The Book Insider

  • Melanie Blake says ‘real characters pushed me to trilogy after 39 rejections from publishers’

    Melanie Blake says ‘real characters pushed me to trilogy after 39 rejections from publishers’

    ‘I had no idea debut would be a bestseller and translated into 10 languages’

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    Melanie Blake has told The Book Insider about how she found herself writing a trilogy when she was originally surprised that she would be writing a sequel.

    She released the second in a series of three stories, titled Guilty Women, and the the success she has enjoyed has pushed her to pen a third instalment – but it was a long road on which Melanie refused to give up.

    As most authors experience, it is not the first publishing house that picked up her novel, so it was with determination that Melanie waited until the 39th to get an offer that would send her on the road to being a bestseller.

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    Speaking about her experience, Melanie said: “To be honest when I wrote Ruthless Women I had no idea that it was even going to be a Sunday times top ten bestseller, let alone be translated into ten languages.

    “My first book The Thunder Girls had only been a success on amazon nowhere else, so when Ruthless blew up and there was demand for a sequel I think I was as surprised as anyone.”

    Melanie went on to describe her journey and the rocky road she took to becoming a widely recognised author.

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    She said: “I say surprised, because 39 publishers turned Ruthless Women down and said no one would buy it!

    “When I turned to the sequel Guilty Women, I found it the hardest challenge of my career, the reason for this was it was sold at auction so expectations were high but what I wasn’t told until the last min was that I had to write the book so that it could appeal to a brand new reader as well as a return reader – that absolutely blew my mind and I didn’t think I was capable of doing it.”

    Melanie told The Book Insider that with support and rewriting the manuscript up until the 11th hour, she finally got to a place where she felt happy that the story was where she wanted it to be.

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    Melanie said: “Luckily I had a very encouraging editor, Phoebe Morgan who believed I could. I remember doing massive rewrite of the entire manuscript just days before it went to print and only then at the very last minute did I feel I had really cracked it.

    “The next thing was seeing if would sell. I had told myself if I was only going to be a one hit wonder, than I was okay with that as Ruthless Women continues to sell all over the world and shows no sign of stopping, so if Guilty Women was going to flop I would have felt that that had undermined what I had achieved.

    “The day the charts came out and I found out Guilty Women had officially made the Sunday Times top ten, I felt so much relief, immediately followed by panic that I know have to match it one more time.”

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    It was then that Melanie turned her attention to writing a third instalment, when she never expected to brought a second onto bookshop shelves.

    She continued: “So I never expected to write a trilogy and I think perhaps that’s why it’s been so successful – it’s such an organic story, with real characters who come to life off the page and stay in your brain.

    “Fans of the books all have favourite characters and want happy endings for them, being able to leave book two on a cliffhanger was a very powerful decision by the publisher Harper Collins, personally neither me or my agents believed they would do that – but it showed how much they believed in the series – beyond the sales of the books – it’s probably the best compliment I’ve ever been given as a writer – belief I have an audience and a future.”

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    With the ideas in her head, Melanie said that this would be her “most ambitious” story she has ever written.

    Melanie said: “I know exactly what I’m doing with the final part, I’ve already completed what for me is always the most important section, the opener.

    “My books come in four parts, so although you still get the traditional chapter breakdown, you get it in four parts, like a TV show, once I’ve nailed part one, which I have, the rest of the book flows.

    “Book three is the most ambitious yet – it’s the biggest and definitely has and will stretch me as a writer – whenever its published I will be very proud to look on my book shelf and see that somehow against all odds, and at the age of 45 – I became the author of a best selling trilogy – I honestly would never have imagined it in, and I think it will probably takes years after the fact, to sink in.”

    Ruthless Women is available to buy HERE.

    Guilty Women is available to buy HERE.

  • Janice Hallett admits ‘I couldn’t decipher The Twyford Code until I had written it’

    Janice Hallett admits ‘I couldn’t decipher The Twyford Code until I had written it’

    ‘I could not decipher The Twyford Code until I had written it’

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    When writing a complex, twisting tale which takes the readers on a roller coaster ride with seemingly dead ends which suddenly reveal a new path and a whole set of new suspicions for the readers, all the author has to do is keep on top of the various strands of the story.

