Please welcome, friend and author, Shannon Symonds...

... to the bog today.  Hello Shannon, and thanks for making time in your busy schedule to be here today.  So, tell me all about your latest book...

SS Murder by the Book (A Balefire Bay Cozy Mystery, Book #2).  This cozy mystery is perfect for fans of small town whodunits, quirky book clubs, and scrappy amateur sleuths with heart!

If you enjoyed Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club, Agatha Christie’s Murder is Announced, or The Secret Book & Scone Society by Ellery Adams, you won’t be able to put down this cozy mystery with a taste of romance.

AW Sounds like my kind of book!  What first got you into writing and why?

SS My mother will tell you I composed my first literary piece at age 5.  It was an apology letter to her after I was in trouble.

When I was a child, I was surrounded by readers.  I spent summers and every possible moment with my grandmother and four great-aunts in a house on the beach.  They began the day by passing around the newspaper and reading whenever they had the chance.  There was no television, but there was a wall of books they and I loved.  When it rained, I read.  Immediately, and while I was still in elementary school, Agatha Christie became my favorite.  I love solving a good mystery.

I wrote my first poem when I was 9, after my grandfather’s premature death.  We were a close family, and I was overwhelmed by the loss.  That was the first time I used writing to soothe myself and organize my thoughts.  It was my go-to from that moment on.

AW You write cozy crime with a coastal setting – what a great combination.  I’m guessing you live on the coast.  To what extent is the fictional location in your books an echo of where you live?

SS Whenever life took me away from the beach, I was terribly homesick.  So, when I had my six children, we decided it was time to go home.  We bought an old house a block off the beach in Seaside, Oregon.  It is a few blocks away from the family beach house.  That was 30 years ago.

About 18 months ago I married again.  My husband is a wonderful managing editor at my favorite Utah newspaper.  He won’t retire for a few years.  So right now, it’s Utah and the coast.  June 1st, I will go home and stay for most of the summer.  I went back and forth eight times last year.  I can’t live without the sea.

AW Have you tried/dabbled with other genres or writing for other forms of media?

SS In 2011, I chose to leave a job I loved and thought I would do forever.  I worked as an advocate with survivors of intimate-partner and sexual violence.  I’m vintage, so at that time the movement was small.  But I started at the right time and worked on a new county project.  I responded to the crime scene or hospital alongside law enforcement or emergency room staff as part of the Domestic Sexual Assault Response Team with seven law enforcement agencies and two hospitals.  I was later grandfathered in as a certified advocate with privilege and became an expert witness in court.

To get the project off the ground, I was the only responder, with my boss as backup, for the first few years.  There were 130-plus responses the first year.  I can’t tell a true story.  I don’t need to.  I have plenty to draw from.

When I left the job, I still had things to say.  I prayed, and the answer was: Write a book.  I wrote alone, by the fire, after everyone was asleep in our old house by the sea.

Beginning in 2014, I also wrote 263 articles for Deseret Digital Media.  How fun is that?  Some of my articles were syndicated to larger newspapers, which was a blast—Fox, CNN, and a California paper.  I also blogged for Hilary Weeks’ Billion Clicks Project and a nonprofit.

It took a few years to finish my first book with the help of my late sister.  Everyone told me no one would publish it.  In 2017 Cedar Fort published Safe House.

AW Famous authors such as Roald Dahl and Dylan Thomas had a special space for writing. Do you have a writing shed of your own?

SS I wish!  I never had that luxury.  During Covid, I learned to write in a room full of happy family.  I wrote Murder Takes a Selfie and three other books in the summer of 2020, sitting on our deck.  We had my 80-year-old mother, my father who had Alzheimer’s, and my daughter’s family living with us.  She was pregnant and on bed rest.  My mother and I were super-shoppers for my four pregnant daughters and daughters-in-law who lived within 30 minutes of us.

After Covid, we did a DIY project.  We cut an archway between my bedroom and the bedroom next to it and created an office.  It gave me a place to do Zoom calls and the college classes I’d enrolled in.

You’d think that after Covid I’d go somewhere quiet.  Nope.   I’d write in my office with my grandson bouncing my yoga ball or new granddaughter.  If I need quiet, I write on a picnic table at the cove while the locals surf.

AW And finally, what would your eight-year-old self think, and say about you and your achievements today?

