Jane Lythell's Blog: https://janelythellamwriting.blogspot.com/, page 5

Where I Write

In August I made a short video (4 minutes 20 seconds) about Where I Write. Hope you enjoy:

Where I Write

My novels are published by Head of Zeus
After The Storm


The Lie of You

Reviews of After The Storm

In an earlier post I thanked book bloggers for their reviews of After The Storm.  To complete the picture here are the magazine and press reviews it has received to date.
Richenda Miers Country Life August 26 2015                                        Chance unites two couples on a Caribbean cruise: four totally different characters, each battling with inner turmoil, in what should have been idyllic surroundings. As each of them unburdens their secrets and unravels their problems, a sinister foreboding builds into a terrifying climax, keeping you on tenterhooks until the end.

The Big Summer Book Review July 2015 Best magazineAfter The Storm follows two couples, Rob and Anna from England, and Owen and Kim, from Florida, USA, as they set off on a boat towards a remote Caribbean island. The group spends 10 days with only each other for company. We found it was a bit of a slow-burner, but well worth the wait for the brilliantly dramatic ending. An enjoyable read – Best loves!

Alasdair Buchan Diplomat magazine May/June 2015British couple, Rob and Anna are on holiday in Belize when they meet an American couple with a wooden boat who need cash so the four agree to share costs for a few weeks of blissful peace and quiet sailing in the Caribbean. Then they all lived happy ever after. 
You think? Don't be silly. This isn't Mills & Boon. It's the latest novel by Jane Lythell, the new queen on the block when it comes to unravelling seemingly idyllic scenarios, page by page, as the participants rush headlong in their ignorance to an unspecified nemesis.Tensions grow between each couple and between the couples. Nervy lovemaking, a hidden stash of drugs, a terrifying storm, (sex and drugs and pitch and roll?) are only the start as Ms Lythell skilfully ratchets up the pressure and apprehension. Once on dry land on the Honduran island of Roatan the foursome's troubles don't diminish. Foreboding gives way to mystery as the end, literally for some, arrives.

Declan Burke 15 March 2015 Irish TimesSet in the Caribbean, Jane Lythell’s  After the Storm  (Head of Zeus) opens with tourists Rob and Anna renting Owen and Kim’s creaky old boat, the El Tiempo Pasa, the foursome setting sail for what should be a leisurely cruise. Owen, however, is a man of secrets, and Rob and Anna very quickly find themselves in stormy waters. Lythell’s strength is in her descriptions of the story’s idyllic backdrop, the deserted islands and bustling ports. She’s also good at conjuring up a beguiling sense of the lazy, hazy days of a Caribbean cruise.
The story itself feels a little mechanical, plodding along, much like the El Tiempo Pasaitself, as it struggles to escape its mid-novel doldrums. The characters err on the rudimentary side, facilitating the plot rather than coming across as the fully fleshed people that would have done justice to the lushly realised setting.

Laura Lockington Brighton & Hove Independent February 19 2015What better place than the cramped, claustrophobic confines of a yacht for the setting of a thriller? Lythell has done it again, with a meticulously-planned and plotted slow-burner of a book.Rob and Anna meet Owen and Kim on the coast of Belize; they hire them and their old sailing boat to set off for an island in the Caribbean for some sun, sea and adventure.Oh dear. You just know they would have been better off in Tuscany. The geographical setting of this great book is ridden with illusion – and the front that the sleazy portside towns keep up for tourists is sinister in the extreme.Charged with tension and doubts and questions: Why doesn’t Owen sleep? Why does Kim keep a knife zipped into her money belt? (Of course, I answered those questions early on, only to be proved wrong and wrong again.)With four people on board a yacht in the sunny Caribbean, it should be a holiday of a lifetime, with rum cocktails and fresh fish for supper. But early on, the sense of dread and disaster haunt every page, till you are practically shrieking at them all to get off the boat, get to an airport, and fly home to safety.But then, of course, we’d all be deprived of a great read.
My novels are published by Head of Zeus.After The Storm
TheLie Of You

US and UK writers meet on Twitter

Warm thanks to US magazine Foreword Reviews who selected eight debut novels to feature in their summer issue and included The Lie of You in their selection. Here is their article:

Welcome to the Big Time Highly Touted Authors make the most of their Debuts

https://www.forewordreviews.com/features/feature/welcome-to-the-big-time/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=debut-fiction
After we saw this the writers featured in the article got together first on Twitter and then by email. Most live in the US and I live in Brighton, UK.  We decided to do a Twitter chat tomorrow 20 August at 18.00 UK time on the challenges and pleasures of producing our debut novel.  Do join in our chat if you are on Twitter.