    Janice Hallett had already produced one of the most clever stories of the year with her debut, The Appeal, and decided to turn the readers into a knot with her second offering, The Twyford Code.

    Speaking to The Book Insider, Janice explains how she kept track with the story’s twist and turns and how she hadn’t deciphered the code herself until the moment she wrote it down as she drafted the novel.

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    Janice said: “I don’t make many notes and tend to delete or throw away Post-It notes as I solve the problem written on them. I do most of my plotting retrospectively – so I’ll write a first draft and then look at the story as a whole, going back to make adjustments at that stage.

    “By then I know the story so well it’s not that difficult keeping it all in my head.”

    Janice admitted that complex tales can be difficult to remember when promoting the published story and said that she has come unstuck before.

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    She said: “A year later, when I’m asked to summarise the plot for a live radio interview, I can guarantee I won’t remember a thing. I’ve blanked on my main character’s name before now, very embarrassing.”

    As she writes, Janice finds that the story starts to fit together nicely without having to get the crowbar out to make sure that the flow of the tale works.

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    Janice said: “Funnily enough a lot falls into place as I go. I didn’t decide what The Twyford Code actually was until I got to it in that first draft. I had no idea at all when I started.

    “I’ll occasionally grind to a halt because I need to make a key plot decision – like who’s dead. In The Appeal we don’t find out until three quarters of the way through who actually died.

    “I chose the name Edith Twyford because it had some phonetic and visual similarities to Enid Blyton. The two names are now wholly interchangeable in my head – although it’s not as if I can blame anyone else.”

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    After the success of The Appeal, there was a little pressure to repeat the feat with her second novel but Janice revealed that once she started writing, that pressure soon lifted.

    She said: “When I wake up at 3am – [the pressure is] a lot. But as soon as I start writing I’m in my comfort zone and that stress falls away. It’s just me and the blank page… heaven!”

    Janice Hallett released her third novel, The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels in January 2023.

  • Melanie Blake: “Working class authors are expected to live through misery to succeed”

    Melanie Blake: “Working class authors are expected to live through misery to succeed”

    ‘The tough times are meant to be part of the overall package’

    Melanie Blake has told The Book Insider that a working class voice can sometimes find it hard to break through because it is expected that the ‘tough times’ they have had in real life needs to be part of the package to promote the author.

    Melanie has gone through a lot during her life but she was determined not to “sell out” to achieve her goal of being a bestseller.

    She feels justified that she has stuck to her guns and has enjoyed success with her three titles so far – The Thunder Girls (2018), Ruthless Women (2021) and Guilty Women (2022).

    Her last two books are setting up a trilogy finale, with Melanie drawing on her experiences as a talent agent in the TV and music business to tell her tales.

    Speaking about how hard it for certain voices to be heard, she told us: “I feel working class authors like mine are hardly ever heard or seen unless accompanied by a misery narrative, which I refused to play along with.”

    These were principles that she stuck with, even if it meant that she was at odds with some in the industry.

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    Melanie continued: “I lost many major TV slots because I would not go into sympathy territory on-screen. One very famous show, well the producer, actually said ‘well take her if she cries and goes into X etc’ it would have sold a hell of a lot of books but I wasn’t prepared to forced into that sort of circus – so to have become a best seller without selling out was a lot more satisfying.

    “I wasn’t surprised though, at the end of the day I write fictions stories about the cut throat behind the scenes world of TV and media – so nothing much shocks me. I’ve seen and survived it all.”

    Melanie is planning to complete her trilogy soon but has decided that the small matter of her life story needs to come first and work on that has begun, so watch this space.

    Ruthless Women is available to buy HERE.

    Guilty Women is available to buy HERE.

  • Jess Impiazzi says ’emotions burst from my heart to the page’ when writing her story

    Jess Impiazzi says ’emotions burst from my heart to the page’ when writing her story

    ‘I was realising my own beliefs about myself were holding me back’

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    Jess Impiazzi has not had a conventional journey to becoming a published author as for much of her life she has been known as a reality TV star, which is a tag she has found hard to leave behind as her acting career blossomed.

    Stints on MTV’s Ex On The Beach and the infamous Celebrity Big Brother, where she won the hearts of viewers, meant that she was put in the reality box and she has found the road to reinvention a rocky one.