SS She was a strong little thing.  She wouldn’t be surprised.  At 12, during a church class, we made goals.  I wrote 100 goals.  Number one: own a house a block off the beach in Seaside, Oregon.  It included selling my art in galleries and publishing a book.  I have one goal left on the list: go hang gliding.  I’ve changed my mind—not happening.  I have too much to live for.

about the author… Shannon Symonds writes in an old house by the sea and in the Utah desert.  She is the proud mother of six children and Nana to 15.  She loves her Savior, time with her family, laughter, walking the beach, clamming, and bonfires.

Shannon is an Indie author and traditionally published author.  Shannon’s professional training began at age eight, when she found an Agatha Christie novel and read it on a rainy day at the family beach house.

In 2018 Shannon was nominated for the Storymaker’s Whitney Award, she was awarded the Author to Watch Award for her By the Sea Cozy Mystery YA series, and in 2023 her book, Booked for Murder, was a finalist for the Indie Cozy Mystery of the Year award.

Her books and audiobooks have been available at Costco, Deseret Book, Barnes & Noble, Audible, Amazon, Target, and other retailers.

about the book… Ivy Kelly has finally found peace in the coastal town she now calls home.  Not only does she have a book club that feels like family, she's entered an exciting new romance with her handsome boss.

But then someone drops dead at the Book and Tea Shop.  Ivy's gut insists it's murder.  She even thinks the real target might be her boyfriend's prickly mother.  Everyone else thinks past trauma is clouding her judgment...  Until a celebratory boat ride turns deadly.

With a killer on the loose and danger hitting way too close to home, Ivy recruits her book club back into sleuthing mode.  But solving the mystery means confronting feelings she'd rather keep buried and facing a past that never really let her go...

Welcome to Balefire Bay, Oregon.  Here the cinnamon rolls are hot, the book club is loyal, and murder is just a plot twist away.

You can follow Shannon on, and get the book on Amazon

You can also follow Shannon on her Website on Instagram and on Cozy Mysteries by the Sea. She also has pages on Facebook Goodreads Bookbub and TikTok

 

I am very pleased to announce that ....

Gianetta & I, ready to sell books at a recent event

 ... I will be at the Promoting Yorkshire Authors Book Fair, at the Ridings Centre, Wakefield, on May 16th.  This has become something of a regular event for us over the last few years.  And it is always fun!  Read on for more details and join us on the day ...

Promoting Yorkshire Authors will be running a Book Fair on Saturday, May 16th.  All perfectly timed to enable you to stock up on books for your holiday reading!

There will be lots of Yorkshire authors there with loads of books.  There will be a broad spectrum of genres to choose from, including mystery, adventure, cosy crime, historical romance, and plenty more besides.  You will be able to browse the stalls and chat with the writers – me included!

I will have all six of my Jacques Forêt Mysteries with me.  So, if you would like to chat about France, the Cévennes, the stories, or even Jacques himself, please drop by and say hello.  I will also be able to give you the latest info on the next book in the series, Meyrueis.  This book is all written, and I now have the edits back - so the weeks ahead will see me at my laptop working through the whole of the text and the edits that my new editor has highlighted for me.  Thank you, Craig Smith.  The cover is in development, and I hope to have that available soon.  So watch out for a cover reveal in April.

I will be bringing the three fabulous Miss Moonshine anthologies as well.  If you are in need of a feel-good, heart-warming read for summer, then these collections of gentle stories will see you through.  They are also ideal for those few moments in the school holidays when the kids are busy, and all you need is a cuppa and a bit of me-time.

Gianetta Murray, (author of A Supernatural Shindig, an anthology, and The Vinien Brandt Mysteries) will also be at the fair with her books.  I’m sure Gianetta will be only too pleased to chat about her amateur sleuth and how the work on book 3 is shaping up.

In addition, we will have the multi-genre miscellanies of tales from the Seasonal Paths Collection.  All four are now available in print and E-format.  We will also have Earth, the first in a new series of anthologies with the elements as a theme.

Entry to the Book Fair is absolutely free, and you can stay as long as you like between 10.00 am and 4.30 pm.

You can find the Book Fair, and plenty of parking, at 

The Ridings Shopping Centre,

Wakefield

WF1 1DS

It would be really great to see you there if you can make it... 

I'm continuing my journey following the Granville-Paris Express ...

Photo courtesy of Pline.

… and I’m still here in Granville. But I’m here for a very specific reason. Read on...

As I mentioned in my last post, which you can read Here, the year 1815 was the beginning of a new and prosperous age for this town. A lighthouse was built to aid shipping, and the port was redeveloped in 1856. Eleven years later, in 1867, the town acquired its first oared lifeboat. That particular fact prompted a reader's question and sent me down a rabbit hole to do some more research.