The authors taking part are:Jane Lythell  The Lie of You  @janelythellAlli Marshall  How to Talk to Rockstars  @alli_marshallJames E. McTeer 11  Minnow  @ThatJMcTeerCaitlin Hicks  A Theory of Expanded Love  @CateHicksJennifer Bort Yacovissi  Up the Hill to Home  @jbyacovissiBarbara Stark-Nemon  Even in Darkness  @bstarknemon
Raymond Barfield  The Book of Colors  @RaymondBarfieldNancy Boyarsky  The Swap: A Mystery  @nancyboyarsky
Foreword Reviews  @ForewordReviews

The Lie of You is published by Head of Zeus Books

A DREAM OF LIGHTS talking to author Kerry Drewery

I was amazed at the ambition of your book Kerry: to set a novel in a closed country like North Korea strikes me as a major challenge. What inspired you to do that?
My first published novel, A Brighter Fear, was set in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion and when I first started writing that it did feel like a massive challenge and I did wonder (and worry!) about whether or not I could adequately portray not only a different country but a massively different culture too.  The step from that to North Korea didn't feel like a huge one, although I'm absolutely certain that I couldn't have written A Dream of Lights without first writing A Brighter Fear, mostly because I wouldn't have had the confidence to do so.  I'm a strong believer in everything being a process - from one thing you learn and build and it leads you to another - but you need those steps along the way.  Why I chose to write a novel set in North Korea was because I found it a fascinating place and wanted to know more.  
Yoora is a compelling character and I was rooting for her throughout. She is only sixteen. Was it difficult to capture the voice of a sixteen year old?
I'm often asked how someone of my age (although I'm not THAT old!) can write from a teenage perspective but I view it much the same as writing any character - you create them, get into their shoes and walk around with them.  In some ways I wonder if it is easier than writing from the point of view of pensioner perhaps, or of someone of the opposite sex.  At least I was a teenager once, I can remember it - I've not been a pensioner yet and I'm doubtful I'll ever be male!  I  suppose also that I still feel inside a bit like I did when I was a teenager and remembering back to that time, and all the concerns it brings, doesn't feel that long ago.
You create a strong sense of place from Yoora's village to the prison camp to the towns she passes through. How did you research these locations?
Firstly - I love the research, I think if I didn't it would be very, very difficult.  I often tell people that I think most writers are incredibly nosy people - you look at peoples' lives, different countries, times in history, and you find yourself thinking 'Hmmm, I wonder what that would be like', and for me that's often the absolute beginning of the story - the germ of it.  That's how it was with A Dream of Lights - there's this weird country that people know so little about, that has this odd leader, and these citizens who SEEM happy but some try to leave, yet others don't...Why does it work like that?  What do the people really think?  Why do some escape but others don't?  What really is happening there?  Anyway...sorry, I'm getting distracted!
Before I really knew where the story was going I did a lot of reading around, watching documents, every single news item I could find, searching through YouTube, reading stories from escapees, prison guards, a man who lives in China and helps North Koreans through the country.  When researching A Brighter Fear there was so much it was like syphoning through everything to find relevant details, with North Korea every kernel of information was gold.
In amongst all that research I did find descriptions and accounts of towns, cities and village life.  I found the villages the most interesting; they reminded me of our medieval times with the way they worked the land and the lack of running water and electricity.  I also found a fantastic clip on YouTube where someone was walking through the markets with a camera hidden in a bag - they must've snuck the camera in and out of the country.  
I suppose it's collecting all these tiny bits of information and descriptions and bringing them together.
Kerry Drewery loves doing the research for her novels.
You show Yoora moving from devotion to Our Dear Leader to an understanding of the true miseries of the system in North Korea. Was any of this based on real life accounts of dissidents or purely the work of your imagination? 
Kind of both.  There are real accounts out there of people who've come to realise the truth of their situation and eventually managed to escape.  One thing that really shocked me when researching was that I discovered that parents had to maintain the 'party line' with their children in order to protect the whole family.  If, for instance, they had said 'oh that Kim Jong-il, he could do a better job' or something as simple as that, and the child repeated it at school, the whole family would be taken away for 're-education', and that was something I wanted to include as it felt so powerful - that you have to lie to you children and pretend life is good, even though you, and they, are probably starving.
For the sake of the novel too, it felt true to her character that she would have this kind of arc and progression.  I think it's vital to remember that the research is there to serve the story - that is the key thing.
For me a major achievement is that in spite of the darkness of the story and the suffering portrayed it is ultimately uplifting. Did you think it important to end on that note?
Yes, absolutely.  As you say the novel has real darkness and some terrible suffering and I think for a reader to follow Yoora and her family through all that but not to have some sense of hope at the end would be too bleak.  Having said that, I'm not a 'happy ever after' kind of person and that would have been false to the story, to those who've actually experienced the kind of things within A Dream of Lights and I think the reader wouldn't have found it realistic.  It's difficult to say much without giving the end away!
It is described as Young Adult but I think all ages would enjoy it. Do you feel happy with it being described as YA?
I'm very happy that it has been read by all ages and that they've enjoyed it and took something from it.  Unfortunately, in this business, things need labels (crime, fantasy, etc, etc), the great thing about YA is that it's so wide and so varied.  There is some incredible UKYA talent out there and I think it's a shame that sometimes people can be snobby about reading and somehow think something isn't as good as an adult novel because it's for children, or tell people that they should or shouldn't read something.  This is utter nonsense. I'm a strong supporter of read what you enjoy, whatever that is.  
I've had some comments as to whether the content is suitable for YA but I'm pretty open-minded with this.  I think it depends how you, as a writer, do it.  I don't think you should ever dumb-down for a younger readership, but neither do I think you should write for shock value or gratuitously.  There's one scene in A Dream of Lights, to do with what happens to babies born in prison camps and I ummed and erred a long time about whether it was too much to include, but finally I decided that it's how you do it - I don't think I can go into that anymore without plot spoilers! 
But yes, I'm very proud to have it described as YA.[image error]
I loved A Dream of Lights and highly recommend it to readers of all ages.
Kerry’s first book is A Brighter Fear


