I’m delighted to be part of the blog tour, organised by Lynsey Adams of Reading Between the Lines, for An Imposter in Shetland, a mystery by Marsali Taylor.
About the Book
When an internet lifestyle influencer arrives on Shetland to document her ‘perfect’ holiday, the locals are somewhat sceptical.
Joining a boat trip to the remote islands of St Kilda with sailing sleuth Cass Lynch and her partner DI Gavin Macrae, the young woman seems more concerned with her phone than the scenery.
But when it’s time to leave, there’s no sign of her. Despite mounting a desperate search, she’s seemingly vanished without trace – from a small island in the middle of the sea.
As a puzzling investigation gathers pace, there are more questions than answers – and uncovering the truth will reveal dark and long-hidden secrets…
Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh, and came to Shetland as a newly-qualified teacher. She is currently a part-time teacher on Shetland’s scenic west side, living with her husband and two Shetland ponies. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland’s distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women’s suffrage in Shetland. She’s also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group.
I found this novel to be extremely well-written. In particular, I admire Marsali’s ability to include local vocabulary without in any way spoiling my enjoyment, even though I began reading with no prior knowledge. I was especially enamoured with the word sit-ootery.
In addition to a sample of the dialect, I learned about living in Shetland, the geography of the area, and sailing. I wasn’t surprised to read that Marsali is a keen sailor, as her descriptions radiate the joy of sailing as well as the details of keeping a yacht heading in the right direction.
How does a person simply disappear? Naturally, I can’t reveal the answer to that question, but I can reveal that the ending is exciting and believable. Highly recommended.
Do follow my substack posts. I’m currently writing about my upifting novel, Cultivating a Fuji and the issues it addresses.
Next up (on my special birthday, as it happens) in the series That’s Not Me! is Val Penny, author of crime fiction set in Scotland.
That’s Not Me! examines how much of our fiction is autobiographical and why some authors try to insist there’s no link between their fictional characters and themselves. Over to you, Val.
Thank you for inviting me to your blog today. Let me tell your readers about my novels and my main character, DI Hunter Wilson.
I write crime fiction set in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. In every one of my books somebody is murdered. Now many tutors of writing advise their students to ‘write what you know’. I have only followed this advice to a certain extent. I have certainly never committed a murder, nor been involved in investigating such a crime. However, I do know Edinburgh well.
I decided to write crime fiction because that is the genre I most enjoy reading. I was also a lawyer for many years, a lifetime ago and met many of the types of people I write about.
When I was choosing where to set my books, I considered creating an imaginary Scottish town, much like Peter Robinson who created the fictional English town of Eastvale in the Yorkshire Dales. However, when I thought about it, Edinburgh is a small city (about 600,000 people) and it is a place many people know about through travel documentaries or have visited on vacation. It has a wide variety of types of housing, universities, a prison a beach and hills so why not base my stories here.
To tell my stories I needed a character that I and my readers could depend upon. Enter, DI Hunter Wilson.
I wanted a name that reflected the policeman’s job, fighting crime. One day when my husband and I were going to my mother’s house in Edinburgh, we passed a lawyer’s office. The name on the facia was Wilson Hunter. Perfect! However, my husband thought that I better not use that name, in case the lawyer objected, and so Hunter Wilson was born.
Although not consciously based on anybody in particular, when I drew up the biography for Hunter Wilson, I realised that his character reflected one of my uncles. He is an intelligent, hardworking man who is respected by his colleagues and has a wide circle of friends with whom he shares hobbies and interests and has deep love for his family.
Hunter, like my uncle, is loyal and determined. He is not pushy but does not shy away from difficult decisions, but perseveres with his work until he reaches a successful conclusion. Like my uncle, Hunter was denied promotion by a boss with whom he clashed. However, unlike my uncle, who has been married for over fifty years, Hunter is divorced. He also drinks strong coffee, my uncle is definitely a tea-jenny!
Hunter and his team are faced with many unpleasant characters and difficult situations in my novels. I am often asked if these are based on real events. The answer is a resounding, sometimes.