Prior to the nineteenth century, rescue at sea was very much an ad hoc thing. Local fishing ports and villages relied on one another for help should a vessel flounder. It was often the case that, when a boat did not return to shore as expected, that absence was the first indication that there was a problem.

In the UK, what is now the Royal National Lifeboat Institute first came into being on March 4th, 1824, with a slightly different title. But the overall objective was the same: to preserve life at sea. Here in France, the Société centrale de sauvetage des naufragés (the central society for the rescue of shipwrecked persons) was formed in 1865. At that point, there had been two serious shipwrecks, the Amphitrite in August 1833 and the Sémillante in 1855. The Amphitrite, a British convict ship, sank off the French coast at Boulogne-sur-Mer with the loss of all but three of the 136 on board. What was even more distressing was that the ship could be seen from the shore, and despite the French offering assistance, the Captain refused help and attempted to continue his journey. The Sémillante, a warship, ran aground in fog and heavy seas, resulting in the loss of over 600 crew and soldiers. Each of these events had a defining impact, and many coastal towns set up local Société humaine des naufragés (Human Society for Shipwrecks). But in 1861, a national commission was tasked with federating all the local initiatives into one cohesive force, and the SCSN was created on February 12th, 1865.

At that time, the equipment was a standard oared boat of a specific design, and one of the earliest can be seen in the National Maritime Museum in Port-Louis. For Granville to acquire its own oared lifeboat only two years later was a significant achievement. The oared lifeboats, with various improvements, remained in service until the early twentieth century, when they were replaced by motorised launches.

In 1967, the SCSN was merged with the Société des hospitaliers sauveteurs bretons (the Society of Breton Hospitallers and Rescuers) to become the Société nationale de sauvetage en mer (the National Sea Rescue Society), or the SNSM, which can be seen along the coastline of France and on some inland waterways.

Like the RNLI in the UK, the SNSM is a voluntary organisation and is funded primarily by charitable donations.

There will be more from my journey following the Granville-Paris Express next month, so keep watching this space…

Please welcome, friend and author...

… Katherine Blessan to my blog today. Katherine, thanks very much for making time to be here today. So, tell me about your book Home Truths with Lady Grey...

KB It’s a dual protagonist novel about friendship and how two very different lives can unexpectedly change each other. There’s middle-aged Jennifer, who’s always been this strong, career-driven woman who is suddenly knocked off her feet by a serious illness that forces her to surrender control and let others into her world. At the same time there’s Mona, a devoted family woman of Iranian heritage, who’s just discovered her husband’s been gambling and hiding things from her, which leaves her reeling about trust and betrayal.

So when Mona ends up becoming Jennifer’s carer, the story becomes less about caregiving in the practical sense and more about how these two women — from such different backgrounds and with such different struggles — slowly build a friendship that teaches them about strength, vulnerability and what it really means to see yourself through someone else’s eyes. It’s an emotional journey about finding resilience, wrestling with identity and, ultimately, discovering healing in connection rather than control.

AW   Sounds fascinating. What first got you into writing and why?

KB  I’ve written since I was a child and my primary school teacher told me I would make a good writer. However, after doing a couple of literature degrees and working in publishing for a few years, it was not until I was in my late twenties that I first got seriously into writing. I was living in Cambodia at the time teaching English and the premise for my first novel – Lydia’s Song – dropped into my head all in one go when I was lying on a hammock. The idea was so strong that it wouldn’t let me go and stayed with me through the 8 long years it took me to complete (alongside teaching, working overseas, marrying cross-culturally and having two children!). I write fiction, but I love to write stories that touch people’s hearts and inspire them to live or think differently, without being preachy.

AW You write women’s contemporary and YA dystopian fiction. Is it all imagination or do you do research?

KB My material is largely imaginative, but for both Lydia’s Song (child-sex trafficking in Cambodia) and Home Truths with Lady Grey (gambling and Motor Neuron Disease) I had to do a lot of research to understand the world and experiences of my characters. A good amount of my research for Lydia’s Song, however, was experiential – based on my own experience of living as an English teacher in Cambodia. I was really encouraged when at least two medically trained readers of Home Truths told me that my depiction of Jennifer’s suffering with MND was authentic.

AW Have you ever dabbled with other genres or writing for other forms of media?

KB Yes, I’ve written blogs, e-newsletters, magazine articles as well as website and marketing copy.

AW Famous authors such as Roald Dahl and Dylan Thomas had a special space for writing. Do you have a writing shed of your own?