My two novels are published by Head of Zeus.
After The Storm

The Lie of You



Kerry and I are both members of The Prime Writers. You can follow Kerry on Twitter @KerryDrewery

My holiday journal as source material for After The Storm

After The Storm is about two couples who set off together in a 37 foot boat after knowing each other less than 24 hours to sail to a paradise island in the Caribbean Sea called Roatan. But like most paradises it is not free of trouble. 
I made the sail of 138 miles from Belize City to Roatan and I was a complete novice at sailing. I could not have written After The Storm without that first-hand experience. Roatan is one of the Bay Islands off the Honduran coast and is ringed by the third largest coral reef in the world.

On my journey I kept a journal and took lots of photographs. I have always kept journals when I go on holiday and how very useful this one proved to be. It was full of descriptions of the food I ate, the fish I saw when I went snorkelling and the birds on the island. This is why conch stew, live lobsters, a battered grouper and pelicans landing on a mangrove tree make an appearance in the novel.
My photographs, now rather faded, were also invaluable in helping me create the atmosphere of the island. They reminded me of local details, like the duckboard jetties that lead to some waterside houses. I used just such a jetty in a key scene where one of the characters delivers a suspect package and ends up hiding in the water under that house!


This photo with the fishing boats moored right next to the houses show how closely the communities rely on the sea. You see working boats, shabby and much used, cheek by jowl with stylish yachts. Roatan is still a place of poverty and wealth and I worked this into the novel.




