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What's on my mind? I'm currently finishing the final draft of one book, so my mind is turning to the next one and the question that I always ask myself at this stage is "What makes a good story?" I think a lot about the books I've read recently and what I've particularly enjoyed about them and, also, what aspects have lingered in my head. For me, the best books have characters that step off the page and writing that paints pictures. I love a good twisty plot but only when I feel it's dictated by the characters. What do you think?
I spend months sitting in front of a computer conjuring stories into life - alone. So I love chatting to readers about my books and also about writing and reading.
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Six decades. Seven people. One unspeakable secret.
1957. A catastrophe occurs at the pharmaceutical lab in Coventry where sixteen-year-old Wilf is working for the summer. A catastrophe that needs to be covered up at all costs.2017. Phiney is shocked by the death of her grandfather, Wilf, who has jumped from a railway bridge at a Coventry station. Journalist Mat Torrington is the only witness.
Left in utter disbelief, with a swarm of unanswered questions, Phiney, Mat and Wilf's wife, Dora, begin their own enquiries into Wilf's death. It is soon clear that these two events, sixty years apart, are connected - and that Wilf is not the only casualty.
But what is the link? And can they find out before any more lives are lost?
'Jesmond's thriller incorporates a very likeable protagonist and a really twisty plot with a thought-provoking moral dilemma'
- Mail on Sunday
YOU THINK YOU KNOW ME…My name is Lucy. At twenty-seven, I’m too young to be a widow. I’m trying my best to start over though: new city, new job running my own little shop. I try to fade into the background where I can, but the police won’t let me disappear completely. There are too many unanswered questions about the night my husband died.
YOU THINK YOU’VE HEARD MY STORY BEFORE…I even have a new lodger, Elizabeth. She’s friendly, but definitely not a friend. Beautiful, too – tall and slim with the sort of swishy blonde hair I’ve always coveted. But then, I covet everything about her. Her high-powered job, her friends and her confidence. I'd give anything to be her.
BUT YOU’RE SO, SO WRONG.If I were to tell you what happened to us next, how our lives would become inextricably linked, you wouldn’t believe me. You might believe Elizabeth – she’s good at making people trust her ... until it’s too late. She’s keeping some very dark secrets, darker even than my own. And to have a chance of surviving them, I’m going to have to fight not only for myself but for Elizabeth too.
This is not the story you think it is. You’ll see…
Jen Shaw has climbed all her life: daring ascents of sheer rock faces, crumbling buildings, cranes – the riskier the better. Both her work and personal life revolved around it. Until she went too far and hurt the people she cares about. So she's given it all up now. Honestly, she has. And she's checked herself into a rehab center to prove it.
Yet, when Jen awakens to find herself drugged and dangling off the local lighthouse during a wild storm less than twenty-four hours after a 'family emergency' takes her home to Cornwall, she needs all her skill to battle her way to safety.
Once safe, the real challenge begins. Jen must face her troubled past in order to figure out whether something triggered a relapse to this risky behaviour, or if there is a more sinister explanation hidden in her hometown. Only when she has navigated her fragmented memories and fraught relationships will she be able to piece together what happened - and trust herself to fix it.
