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Literary Consultancy & Mentoring
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Home
About
Thrillers
Events
Press
Books
News
Contact
Literary Consultancy & Mentoring
Portfolio

News

The Perfect Crime

‘The Beautiful Game’ – Filled with dread
Sanjida Kay on 'The Perfect Crime' 'The Perfect Crime', a collection of crime fiction short...
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The Writer as an Outsider
'As writers, we are all anthropologists, observing the natives and commenting on their customs. As...
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Rejection – Or How to Fail Better at Writing
'I tried to remind myself of the rejections other authors had faced. JK Rowling was...
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What no one tells you about getting published…
(A love story in twenty-five parts) SONY DSC When the Royal Literary Fund asked me...
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My favourite children’s book
'It's such a moving, powerful story but it's also beautifully written. It's about kindness and...
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My desert island book
I’d want to read it on a desert island because it would remind me of...
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The Perfect Crime is out now!
22 bestselling crime writers. 22 deadly destinations. One deliciously sinister collection 🔪 I'm delighted that 'The...
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My favourite translated book – The Glass Bead Game
My favourite book in translation is ‘The Glass Bead Game’ by Herman Hesse. The Royal...
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Sleeping Beauty – How Somerset inspired my thriller, One Year Later
'The Pines is a rambling farmhouse that our parents, David and Eleanor, converted years ago,...
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Sugar Island is available to pre-order
I’m delighted to announce that one of my novels is going to be republished! ‘Sugar...
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The Stolen Child: A dark fairy tale
‘They stole you from me. They took you away for seven years. Your entire lifetime…Make...
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Happy Mother’s Day!
Happy Mother’s Day! I had hoped to spend today being spoilt with prosecco and cake...
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Wuthering Heights – the novel that has influenced me the most
When I was a teenager, I steadfastly refused to believe that so-called ‘classical literature’ could...
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My Mother’s Secret – Location
There’s a thin band of cream silhouetting the cranes that hover over the half-built office...
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Life-changing literature
I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and...
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Interview with Historical Fiction Reader
...one of the scenes I lost, which I pine for, is where Joseph is in...
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Marketing and Me
'I don't much like it. Marketing is about selling & writers, as we know, are...
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Red Hot Chilli Writers Podcast
I had a wonderful chat with two of my favourite crime fiction writers, Vaseem Khan...
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The best writing advice I ever received
The thing about being a writer and not having a ‘proper’ job is that we...
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The Priest and the Lily – the inspiration for my novel about men and flowers
Many of our most common and beautiful garden plants have come from far-flung locations throughout...
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How to create the perfect villain!
https://youtu.be/SmP_Svt1Elo Today I ran a lesson about villains for homeschool with my nine-year-old daughter. She...
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One Year Later – Bethany
I recently saw a set of three mugs in one of my favourite shops. They...
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Labyrinth – the setting
Setting is so important to me. It's almost like another character, setting the tone and...
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Labyrinth – new thriller!
My exciting news is that I'm working on a new book. Provisionally called Labyrinth, it's...
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One Year Later – Italy
I’ve always loved Italy, so when I needed a seemingly idyllic holiday for my family...
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One Year Later – Dante
I did not die and yet I lost life’s breath… I always like to have...
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One Year Later on Bristol TV
Bristol TV has just put out a short film about my latest psychological...
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On Instagram

Working my way through the @wainwrightprize shortlist! I’m meeting the other judges at the end of August when we’ll make a decision about the overall winner. This is one of the shortlisted books: Otherlands: A World in the Making by Thomas Halliday. It’s an epic journey through deep time, showing us how the world once was, from the Ice Age in Alaska to the rainforests of Eocene Antartica, using an immersive, narrative style. As well as helping us imagine how the Earth once was, Halliday is helping us predict what might come to pass. As he says, ‘To look into the paleontological past of the Earth is to see a range of possible outcomes. On the one hand, life has survived Snowball Earth and poisoned skies, and the world is as diverse and spectacular as ever it was. Life recovers…but recovery brings radical change. Recovery cannot replace what has been lost.’

I’m reading ‘Frankissstein: A Love Story’ by @jeanette_winterson, filmed by @royalliteraryfund. It’s a futuristic blend of stories inspired by Frankenstein - Lake Geneva, 1816. Nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley writes a story about a scientist who creates a new life-form. In Brexit Britain, a young transgender doctor called Ry is falling in love with Victor Stein, a celebrated professor leading the public debate around AI and carrying out some experiments of his own in a vast underground network of tunnels. Meanwhile, Ron Lord, just divorced and living with his mom again, is set to make his fortune launching a new generation of sex dolls for lonely men everywhere. Across the Atlantic, in Phoenix, Arizona, a cryogenics facility houses dozens of bodies of men and women who are medically and legally dead… but waiting to return to life. It’s funny, quirky, and full of ideas about bodies, gender and what it means to be human. For more, and other writers talking about the books they’re reading, head over to @royalliteraryfund Showcase.

I often spend a long time thinking about a potential book before I start writing. I’m currently working on a synopsis for a non-fiction nature book - and as I’m walking and running along the coastal path, while we’re on holiday, fragments of sentences and phrases and whole paragraphs have begun coming to me. I’ve been whizzing back to our holiday cottage, sitting in the sunshine in the garden and trying to get down as much as possible. They’re just bits and pieces, but I know that once this process starts to happen, I’m almost ready to begin writing!