    Jess is a dedicated ambassador for Guide Dogs for the Blind, after her mother lost her sight when Jess was a teenager, and last year she released her autobiography, Silver Linings, in which she told her extraordinary story so far.

    Speaking to The Book Insider, Jess explained why she felt it was time to put pen to paper, so to speak, and tell her story.

    Jess said: “At the time I was going through a pretty transformative time of my life. I was realising my own beliefs about myself were holding me back, I was understanding more about healing childhood trauma and figuring out why I made certain choices and mistakes from all this.

    “I believe my story could help other people who have had any similar experiences and I wanted to contribute more to life that I had been. I saw some wonderful reviews from young women and women older than me saying the book had helped them see things differently and gave them some inspiration so that meant the world to me.

    “I believe books and stories can help us all either come to terms with stuff or have a momentary break and escape.

    “I’m a big book worm and writing my own just felt right.”

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    With most autobiographies, there can be an element of facing difficult moments in their lives and Jess told The Book Insider about how she found her emotions were as she went back over events in her life, especially the difficult times.

    Jess admitted: “It felt quite therapeutic because I always spoke about things so matter of factly.

    “However writing the book felt like the events and emotions behind them that I often hid could burst out my heart and my head on to the page.”

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    So, the question is, has writing her life story given Jess the bug to write fiction? The good news is that it has and she has written travelled a fair way along theta story line but before that is submitted to her publisher, she has the small matter of a self development book in the offing.

    Jess said: “I am currently on the last six chapters of my next book, this one is more about our patterns and offering the tools I have used and continue to use to over come obstacles within our lives, our thinking patterns that we have and becoming aware of ourselves. I’m really looking forward to hopefully having this published next year.

    “I did start a fiction book, being a huge Harry Potter fan I wanted to give it a go. I am 40,000 words into that book but it’s been shelved for the moment whilst I finish this self development and tool kit book.”

    Silver Linings is available to buy HERE.

  • Milly Johnson: “I’m not great at writing fluff, my terrain is a gritty one’

    Milly Johnson: “I’m not great at writing fluff, my terrain is a gritty one’

    ‘I do like to counterbalance this with humour in my books’

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    Milly Johnson already had more than 20 best-selling novels behind her before Together, Again hit the shelves but this didn’t stop the prolific Yorkshire-based writer seeking some advice as to what the book buying market was wanting.

    Not that the answer Milly was given was the one that she was going to support, as she had already created a story which was the antithesis of the public’s demands.

    Speaking to The Book Insider, Milly explained how Together, Again came together and what kind of journey she likes to take readers on when they are emabarking on her tales.

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    “But the word ‘hope’ gave me hope that I might just have got it right, because I never write a book that doesn’t leave my readers with the notion that there is always sunshine behind the clouds. And I’m not great at writing fluff – my terrain of choice is the gritty one, about life with all its shades of light and dark and turbulence.

    “But I always have a lot of counterbalancing humour in my novels. I don’t want to give my readers the equivalent of a dirge when my job is to uplift.”

    Milly said that she wanted to go in a different direction to her previous novel so decided to create almost a polar opposite.

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    Milly continued: “My last book, The Woman in the Middle, was about a very loving family, two caring matriarchs and Together, Again is its antithesis, a palate cleanser.

    “The Vamplews have everything an outsider might tick on a checklist for being the perfect family: beautiful home, glamorous mother, popular, revered intellectual father, money… but it’s all a façade.

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    Milly concluded: “In a nutshell, this is about three sisters, born seven years apart so they have never really bonded, coming together again (see what I did there) after the death of their mother who continues to mess with their heads long after the point of her demise, as she has left her estate to the youngest daughter, the detested renegade.

    “It’s the story of three women finally getting to know each other, unpacking their past, and helping each other heal. They’re all pretty damaged but are they beyond the point of repair?”

    Despite being an author with a number of bestsellers and the experience of publication days since her debut novel in 2007, Milly said that the release of a new book still brings a mixture of emotions.

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    Milly told The Book Insider: “As for feelings up to publication date – a heady mix of trepidation, abject fear and great excitement.

