Book trip to Wellington

Since I last wrote, I had a half hour interview with Kathryn Ryan on National radio and completed a question and answer for This week’s Sunday Times. I have also been to Wellington to do an author event at GOODBOOKS, a small independent bookstore in the pulsating heart of the inner city.

They team there were fantastic and the event in the evening was in a form of a question and answer, the interviewer being Christine Borra from YourBooks who arranged for the printing of The Glasgow Smile.  She did a wonderful job of the questions, having the exquisite ability to roll ten questions into a sentence.

It was a small intimate affair, quite different from the previous two events, but it was special as some members of my family were able to attend. It was also great to meet the book cover designer as this cover has generated significant comments for its eye catching detail.  In between these events, I have been busy. I am quite exhausted though, trying to keep up with orders, finances, marketing and the other hundred and one things that an independent author has to do.  Into the mix is added organising the dogs with petsitters and trying to get organised to get to Europe in four weeks.

The only thing that keeps me going at the moment are the reviews which are starting to come through and are reassuring…  in the sense that feedback is that the book is a great read, complex and intelligent and to a degree somewhat different from my first book. I know that my writing has strengthened, and I understand my craft better. I never wanted to be a one hit wonder and a solid second books gives me confidence that the more I write, perhaps the better I can get.

I am now preparing for the last author event in Auckland, which I am having in collaboration with another crime writer, Nikki Crutchly. We are going to focus on how crime writing is a lens through which we observe the current moral code and the state of our society.  I have really enjoyed researching this topic and realise that I instinctively chose writing crime for that very reason.