he was made to feel while reading. He wanted to put the killer into the ‘bad man’ box and shut the lid, but he couldn’t, because my character deserved pity as well as condemnation.
One of the reviewers commented: I finished ‘Bad Moon Rising’ feeling as though I had just eaten a good meal – satisfied, and just a little guilty. The guilt came, in part, from the degree of empathy the author had managed to invoke for the killer. (Full review: http://joreed.co.uk/blog/?p=60)
The publisher wants to see the second novel in the Paolo Storey series. My husband was relieved at first when I told him there wasn’t a serial killer in the next book. But then I explained the crime that drives the storyline in book two. At that point he suggested I might be sick and needed to go into therapy. But he’s wrong. I’ll deal with the voices in my head in my own way. Writing is all the therapy I need.
Bad Moon Rising is published by Crooked {Cat} Publishing.
The above article first appeared as a guest post on Dark Central Station

Rock God Needs Name

I need a stage name for my character How inventive can you be? Can you come up with an outlandish, but credible, name for an aging rock star desperate to make a big comeback?
The character features in the next DI Paolo Storey novel, Someday Never Comes and I’ve set up a free to enter fun competition calling for suggested stage names.
The authors of the two names I place in second and third spots will receive a free entry into the Flash 500 Competition. The person whose name I eventually use for my character will receive an acknowledgement in the credits and a free double entry into the Flash 500 Competition. The prizes in the Flash 500 Competition are £300, £100 and £50, so well worth having a go at. 
So, what do you need to know about my man? Firstly, the guy was the lead singer of a massively successful rock band in the late eighties/early nineties until his drug use brought about the group’s downfall. He now feels he has his drug situation under control and wants a second taste of fame, but the other members aren’t interested in regrouping – so X is going it alone using the name he was known by back when the group was topping the charts on a regular basis.
Secondly, he is stinking rich. Royalties from the group’s hits still bring him megabucks. He’s not after more money, just the adulation of the fans. 
How to enter Simply click here, or on the Facebook button on the left, and ‘like’ the Frances di Plino Facebook Page. Then between now and 15th June enter your suggestion for the character’s name either here in the comments box below, or on the Facebook Page. Only those who have ‘liked’ the page are eligible. That’s it – no purchase necessary (but if you felt like buying Bad Moon Rising I wouldn’t try to stop you).
You can enter as many times as you want - the only limit is your imagination.
The winners will be announced both here and on the Frances di Plino Facebook Page and the prizes can be used to enter the summer Flash 500 competition which runs from 1st July to 30th September.

Crooked Cat titles - half price weekend

Crooked Cat Publishing’s grand sale on all titles means that Bad Moon Rising is half price until midnight on Sunday.
Why not call in at the Crooked Cat and see what other great books can be yours this weekend for half the normal retail price? It's a trip worth taking.

The Cigar Seed - Review

The Cigar Seed is an ambitious debut delving into the world of terrorism, patriotism and shows where the lines blur between the two. I deliberately used the word ambitious, because it is never easy to present as likeable someone prepared to help wipe out hundreds of innocent people to further a political aim, but with his heroine, Paul Chiswick achieved this.
Terese Rodriguez is naive, inexperienced and passionate about the Basque country. She joins ETA, a group known for horrific acts of violence in an attempt to gain independence from France and Spain. Having found information which could be used to obtain a deadly virus, she is sent to Cuba to blackmail a long-retired son of the Cuban revolution.
I had a couple of problems with the storyline. The first of these was the fact that Terese was chosen for the mission. As I said earlier, she is both naive and inexperienced, but I assumed there must be a plot twist which would explain why she was picked ahead of other members of ETA (far more experienced and ruthless). Sadly, there was no such plot twist, leaving me to conclude that she was sent purely because the author needed her to be there.
The second problem was the ease with which she was able to carry out her mission. Not only did she find the initial contact person she needed almost as soon as she’d arrived in Cuba, but he was perfectly willing to take her where she needed to go. (This raised more false hopes in my mind that this could be a major plot device. I prayed that he knew who she was and was playing a deep game, but it wasn’t to be.)
The blackmail information, although credible if the only aim was to exhort money, was nowhere near strong enough to make the Cuban’s subsequent acts plausible. In effect, she forced him to put himself and members of his family in a position where they would be executed if caught. In such a scenario, scandal over an ancient indiscretion or certain death, no one would willingly choose death, but the Cuban did.
Having outlined the negatives, the positives are many. Chiswick is incredibly talented when it comes to scene setting. Wherever the storyline took the players, the various countries came to life on the page. His heroine has more than her fair share of emotional and actual problems to deal with, giving the reader strong reasons to root for her. The passion of the Basque Separatists shines through with chilling credibility and one can admire their aim, if not the methods chosen to achieve it.
            

Beating Creedence to the Top

When Bad Moon Rising was published by Crooked Cat Publishingjust over six weeks ago, a search on Amazon showed my novel on about page nine of the results. Not really surprising when one considers that not only is Bad Moon Rising the title of a famous song, but there appear to be hundreds of books with the same name.
A friend contacted me today to say that she’d looked for my novel on Amazon, but as she couldn’t remember my pen name had simply typed the title in the search engine. “Oh,” I said, “in that case, I bet it took you a while to find it.”
Her answer surprised me, but also made me very happy. Bad Moon Rising, searching in 'All Departments' on Amazon UK, brings my novel up as item five on the first page. What amazed me even more was that it appeared ahead of some Creedence Clearwater Revival items! In fact, only two of Creedence Clearwater Revival entries were placed above my Bad Moon Rising.
I was so amazed that I tried it myself. Sure enough she was right. I narrowed the search to 'Books' and my Bad Moon Rising came up as the second item on the first page.
Presumably, this new found place in the search facility is down to sales, tags and likes. Whatever the reason – I like it!
It seems readers like the book as much as I like its search engine visibility, as the five star reviews are building nicely.