Authors are terrible thieves and grab ideas or characters from all sorts of places; a couple overheard in a coffee shop, a man talking in the phone in a train, or an event reported in a newspaper or on television. I have notebooks everywhere to jot down ideas or phrases as they come to me. Indeed, as I live in the very wet West of Scotland, one of the best presents I ever got was a waterproof notebook! You will often see me using this at bus-stops or in train stations during a sudden downpour.
Although my stories and characters are not autobiographical, there is definitely a lot of me and my life-experience in my novels and I hope that readers enjoy that and their visits with me to Edinburgh too.
Thank you again for inviting me to your blog today and allowing me to share some secrets about DI Hunter Wilson with your readers.
BIO
Val Penny has an Llb degree from the University of Edinburgh and her MSc from Napier University. She has had many jobs including hairdresser, waitress, banker, azalea farmer and lecturer but has not yet achieved either of her childhood dreams of being a ballerina or owning a candy store.
Until those dreams come true, she has turned her hand to writing poetry, short stories, nonfiction books, and novels. Her novels are published by SpellBound Books Ltd. Val is an American author living in SW Scotland. She has two adult daughters of whom she is justly proud and lives with her husband and their cat.
As soon as I saw this title, I thought of this song:
and I couldn’t help singing it as I read the novel.
Beautiful as it is, I’m not here to talk about the song or Rod Stewart, but about the novel, The First Cut by Val Penny, published by Darkstroke Books and officially launched today. Like all Val’s novels, it’s crime fiction and this is the first of a new series. Jane Renwick has appeared in previous novels, but she now has her own series and we discover her roots.
Jane’s unfortunate early years are related so poignantly that the reader can’t help being drawn in and touched by the story. On top of that, there’s a dangerous killer at loose, and the police are working hard to find out who the killer is, but sometimes they’re misled.
There are stages in the process of writing a novel:
Formulate ideas.
Plot the story.
Write the first draft.
Write more drafts.
Edit.
Each of those stages contains various steps. Clearly, the author put a lot of laborious work into most of them. That’s what made the novel so easy and quick to read. And enjoyable, too. There must have been a lot of thought about how much information to reveal and when to reveal it. The hints at facts unknown to the police make this story a thrilling one to read, as the reader watches the police following the wrong paths.
There’s a lot involved in editing, too, and unfortunately it feels as if, for this novel, that stage was rushed. In particular, I was bothered by one sentence I didn’t understand. I’m not sure whether that was because of a typo, but I didn’t follow why it caused Jane to burst out crying and then decide she had to explain her tears by relating part of her childhood. Very possibly, I’m to blame for that. Also, there were places where I didn’t understand the use of italics, first/third person, tense and repetition.
But I want to stress that most of the novel is excellent, and probably other readers wouldn’t notice these small things. So do read it; it is what it promises: “fast-paced, gripping police procedural…set in Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland.”
About the Book
Sometimes it’s hard to escape a brutal past. That’s the case for DS Jane Renwick, who learns via DNA a serial killer could be a family member.
This gripping police procedural is set in Edinburgh and Glasgow. A vicious killer is on the loose and victims include an academic and members of Edinburgh’s high society. But Jane is banished to the side-lines of the case and forced to look on impotently when the hunt for the killer ramps up, because the Murder Investigation Team believes the killer is related to her.
Has someone from Jane’s estranged birth family returned to haunt her? Could one of her relatives be involved? Where will the killer strike next?
This exciting novel is the first in Val Penny’s new series of Scottish thrillers.
About the Author
This is the first in the new series of novels, The Jane Renwick Thrillers. Val Penny’s other crime novels, Hunter’s Chase Hunter’s Revenge, Hunter’s ForceHunter’s Blood and Hunter’s Secret form the bestselling series The Edinburgh Crime Mysteries. They are set in Edinburgh, Scotland, published by darkstroke Her first non-fiction book Let’s Get Published is also available now and she has most recently contributed her short story, Cats and Dogs to a charity anthology, Dark Scotland.
Val is an American author living in SW Scotland with her husband and their cat.
After a little rest, I’m back in Scotland. Or rather, considering what’s been going on in my part of the world, I’m having a rest far away in the north of Scotland.
Nancy Jardine, who, amazingly, has written and published romances, mysteries, children’s literature and more, has kindly offered to host me this time. Closed communities is the topic and there’s also a teasery excerpt from Neither Here Nor There.
Miriam Drori, Author 