KB No, unfortunately I don’t. I do have a desk in our study facing the park that is a lovely space to write, but it’s in my home and there are many distractions in my own home. Also, it’s sometimes used by my husband so is not my ‘own’ space. Personally, I love to get away to write and find that dedicated time away on retreat helps me focus.

AW And finally, if you had a whole afternoon to yourself and could choose to spend it with any one individual, living or dead, or a character from a book, who would it be and what would you discuss?

KB I would love to sit down with the Bronte women (particularly Anne and Charlotte) and discuss the challenges of writing about faith and social issues in a hostile world. Anne Bronte’s novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is one of my greatest inspirations in writing my own contemporary women’s fiction. We think of the Bronte’s novels as being historical, but of course it wasn’t historical for them at the time of writing!

about the book ... Home Truths with Lady Grey is an evocative, moving story about the power of friendship to unlock new ways of seeing life and self.

‘My world is narrowing, constricting down to the thin end of a funnel.’  When normally capable, career-minded Jennifer crumbles under a debilitating disease, she struggles with no longer being in control of her life.  In the meantime, Mona, a family-oriented mother of Iranian heritage, finds out that her husband is gambling and hiding the truth from her.  Can she move beyond betrayal to action?

When Mona goes to work for Jennifer as a carer, Jennifer is initially defensive, but the two soon discover that despite their differences, they have so much to learn from one another.  Will Mona discover how to balance the conflicting loyalties of family and self?  Will Jennifer learn to let others in?  And most importantly, will they both survive?

You can get her book Here

You can follow Katherine on her Amazon Author Page on her Website and on Facebook  or TikTok

I'm beginning my journey following the Granville-Paris Express ...

… right here in the city of Granville on the Cotentin Peninsula.  Read on …

Last summer, I read The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue.  You can read my review of the book Here.  If you’re wondering what that has to do with my making a very long-overdue return to Granville, it’s because the story in the book begins right here.

Granville, as a destination, was on the itinerary for my very first camping trip in France.  And no, I’m going to let you know how long ago that was, but I can say that my green guide is now so old it relies on sellotape for its existence!  However, I have a new book to guide me around this town, and we’ll be making a beeline for the station.

But first, some facts.  Granville sits on the west coast of the Cotentin peninsula, some 104 km south of the port of Cherbourg.  That’s a steady hour-and-a-half or so drive through scenic rolling, coastal landscape.  Granville has a population of around 12,500 and is the third largest city in the département of Manche.  First and second places are occupied by Cherbourg (78,000) and St-Lô (20,000).

Despite its relatively small size by UK standards, Granville has a long and fascinating history. The town sits on a rocky promontory overlooking the Îles Chausey (the French Channel Islands), the Channel, and the Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel.  The town, as we know it today, was founded by a vassal of Guillaume le Conquérant.  As payment for men and arms supplied during the invasion of England, Guillaume ceded the area of Roque de Lihou to the local Grant family.  The Grants became the first Lords of Granville after the Vikings.

Across the many centuries since then, the town has been fortified, bombarded, reconstructed, besieged (and that’s a whole story by itself), and ceded through marriage and land grabs.  But let’s move forward to the nineteenth century and my reason for being here.  1815 was the beginning of a new and prosperous age for Granville.  A Chamber of Industry and Commerce was created with the sole intention of bringing work and business opportunities to the area.  A lighthouse was built to aid shipping.  The port was redeveloped in 1856.  Four years later, the first gaming house was built by a former Mayor.  In 1865, a hospice was built, and in 1867, the town acquired its first oared lifeboat.  A local newspaper, Le Granvillais, first hit the streets in 1869, and in the following year the railway came to town.

On July 3rd, 1870, the SNCF line from and the newly constructed station at Granville opened. This momentous occasion supported the movement of goods into the town and the transportation of fish, shellfish and other goods out of town and across France.  Initially, the line from Granville reached as far as Argentan.  By 1895, there was a regular service from Granville to Paris, and this little town had become known as the ‘Monaco du nord’.  Just as wealthy Victorians in England flocked to Brighton and various other coastal resorts, so Parisians, local politicians, and landowners took the train to Granville to enjoy the healthy sea air along with the opportunities for gambling and cards.

As I step into the railway station, I can see that it is very much a modern affair.  Vast monitors constantly update the comings and goings of the trains.  There’s not even a glimmer of the once hefty steam trains that rattled along the line.

However, call in at the Musée de Vieux Granville, and you will be rewarded with a series of old photographs and lithographs of the town as it used to be.

Photo CyrilB1881

There will be more on the towns along the Granville-Paris railway line in the coming weeks, so keep watching this space …

Please welcome, Ralph Griffith ...