The photo at the top of palm trees and coconuts lying on the white sand is perhaps everyone’s image of a paradise island. Roatan has some glorious beaches and I wanted to capture moments of peace and beauty in the novel, although the Roatan my characters experience has a much darker side too.
The setting was starting to feel very real to me again. My task was to create four different characters each with their own fears and desires to put in this exotic setting. At an early stage I created character sketches for all four. There is Anna an English speech therapist who is scared of much in the physical world but is brave about emotional crises. Her partner Rob has a strong Robinson Crusoe fantasy and would love to find his own personal wilderness. The American couple Owen and Kim are less straightforward and you sense they are escaping from something. There is a frisson of sexual attraction between the two couples and there are secrets too.
It is when they reach the island that these secrets will emerge and challenge the four of them to the limit.
This piece first appeared on The Prime Writers website.
AFTER THE STORM and THE LIE OF YOU are published by Head of Zeus.

Your holiday disasters...

After The Storm is about a dream holiday which turns into something much darker. Given this TheWriteRomantics  decided to run a competition and the task was to describe your personal holiday disaster. The prize was one of two signed copies of After The Storm.  
My thanks to everyone who took part. It was great fun reading about collapsing tents, misplaced passports, and badly behaved weather.


WINNER
Jackie Ladbury, because although concise I thought Jackie captured this memory vividly. I could smell it:

Camping in a storm on the side of a hill in Anglesey with my sister years ago. Held on to the sides of the tent but it blew away in the early hours anyway, so ended up sleeping in the hatchback part of my sister’s car. Stupidly tried to cook breakfast in the hatchback with the boot open and one gust of wind blew into the Primus and set the back seat on fire. Farmer called the fire brigade and we eventually drove home at the end of the second day of our hols with a badly burned car that was also soaking wet. I can still remember the stench of burned, wet rubber and fabric that we had to endure for two hundred miles!


WINNER
Catriona Campbell for her terrific account of a disastrous Yoga holiday which could be the plot of a novel:

We’d just met and wanted a romantic post Christmas break. We also wanted to become healthier and I chanced upon an ad for a Yoga retreat in Lanzarote. Neither of us had ever tried yoga before.
The villa was beautiful with stunning garden and gorgeous views but after breakfast on the first morning we were gathered in the sunny conservatory and our hosts asked us to describe our ‘issues’ one by one.
Silly us, we hadn’t thought this holiday through at all. Everyone there apart from us was recently divorced, bereaved or in a state of depression and didn’t want to be alone over the Christmas break.
The only ‘issue’ we could come up with was that we wanted to stop smoking. Now off the hook we then made our way to the 1st yoga session by the pool. No warm up exercises just straight onto the poses; backbends , bridges and dogs were all involved.
2 hours later and I’m being booked in for sessions with the ‘resident’ chiropractor as I have hurt my back. No more yoga for me.
The rest of the week involved us trying to keep as far away from the villa as possible in between the chiropractor walking all over me and our fellow guests sharing their sad tales over late boozy nights. If there had been a flight to take us home we would have mortgaged everything to have booked it.
Amazingly we did stop smoking and with the hindsight of 12 years can now look back and laugh about our holiday from hell.

HONOURABLE MENTION also goes to Stacie Pughe for her tale of two young girls' missed flight and leering Greek workmen on the ferry and to Val Bunker who spent a disastrous night with cockroaches for company and huge holes in the sheets. 

My warm thanks to Jo Bartlett, author of Among a Thousand Stars who organised the competition.

My novels AFTER THE STORM and THE LIE OF YOU are published by Head of Zeus books.

