February, 2018 - Debbie Young's Writing Life

Murder, She Wrote Reluctantly

Posted on February 21, 2018 by Debbie Young

photo of Debbie leaning on a tomb in Hawkesbury churchyard — Crime writer Debbie Young makes a grave confession (picture by Angela Fitch in the churchyard at St Mary’s, Hawkesbury)

Making notes for an article I’m writing about the importance of meeting readers’ expectations, I’m forced to acknowledge that, for a cosy mystery writer, I’m a reluctant murderer.

While I love devising an intriguing and imaginative plot that provides motive and opportunity for a multitude of suspects, when it comes to delivering the fatal blow, I have to force myself to, er, bite the bullet.

There have even been moments when I’ve regretted announcing in advance that all seven titles in my Sophie Sayers Village Mystery series would have “Murder” in the title – although when they’re all lined up together on the shelf, they will make an excellent matching set:

Best Murder in Show
Trick or Murder?
Murder in the Manger
Murder by the Book
Springtime for Murder
Murder Your Darlings
School’s Out for Murder

Mea Culpa

I confess… a certain hesitation in bumping people off for the sake of entertainment. This may come as a relief to my family, friends and neighbours. But it’s hardly an ideal quality in a crime writer.

I’m guilty… not of murder, but of occasionally breaking the rules of what’s expected in a crime story.

I stand accused… of letting intended murder victims occasionally escape with their life at the last minute, or to have a murder turn out to be not what it first seems.

It’s a fair cop… But it’s all good fun, all the same.

Must Try Harder

image of covers of first three books in the Sophie Sayers series — The first three books are available from Amazon or may be ordered from your local independent bookshop

But in my next book, Murder by the Book, I’ve pulled myself together and started the story in no uncertain terms: by chucking a stranger down the village well to a certain death.

But who is the victim? And who pushed the stranger, and why?

All will be revealed in April, when I’ll be launching Murder by the Book at the fourth Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival on Saturday 21st April.

For more information about the Festival, visit www.hulitfest.com
To buy the first three Sophie Sayers books before the fourth is published, click here.
For general information about the Sophie Sayers Series, click here.

Personal life, Writing

Spring Balance

Posted on February 14, 2018February 17, 2018 by Debbie Young

In my column for the February edition of the Hawkesbury Parish News, I’m trying to persuade myself of the virtue of living in a climate with four seasons – and wishing winter away.

photo of daffodils on the lawn — Daffodils outside Hawkesbury Village Hall this week

Apparently, at the equator, the sun rises at 6am and sets at 6pm every day, all year round.

Though stunningly beautiful, equatorial sunrises and sunsets last only a few minutes, with none of the long, languid transformations that we see on Hawkesbury’s horizons.

The climate in equatorial countries varies so little, they have only two seasons: wet and dry.

That lack of seasonal variation must limit conversation about the weather: “Turned out nice again. And again. And again.”

Ex-pats living on the equator must miss hearing the phrases that drive me nuts each British winter: “The nights are really drawing in” and then “The days are getting longer”.

These are just some of the things I’ve been telling myself to make the long dark nights of winter seem more tolerable.

On short dull days post-Christmas, when it’s often felt like the sun hasn’t risen at all, if it had been possible to teleport myself to the equator for a twelve-hour day of sunshine, I would have done.

But now a scattering of cheerful blackbirds – my favourite British garden bird – has started paying daily visits to the bare-branched apple tree outside my study window, their sunny yellow beaks a little brighter each time they stop by. This natural change in their marking shows they’re gearing up for their spring mating season. That thought cheers me up almost as much as it must them, even though I suspect this is the closest I’m going to get to seeing sunshine until March.

They don’t have blackbirds at the equator. That’s another reason added to my list. I’ll convince myself eventually.

photo of branch of catkins in spring sunshine — Catkins on the Cotswold Way, behind Hawkesbury Primary School

cover of Best Murder in Show — Available in paperback and ebook

Fed up with waiting for warmer weather?
Get a dose of sunshine early with
Best Murder in Show,
set in a classic English summer,
the first in my series of cosy mystery novels
that span the course of a village year.

Quote ISBN 978-1911223139
to order from your local bookshop
or buy online in the UK, in the US,
or in any other Amazon store.

Events, Writing

Please Don’t Be My Valentine

Posted on February 7, 2018February 8, 2018 by Debbie Young

In the February edition of the

Tetbury Advertiser,

my Young By Name column homes in

on the real meaning of Valentine’s Day

As a lapsed Anglican, I’ve never had saints on my radar, apart from the obvious ones whose special days are pre-printed in our diaries – Andrew, George, Patrick, David, Valentine, etc – and the quartet after whom my old grammar school named its houses: St Anne, St Bride, St Francis and St Mary.

At primary school, our teams were distinguished only by colour: red, blue, green, yellow. On moving up to senior school, I was naturally more interested in the colour of the houses, rather than their saints’ pedigrees. In a kind of synaesthesia of the saints, for me St Bride (my house) will forever be associated with yellow, St Anne green, St Francis red, and St Mary blue.

Now that’s confused me – my souvenir pencil from St Bride’s Church*, Fleet Street, isn’t yellow

Strangely, we were never taught anything about our school’s four saints, and we never thought to ask. Nor did we query why in an all-girls’ school we had a single male, St Francis, alongside the female trio.

Top Trumps of Saints

I reckon the school management missed a trick to cement house loyalty. They could have turned the distinguishing features of each saint into a compelling game of Top Trumps:

St Francis:100 points for animal husbandry, 0 for maternal instinct.

I wish I could cite further examples, but my knowledge of even the most famous saints is slim. Just how slim I didn’t realise until doing some research for my latest novel, Murder by the Book** (out in April), which culminates in a murder on 14^th February.

It turns out my perception of St Valentine was more Hallmark than historically accurate.

Apparently, asking someone to be your Valentine is nowhere near as appealing an invitation as I’d assumed.

The Fate of the Saint

Legend has it that the Romans made it illegal for marriage ceremonies to be performed for soldiers, on the assumption that having wives would sap their strength and their inclination for war. Valentine, a Christian priest, defied the ban, continuing to perform wedding ceremonies until the Romans arrested him. In jail, in what could be the earliest recorded case of Stockholm Syndrome, Valentine healed his jailer’s daughter’s blindness, after which, not surprisingly, they became friends. When led away to his final fate, he left her a note signed “From Your Valentine”.

His execution was cruelly prolonged: he was beaten and stoned before being beheaded.

So be wary of asking the object of your affections to be your Valentine – they might think you’re inviting them to a fate worse than death.

Cover of Marry in Haste — Wry humour about romantic relationships, available in paperback and ebook

MORE FUN READS

*More about my visit to the wonderful St Bride’s, the journalists’ church, in this post from my archive

**Murder by the Book, the fourth Sophie Sayers Village Mystery, will be launched at the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival on Saturday 21^st April.

And if I haven’t put you right off romantic fiction, you might enjoy my collection Marry in Haste, currently on special offer at 99p/99c for the ebook, and £4.99 for the paperback.