... to the blog this week.  Ralph's journey to publication has been very different from my own, but nevertheless, he has made it as an author, and I will let him tell you his story ...

AW, Your latest release, Vodka Express, is a crime novel featuring your investigator Dmitri Petrov, and it is set in St. Petersburg, all of which sounds fascinating. Tell me more.

RG  When asked recently about the background behind my Dmitri Petrov Crime Novels, it made me reflect on my unusual journey from the Federal Prison System to Saint Petersburg. That's my unconventional path as a crime novelist. So, my path to becoming an author is perhaps not what you would expect.

AW What first got you into writing and why?

RG For over three decades, I served two 14-year sentences in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for bank robberies.  The federal system is a unique environment, a melting pot of individuals from every corner of the globe.  In 2004, as I was beginning my last sentence, I decided it was time for a profound change.  I felt a new path calling me, and I believed that as an author, my past would not and should not define my future.

AW  You write crime.  Is it all imagination, or do you do research?

RG  Neither, as you can see, I have over 30 years of living with criminals of all stripes.

AW  Have you tried or dabbled with other genres or writing for other forms of media?

RG   I write dark comedy with my Big Huna Series and my Too-Sweet Sagas.

AW  Famous authors such as Roald Dahl and Dylan Thomas had a special space for writing. Do you have a writing shed of your own?

RG  No.

AW  And finally, you find yourself alone on a dessert island with just enough battery power to make one call. Who would you call and why?

RG I would call my wife and tell her I love her.

about the book … Vodka Express takes readers on a visceral journey into the raw and fractured heart of Saint Petersburg—a city where faded imperial grandeur clashes violently with the brutal realities of its present, where the mean streets hold life cheaper than a bottle of vodka. Amidst this stark duality, Inspectors Dmitri Petrov and Manislov Illich forge an unlikely yet formidable partnership. Petrov, a master of subtle observation in a world quick to resort to force, must navigate this treacherous urban landscape like a deadly chess match.

Alongside him stands his imposing partner, Manislov Illich, a man whose explosive temper and formidable presence have earned him the chilling moniker "Ivan the Terrible," adding a volatile, Russian-style edge to their relentless pursuit of justice.

From the decaying Soviet-era tenements of the Dygnizi Projects, where survival is a daily battle and violence commonplace, to the opulent villas of the nouveau riche, where power and secrets dangerously intertwine, Dmitri and Manislov tread carefully into a murky realm where the boundaries between law and lawlessness dissolve with alarming ease.

... and here's what other readers and reviewers have said about Ralph's book...

“Think Raymond Chandler meets Russian noir.  Vodka Express delivers a visceral journey through Saint Petersburg's dark underbelly.”

“Vodka Express is guaranteed to satisfy fans of dark, atmospheric crime fiction, with a strong sense of place and unforgettable characters.”

“A searing portrait of modern Russia in the tradition of early Gorky, wrapped in a gripping crime thriller.”

You can get the book Here

You can follow Ralph on his Amazon Author Page  on Bookbub   Facebook   Twitter and on Instagram

 

 

 

 

I'm very pleased to announce ...

… that I will be one of the signing authors at The Armouries Museum, Leeds, on Saturday, October 31^st, 2026.  Read on for more info and tickets …

This is a massive book event that will run at the museum on October 31^st 2026.  There will be many authors and vendors at the event, and I will be among them.
 
For those of you who read this blog regularly, you may recall that I had intended to be at last year’s event.  But changes in publisher and delays in the re-release of my books meant it was not to be.  This is 2026: a new year, a new strategy, the re-release of my books is imminent, and book seven is with my new editor.  Authors at the Armouries in October is the icing on the cake that I need after such a disappointing 2025!
 
All the authors will be located in the New Dock Hall.  As soon as I know where I will be, I will update this post and include the information on my website, too.  Please check back regularly between now and the event.
 
I will have my Jacques Forêt books with me, along with the full series of the Miss Moonshine and Seasonal Paths anthologies.  I will also have the first in the new elemental series of stories.  You can purchase signed or unsigned copies of the books and chat with the many other authors in attendance, including me. too.  Later this year, I will set up a pre-order form so you can avoid disappointment when you arrive at the event.

 
The event will open as specified on your tickets and run from 10.30 am until 5.30 pm.
 
You can get your tickets Here
 
So, please note your diaries, and I look forward to seeing you at:
 
The Royal Armouries Museum,
Armouries Drive,
Leeds.
LS10 1LT