Second novel reflections

I’ve heard it said often that we all have one novel in us but writing your second novel can be difficult, so I thought I would share my experience of this. 
When my debut novel THE LIE OF YOU was bought by Head of Zeus they offered me a two book deal. They requested a synopsis for the second book and I produced a brief treatment for an idea that had been growing in my mind for ages. They accepted the idea and gave me a year to produce the first draft of the second novel. 
My idea was that two couples meet one night in Belize City, an English couple, Rob and Anna, and an American couple, Owen and Kim, who have an old sailing boat they have been living on for three years. Owen suggests they charter his boat and he will take them to the island of Roatan. Anna does not want to go at all but Rob is really keen and he persuades her to board. Unknown to them Kim is desperate to go home to Florida. It is Owen who is determined to continue their life on the boat. Straightaway we have conflict of wishes between the four characters and a boat can be a very claustrophobic place when tensions start to build.
Was it difficult to write this book? My honest answer is not really. I’ve been to these places and I always felt they would make a great setting for a novel. What helped me was that I kept a journal and took photos while I was there. (I’m an inveterate keeper of journals!) These were a great source which enabled me to build the atmosphere of the island. The Roatan in my novel is sun-soaked and stunning on the surface but with something dark underneath.
I was thrilled to have the two book deal but as it turned out this meant that I delivered the first draft of AFTER THE STORM at exactly the same time as THE LIE OF YOU was being published. This was a strange experience. I was promoting my debut as well editing the second book so that my mind kept moving between the characters in each book. The two books are very different and I think you are always more involved with the book and the characters you are currently writing. So I had to pull myself away from Rob, Anna, Owen and Kim in order to talk about Heja and Kathy at literary festivals and book clubs. I’m not complaining. It was exciting and demanding and I know how lucky I am to be in this position.
You learn about writing from doing the writing. I think I learned a lot about how to tell a story from my first book. In AFTER THE STORM I moved to third person narration because with four characters you can’t do first person. Well in theory you can but it would be a major challenge. First person narration is intense. You are there in the head of the character and see through her eyes. As soon as you move to third person narration a slight distancing creeps in to the writing but you are also freed to explore scenes from more than one point of view which I needed to do. 

This first appeared in Tracy Fells' the Literary Pig blog.

My novels AFTER THE STORM and THE LIE OF YOU are published by Head of Zeus books.

Giveaway on Goodreads till 28 May 2015

Goodreads are running an exclusive pre-publication giveaway of ten copies of AFTER THE STORM.

This is running until 28 May so for a chance to win a copy get on over to GOODREADS. And best of luck.



My novels AFTER THE STORM and THE LIE OF YOU are published by Head of Zeus books.

Murder on the Beach at Crawley WordFest

Murder on the Beach Crawley WordFest Wednesday 6th May 7pm at Crawley Library FREECome and hear Jane Lythell, Julia Crouch, Elly Griffiths, Susan Wilkins, William Shaw, Phil Viner and Rebecca Whitney discuss what draws a writer to crime fiction.
This is a free event chaired by Laura Lockington of Brighton's Bookish Supper Society.The Dark & Stormy Festival, in association with Beach Hut Writers, brings a people carrier full of Brighton's best-selling crime writers to WordFest to discuss murder, transgression and detection, and the inspiration that can be drawn from living in London on Sea.More details here: http://wordfestcrawley.org/wordfest-2015-programme-tickets/

My novels AFTER THE STORM and THE LIE OF YOU are published by Head of Zeus books.

Two Dark and Stormy Author Events

Dark and Stormy Author Event on World Book Night Thursday 23 April at East Grinstead Library 7pm FREEJane Lythell, Susan Wilkins, William Shaw and Phil Viner, Brighton’s best-selling crime writers, are coming to East Grinstead library for World Book Night to discuss murder, transgression and detection, and the inspiration that can be drawn from living in London on Sea. Please telephone 01342 332900 to reserve your free tickets.More details here: http://bluebelldigital.co.uk/eastgrin...
Murder on the Beach Crawley WordFest Wednesday 6th May 7pm at Crawley Library FREEJane Lythell, Julia Crouch, Elly Griffiths, Emlyn Rees, Susan Wilkins, William Shaw, Phil Viner, Rebecca Whitney and chaired by Laura Lockington of Brighton's Bookish Supper Society.What draws a writer to crime fiction? Dark & Stormy Festival, in association with Beach Hut Writers, brings a people carrier full of Brighton's best-selling crime writers to WordFest to discuss murder, transgression and detection, and the inspiration that can be drawn from living in London on Sea.More details here:http://wordfestcrawley.org/wordfest-2...



My two novels AFTER THE STORM and THE LIE OF YOU are published by Head of Zeus books.