Sunday 28 May 2017

Crime Fiction Month: The Write Stuff with... Tina Seskis


Sadly this week there has been a poor showing on the Crime Fiction month front due to me being so far behind on reading, my plan to read and review quite a few crime books this week has failed spectacularly!

So instead I'm delighted to be able to bring forward this guest feature from author Tina Seskis, Write what you know (up to a point...).  Tina's new psychcological thriller The Honeymoon is published this Thursday and I'm hoping to read this for review sooner rather than later.

I don't think I was that little girl who wore pink, and dreamed of marrying her handsome prince, and wandered around pushing a dolly in a pram.  In fact, I know I wasn't.  I preferred roller skating, and Cowboys and Indians, and the Bay City Rollers (don't judge me), and the boy across the road was a partner-in-crime, not a sweetheart.  And then once I grew up and got boyfriends they were never husband material, and we were too busy breaking up and making up with each other to be worrying about any future together.

And then I hit my mid-thirties.  I fell in love, properly at last. We got married (on the island where Agatha Christie wrote And Then There Were None, as it happened). I was pregnant.  My dress looked like a pair of curtains.  The planning was chaotic.  The wedding had to be brought forward half an hour at the very last minute because we'd got the tides wrong. We were worried the band wouldn't turn up.  There was a terrible storm. It was fabulous.  We went on honeymoon, to The Mal—

And there I have to stop.  We didn't go to The Maldives, because nothing about my wedding went quite as expected, but I guess that was the one part of the little girl's dream that I had savoured.  So when a few years ago we finally got the chance to go, I was delighted.  But once I was there I was struck by how far away from everywhere The Maldives is, and how when you fly to one of the further resorts (as we did) you are literally in the middle of nowhere.  And how after the seduction of the five-star swishness of it all there is really not a great deal to do.  And some people look bored. And others look lonely, even if they are there as a couple.  Some people played on their phones all the time.  And after a while the oppressiveness of the place played on my mind, and the beginnings of THE HONEYMOON were created.

And now here I am in Crime Month on the brilliant Shaz's Book Blog, and a bridegroom has gone missing, and what in the world has happened?  Was a crime committed? Or did the groom drown?  Or even abscond of his own accord?  They say write what you know, and so I did (although I still have a husband).  If you read it do let me know what you think once you find out the truth.  You can find me on Twitter at @tinaseskis, or my Facebook page is Tina Seskis.

THE HONEYMOON is out June 1st, Penguin.

There's trouble in paradise . . .

For as long as she can remember, Jemma has been planning the perfect honeymoon. A fortnight's retreat to a five-star resort in the Maldives, complete with luxury villas, personal butlers and absolute privacy.

It should be paradise. But it's turned into a nightmare.

Because the man Jemma married a week ago has just disappeared from the island without a trace. And now her perfect new life is vanishing just as quickly before her eyes.

After everything they've been through together, how can this be happening? Is there anyone on the island who Jemma can trust? And above all - where has her husband gone?

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