The Book Insider

“I think it’s hard for any writer to keep their own worldview of out their writing”

Someone to Blame is the second novel from Irish writer J. J. Green, who has had a number of political essays focusing on economic and environmental injustice also published.

Her first novel, The Last Good Summer, was published in February 2023 and she is back with a tale involving secrets among a close-knit Irish community. The BookInsider has caught up with the author to ask about her writing processes and how her non-fictional writing informs her fictional novels.

How long does a novel idea manifest in your mind before you start writing?

Often, I get an idea and I’ll have it knocking around in my head for months or even or year or more before I start writing. I think about it a lot, play around with it, tease out how to develop it into a story, bring in characters and think about their motivations and what journey I want them to go on.

By the time I sit down to do any planning on paper, I have a good sense of what the plot will be.

Does your non-fiction work and being a social and environmental activist inform your fictional work?

My non-fiction writing often does inform my fiction writing. In my first novel, a mystery thriller called The Last Good Summer, the backdrop to the story is an eco-crime. So, I weaved in many of my concerns about the environment, but being careful not to make it feel like a lecture.

However, Someone To Blame doesn’t have that strong social or environmental message, but my politics seep in anyway, in a more subtle way. So for instance, the story is set shortly after Covid and I mention anti-vaxxers and the various tensions there were around masking wearing and getting vaccinated.

I think it’s hard for any writer to keep their own worldview of out their writing, but I’m conscious of not letting it take over and get in the way of the story I want to tell, at the same time.

Do you write characters that reflect your own personality traits?

Some of my own personality might come out in a character, and my main protagonist is nearly always female because I feel I’m more able to write a female character who has to carry the story.

I’m not sure I could go into that much depth for a male character, although I do write male characters too. Mostly though, I challenge myself to create characters that are very different from me in terms of their motivations and values.

When I create a character, I find it helps to match them somebody I know to help form an initial personality with the key trait or traits I want that character to have.

Then, as I start writing, the character will usually develop into their own person and will be very different from the real person I based them on.

What are your plans now that ‘Someone to Blame’ has been published?

I’ve been writing for most of my adult life and the first novel I had published was actually the seventh one I’d written – the previous six are unpublished.

So, my plan is to keep writing, and actually, I’m almost finished the first draft of another novel, a climate fiction whydunnit set in 2050.

What is one piece of advice that has helped you become a published author?

The one piece of advice that I always keep in mind and that has helped me stay the course to getting published is: don’t give up. What is it they say? An author is just a writer that didn’t give up.

And while there are other pieces of advice that have helped me enormously – learning the craft of fiction writing through creative writing courses; practising writing every day; reading other writers; making my work as good as it can be; finding a really good editor; all of these have been crucial and without them, I would not be published.

But that advice of never giving up is the inner motivation that pushes me onwards. While writing brings so much joy and fulfilment, it’s also lonely and demanding – and often disappointing with the dreaded rejection letters, or more often these days being ghosted.

It takes a lot to keep going on, in spite of the setbacks.

“Shay Dunne is a poison pen. Not that she wants to be one. But a recent tragedy in her life has left her hell-bent on dishing out some punishment to the two people she blames. Sending them a letter containing a vague accusation will do the trick.

“Only the letters set in motion a series of unintended consequences, and Shay soon discovers that in the close-knit Irish village she calls home, a community still reeling from Covid, there are sinister secrets everywhere.”

“A fabulous adventure into London, libraries and a sprinkling of murder”

Murder, mystery and a new female detective on the scene, all proved to be a rather fabulous addition to the roster of titles from Harriet Evans.

Dora Wildwood went to London to escape and found herself in the midst of murder most foul as she tried to shake off an overbearing fiance, with money, title and entitlement and find a new life away from the Somerset countryside.

Of course, this is not easy in 1935 with the threat of another world war on the horizon and the difficulties of trying to be an independent woman in a ‘man’s world’.

Bestselling author Harriet Evans, here writing under the pen name of Harriet F. Townson in a nod to her grandmother, has created a rather wonderful character in Dora, who is as much aloof as she is astute. The library beckoned for Dora, though more as a hiding place from her fiance rather than a desire to seek it out but it turns out that the London Library was about to change her life in more ways than one, and also unlock the mystery to her mother’s death in Switzerland.

Speaking about the creation of Dora, Harriet said: “I’ve always wanted to try a detective novel, so last year when I was feeling in need of cheering up I started writing the first Dora Wildwood mystery in the evenings and on trains and on holidays. Initially I was doing it for myself, not only to solve the murder but to remind myself why I love my job: telling stories.”

Well, the story she has spun with ‘D is for Death‘ is a delectable tale that evokes 1930s London and delights with the language and customs of that time. I felt I had been transported into the story as the landmarks and buses involved were all ones that I regularly use in the capital, so the imagery was easy to conjure in my mind.

There are comic moments and times when the narrative reads like a thriller and all along you are carried towards a conclusion with a number of twists along the way to keep the reader wondering where the story will take you next.

If this is the start of a series of Dora Wildwood mysteries, then that is jolly good news and I cannot wait to read more as was enthralled with ‘D is for Death‘.