    “I’ve always thought the process is like giving birth and once pushed out into the world, you want your new creation to be loved and enjoyed. It’s handy to have a few advance reviews in as a compass to how well it will be received and the fact that Together, Again – which is a brave boundary-pushing book for me – has some rave reviews in the bag is of massive comfort.

    “You can’t please everyone, but if the majority are happy and they keep me in the job, that’ll do nicely.”

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    With every new publication, there also comes the pressure of sales figures and whether it will hit ‘bestseller’ status.

    Milly said: “I have to confess that when you start hitting the bestseller charts, you always want to better your best.

    “My best was number two behind Richard Osman who was sitting pretty in the top slot for what seemed like a decade! But we have to keep it in perspective.

    “Sales numbers are more important than figures and we are living in strange times where shoppers are tightening their purse strings and established novelists are competing with more and more celebrities writing books who have powerful PR at their fingertips, plus TikTok sensations.

    “Surviving well is what most of us aim for at the moment.”

    Together, Again is available to buy HERE.

  • Janice Hallett: “The Alperton Angels are inspired by reality but it’s my creepiest story yet’

    Janice Hallett: “The Alperton Angels are inspired by reality but it’s my creepiest story yet’

    ‘Compared to my previous novels, this is more procedural’

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    Janice Hallett was hailed as one of the UK’s pre-eminent crime writers in 2022, with The Appeal and The Twyford Code introducing readers to a new way to solve her complex mysteries.

    The new year gives fans of Hallett’s stories an opportunity to indulge in a new twisting tale, which will have readers wracking their brains for the answers, right up to the final page.

    Speaking to The Book Insider, Janice explains what we can expect from The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels and readers had better buckle up for the ride they will go on.

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    Janice said: “I’d say it’s creepier than my previous novels, but with a vein of dark humour running through it.

    “Compared to The Appeal and The Twyford Code it’s rather more procedural – I aimed to put into play all I’d learned from writing the first two books to give the reader a really meaty story they can have a good stab at solving.”

    Janice said that for those who enjoyed how The Appeal and The Twyford Code were presented, then The Mysterious Case of The Alperton Angels will feel familiar but takes the format to another level.

    Janice continued: “It’s similar to the others in that it’s an unconventional narrative. We’re reading not a book, but a bundle of documents compiled by a true crime author as she researched her latest book… the reader has to make a decision at the end. It’s inspired by reality – certain real-life crimes and true crime as a genre of entertainment.”

    The debut from Janice was quite a daring way of making a splash on the crime writing scene but it wasn’t her original plan for The Appeal.

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    She said: “The unusual layout of The Appeal happened quite by accident. I’d been writing scripts and screenplays for years, but decided to write a novel on the spur of the moment. I didn’t think about it as a different structure or form. In fact, I didn’t think very much at all.

    “The script I’d had in mind to write was about a couple who arrive back in the UK after a decade volunteering in war zones. Their experiences inform how they see the inhabitants of a small town drama group.

    “A vague thought came to me that I could explore this story via emails flying back and forth between minor characters – off-stage so to speak – while the main action happens unseen.”

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    Janice continued: “A bit like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard, which I’ve always loved. Suddenly these voices rang out of nowhere, all talking about the main character, Sam, and the book had started.

    “That’s why we never hear from Sam, and a couple of other main players. It happened by accident and yet is the element of the novel I’m most proud of.”

    Janice had a snippet of advice for those who wanted a different approach to story writing and suggested spending time getting the characters to interact with each other, to find how their voices would be with different people.

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    The bestselling author said: “I would certainly urge writers to explore their characters by having them write to each other.

    “Their relationships will dictate how they say hello and goodbye, how much or how little they write, whether they ask questions or not. We give away so much when we write to someone.

    “We reveal how we feel about them, and sometimes how we feel about ourselves.”

    Janice Hallett released her third novel, The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels in January 2023 and can be ordered HERE.

  • Rachel Amphlett: “I accidentally qualified as a private investigator when researching my thrillers’

    Rachel Amphlett: “I accidentally qualified as a private investigator when researching my thrillers’

    ‘Being totally immersed in the genre as a reader meant it was only a matter of time before I tried my hand at it myself’

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    Rachel Amphlett has an extensive back catalogue of crime and thrillers as well as a well received podcast on a similar genre.

    She has managed to build a huge following for her stories and has multiple series over which her different characters have evolved.