‘There is a spell in purple heath
Too wildly, sadly dear.’
- Emily Dickinson Every time I see heather in bloom, I’m reminded of these beautiful lines by Emily Dickinson.

Having an amazing holiday in Cornwall - running along the coast path and body boarding, plus maybe the odd drink in a beach bar! I like spending time reading on holiday, and thinking about my writing. I’ve just received some fantastic feedback from my agent, Alex Cochran @theteafiend @cwagencyuk, on the thriller I’m working on. So I’m letting his advice percolate before I start the next draft.

Next up on the @Wainwrightprize shortlist is Goshawk Summer: A New Forest Season Unlike Any Other, James Aldred @jamesaldred1 ‘It’s a story of how one family of goshawks living in a timeless corner of England shone like fire through one of our darkest times and how, for me, they became a symbol of hope for the future.’ James is a camera operator and is due to film goshawks in the New Forest when covid strikes. He’s allowed to film - but what he witnesses is a forest with virtually no people and wildlife that slowly returns to its rightful place, centre stage in the wood. It’s beautifully written, heartfelt, and full of wonderful vignettes of the animals in the New Forest. We are heading there soon and I’m so excited to see the places that James has so evocatively depicted. #sanjidaoconnell #sanjidakay #nonfiction #naturewriting #wainwrightprize
#writers #writersofinstagram #writerscommunity #writing #books #write #bookstagram #bookworm #novel
#novelist #writer #writingcommunity #writersofig #writerslife #author
#amwriting #amreading

Summer reading! I’m whittling my way through the @Wainwrightprize shortlist to choose an overall winner. Loving all six books on the shortlist - including The Instant by Amy Liptrot @amymayyyy Amy is lonely and leaves her home in the Orkney islands to seek love, work and somewhere to live in Berlin. Along the way she searches for goshawks, racoons and an understanding of what it means to be a digital human. Beautifully written.

And here it is! The @wainwrightprize short list! It was a really tough choice as the longlist had so many books on that I absolutely loved. It’s going to be a challenge to pick an overall winner. Congratulations to: Goshawk Summer: A New Forest Season Unlike Any Other, James Aldred @jamesaldred1 The Instant, Amy Liptrot @amymayyyy On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging, Nicola Chester Time on Rock: A Climber’s Route into the Mountains, Anna Fleming @annasfleming Shadowlands: A Journey Through Lost Britain, Matthew Green @drmatthewgreen Otherlands: A World in the Making, Dr Thomas Halliday #sanjidaoconnell #sanjidakay
#wainwrightprize
#writers #writersofinstagram #writerscommunity #writing #books #write #bookstagram #bookworm #novel
#novelist #writer #writingcommunity #writersofig #writerslife #author
#amwriting #amreading #nonfiction #naturewriting

And here's what ONE YEAR LATER is about...
It came out just before the pandemic; still, it has that same sense of claustrophobia - ten family members, one house, a remote location, one terrible secret... #sanjidakay #crimefictionbooks #crimefictionlovers #crimethriller #thriller #thrillerbooks #psychologicalthriller
#writers #writersofinstagram #writerscommunity #writing #books #write #bookstagram #bookworm #novel
#novelist #writer #writingcommunity #writersofig #writerslife #author
#amwriting

Holiday read? One year ago, the youngest child in the Flowers family drowned in a pond in their garden. One year later the family head to a remote island off the coast of Italy to heal. But as the ten family members gather together in one house in a remote location, the truth will gradually emerge. Who knew what really happened the day that Ruby-May Flowers died? And what will happen when the secret gets out? ONE YEAR LATER by @sanjida.kay published by @atlanticbooks #sanjidakay #crimefictionbooks #crimefictionlovers #crimethriller #thriller #thrillerbooks #psychologicalthriller
#writers #writersofinstagram #writerscommunity #writing #books #write #bookstagram #bookworm #novel
#novelist #writer #writingcommunity #writersofig #writerslife #author
#amwriting

Anyone looking for a holiday read? Hopefully to read by the pool and not in a queue on the motorway or in Heathrow! ONE YEAR LATER, pub by @atlanticbooks, is set on a tiny island off the coast of Italy...remote, beautiful, sun-drenched. Dreamy, right? Ten family members. One house. Far from home. One year after the death of the youngest child...Will everyone make it off the island...? #sanjidakay #crimefictionbooks #crimefictionlovers #crimethriller #thriller #thrillerbooks #psychologicalthriller
#writers #writersofinstagram #writerscommunity #writing #books #write #bookstagram #bookworm #novel
#novelist #writer #writingcommunity #writersofig #writerslife #author
#amwriting

Wild ponies on today’s run! #sanjidakay #sanjidaoconnell #crimefictionbooks #crimefictionlovers #crimethriller #thriller #thrillerbooks #psychologicalthriller
#writers #writersofinstagram #writerscommunity #writing #books #write #bookstagram #bookworm #novel
#novelist #writer #writingcommunity #writersofig #writerslife #author
#amwriting