Winter Downs by Jan Edwards: the Blog Tour
Horror to Crime: Genre Switching for Winter Downs
When Sarah asked me to talk about my move from the horror and fantasy genre to crime, I have to be honest and say it was not a conscious decision. Most of my publication credits have been in what would be called sf, horror and fantasy but that was not a deliberate career decision. I have always read widely across the spectrum from Jane Austen to Zane Grey, and written two main stream novels (one under a pen name). I suspect my obsession with folklore skewed my short fiction in the general direction of what is often called Weird Fiction, and then only because mainstream narratives seldom allow for anything that smacks of the supernatural.
Horror and crime weave in and out of each other like strands on a wicker basket and the differences are often only in degrees of blood and guts. I usually reach a substantial body count but I have never leaned toward the overtly visceral in horror or crime. I am more interested in the ripples that acts of violence create across the lake, or, in the case of Winter Downs, the village pond.
Like many children I had a predilection for Enid Blyton mysteries, but was equally drawn to the metafiction of Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons where the Walkers and Blacketts spun fictional mysteries in an everyday world. As a budding writer it was a concept I could readily identify with. During one summer holiday (aged 8?) I spoke in the third person as a character in my own book as a direct result of that. Nancy Blackett remains my first and most loved fictional heroine. She is the strong female protagonist – the role model – that many children’s books lack even now. At nine years old I wanted to very much to be Captain Nancy.
I read anything and everything I could lay hands on right as a child, including the Cornflakes packet (mother did not allow books at the breakfast table). Niacin, Thiamine and Riboflavin is a poetic sequence that haunts me to this day! I suffered a fair amount of illnesses as a child and reading was my escape, and with only elder brothers to borrow from my reading matter was never going to be all Unicorns and Flower Fairies. I read the Lion and The Eagle comics avidly with a special affection for Dan Dare and was hooked on the weird and wonderful from an early age.
My short fiction has a strong folklore theme because folklore has always been a mild (?) obsession. So why did I stray from my supernatural leanings to write Winter Downs –a WW2 crime novel? First of all, as I said before, I am not sure there is much of a divide between horror and crime, and secondly, it was not so much a step as sub-conscious shuffle.
I fell into Sherlock Holmes initially, through a commissioned mash-up novel. That project subsequently foundered and is still sitting on my hard drive. But having developed a taste for the Great Detective, I chanced my arm with a submission for the Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Moriarty. High on success I wrote a few more Sherlock-themed stories for the MX publishing’s series of anthologies, which are sold in aid of the Stepping Stones School charity in Conan Doyle’s former home, Undershaw.
To write Holmesian fiction for the MX anthologies requires a strict observance of the canon. Nothing occurs that Doyle might not have penned himself; which requires meticulous plotting and cartloads of research. And maybe here is the thing… I love research!
When writing horror and fantasy I have always been a ‘seat of the pants’ kind of a girl. So long as a writer sticks within the rules of their own world, they can pretty much take a story as far and as high as the imagination can reach. If you lay out your world and stay within those parameters then using any fantastical or supernatural trope is possible and even plausible.
The world of whodunnit crimes works by a far stricter set of rules. It is rooted firmly in the real world. Clues need to be laid in a breadcrumb trail to that dramatic denouement. The need to tease the reader whilst giving them every chance to solve the riddles ahead of the final page without using whacking great signposts is the challenge. I have always loved reading golden age and noir crime. The likes of Poirot or Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane or Mrs Bradley. So when it came to writing a crime novel of my own, it seemed natural to delve into history for my own heroine.
Why Sussex? Because despite leaving the county a long time ago, it is my default setting, and the quantities of WW2 pill boxes littering the Sussex Weald and Downs that I played in as a child provided plenty of inspiration. So when it came to writing Winter Downs setting and period just came to me as a package. The huge amounts of researching of the time as well as the place has been an added bonus!
Winter Downs and its central characters Rose ‘Bunch’ Courtney and Chief Inspector Wright inhabit a straight forward whodunnit crime. I already have two more novels mapped out and two more in gestation, so you can see that writing in a different genre is not a problem.
The only obstacles arose when the time came to loose it onto the world at large. Publishing and publicity circles that I had moved in needed to be enlarged to take in crime, and though some of those contacts are the same, new reviewers and bloggers in the crime fiction circles had to be sought and approached. I am very much the new girl on that block and networking amongst new people is a process that doesn’t come easily to me.
So in answer to Sarah’s question, yes, I have crossed the genre divide into crime fiction, but I shall always have a toehold in the supernatural and the fantastic. I have a commissioned project yet to be announced that combines 1930s crime with the supernatural, and I am part of a direct-to-DVD Dr Who project for Reel Time Pictures via Telos Press. Plus other small projects in planning. You can take the girl out of horror but…
Winter Downs
Jan Edwards
3rd June 2017 | Penkhull Press
ISBN 978-0-9930008-6-7
Paperback £7.99 tbc | ebook £2.99 tbc
In January of 1940 a small rural community on the Sussex Downs, already preparing for invasion from across the Channel, finds itself deep in the grip of a snowy landscape, with an ice-cold killer on the loose.
Bunch Courtney stumbles upon the body of Jonathan Frampton in a woodland clearing. Is this a case of suicide, or is it murder? Bunch is determined to discover the truth but can she persuade the dour Chief Inspector Wright to take her seriously?
Winter Downs is first in the Bunch Courtney Investigates series. Published in paper and e formats.
Jan Edwards is a Sussex-born writer now living in the West Midlands with her husband and obligatory cats. She was a Master Locksmith for 20 years but also tried her hand at bookselling, microfiche photography, livery stable work, motorcycle sales and market gardening. She is a practising Reiki Master. She won a Winchester Slim Volume prize and her short fiction can be found in crime, horror and fantasy anthologies in UK, US and Europe; including The Mammoth Book of Dracula and The Mammoth Book of Moriarty. Jan edits anthologies for The Alchemy Press and Fox Spirit Press, and has written for Dr Who spinoffs with Reel Time Pictures.
For further information please contact Penkhull Press at: https://thepenkhullpress.wordpress.com/
Jan is available for Q&A s and interviews. Follow the links to the Q&A page if time is pressing and you can just pick a few questions that appeal to you or get in touch at the links below.
For reviewing purposes e ARCs available in Mobi, PDF or eFile for reviewing purposes. You can join Jan’s newsletter via the Contacts Page or at Jan @ rowangrove.co.uk or call Jan at 01538 751705
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