    Rachel is also an independent publisher and here she reveals all to The Book Insider about her journey down this route and how she has made it such a success that she became a bestselling author in the USA Today charts.

    What is it about crime writing that hooked you in and made you want to publish novels in that genre?

    I started reading crime and mystery fiction from a very young age – one of my earliest reading memories is being given some second hand copies of two of the Famous Five books for my fifth or sixth birthday, and by the time I was 11 my Grandad was encouraging me by lending me his copy of Jack Higgins’ The Eagle Has Landed.

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    I think, as with a lot of crime fiction fans, it’s the knowledge that – most of the time – the bad guy gets caught. There’s that sense of justice that isn’t always evident in real life. Even if you’re reading about two bad guys, one will usually have some redeeming features so that you end up cheering for them.

    Being totally immersed in the genre as a reader meant it was only a matter of time before I tried my hand at it myself, and my debut thriller White Gold was published in 2011.

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    Tell me about how you ‘accidentally’ became a private investigator and how it will help develop future stories. 

    That all started early on in the winter lockdown of 2020 – in fact, that year has been responsible for some of the most exciting projects I’ve done during my writing career including the new Case Files: short crime fiction story podcast.

    Back then, I knew I wanted to write an amateur investigator story (which is still in development, a.k.a. going around in my head) and although I was fairly confident about murder investigations from a police point of view after writing so many books in that genre, I didn’t have the comfort of knowing much about private investigators.

    I stumbled across an online course that was reasonably priced and spent my afternoons working through the material to the point where, about halfway through, I had the opportunity to do a quiz to test my knowledge to date.

    Well, that turned out to be an online exam and before I knew it, I had an invitation to go to London to sit the formal exam for a BTEC Level 3 in Private Investigation. There were a few hiccups between 2020 and summer 2022 to actually get there what with Covid and other matters, but I passed the exam and became a qualified PI in August.

    What was very apparent from the course are the limitations imposed upon investigators when it comes to data protection and privacy issues – I like to make my crime fiction as realistic as possible, the same as I do with my spy thrillers, so having more practical information about what my protagonist can and can’t do is essential.

    From studying the course, I can now concentrate on creating a story where the protagonist has defined obstacles to overcome – both from a practical investigation point of view, and from whatever the antagonist throws at them.

    Now I just have to write the story…

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    What has led you to write short stories?

    I started out writing short stories and having some success with those prior to writing my first novel. It was a way to test the water again with creative writing as what with playing guitar in bands for seven years and then moving to Australia, I hadn’t written anything in years.

    Those early stories had more of a speculative fiction atmosphere about them – I love Rod Serling and Richard Matthieson’s writing, as well as Stephen King’s short stories where he asks “What if?”. Roald Dahl is obviously an influence too, and although I was too young to watch Tales of the Unexpected when it was on TV in the 80s, I remember the music well and have read the stories since then.

    I returned to writing short stories in 2020, more as a palate cleanse after writing the first three books in my Mark Turpin series one after the other, and tied that in with undertaking some online writing craft courses with some mentors of mine in the USA.

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    That served to dust off some old writing skills and also pushed me out of my comfort zone but it had the advantage of lifting my writing to another level when it came to writing novels too.

    Plus, I get to bend the rules a bit with the short stories – the bad guys don’t always get caught, and I get to play with some different characters every time that might lead to new ideas for longer length works.

    And it’s fun.

    When did you realise you could write a series based on your characters?

    That wasn’t something I’d planned for at all.

    About three months after I first published White Gold in 2011, I started making sales from readers around the world (not just family and friends!), and suddenly I was getting emails from people asking when the next Dan Taylor book would be out because they’d fallen in love with the character.

    I honestly hadn’t expected that, so there was a bit of a mad scramble to pull together some research and chase up an idea that had been bobbing around in my head for a few weeks.

    Under Fire was published in 2013 and there are currently four books in that series.

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    What advice would you give a budding author who might consider independent publishing?

    I’d highly recommend joining the Alliance of Independent Authors – and never, never, pay someone to publish your book for you.

    You can do all of this yourself – just remember that in amongst all the business stuff to write the next book, because that’s the best marketing tool you’ve got.

    Rachel Amphlett’s books and podcast can be found at here website HERE.