I am delighted to welcome Surrey-based author, Jacquelynn Luben and her latest novel. 'Lost Innocents' to Writers at the Gate.
Read on to find out more...
About the book…
On a suburban Surrey estate, a dead man is found, next to an unconscious woman and then, a ten-year-old boy from the same estate goes missing. This is the first major story for the Hillside Gazette’s journalist, Nick Delmar.
Is there a link? Was the boy a witness
to a desperate struggle? Nick soon finds
himself drawn into the lives of the people involved, putting his career and
life in jeopardy.
The book centres around Nick who has
left his well-paid City job to write a novel, but who gets side-tracked into a
modest job as a reporter and financial columnist on a local paper. Nick, sometimes impulsive and occasionally
thoughtless, has a knack for getting into troublesome situations. In addition, the story focuses on ten-year-old
Martin, who is being relentlessly bullied by a classroom thug in the time
leading up to his disappearance. His
parents, Carol, and Gary, separated for eight years, are also important
characters as the case of the lost boy makes headlines in the media. What seems at first to be a domestic drama is
closer to crime than is envisaged.
· Publisher : Goldenford (30 Oct. 2019)
· Language : English
· Genre : Fiction
· Paperback : 301 pages
· ISBN-10 : 1911317067
· ISBN-13 : 978-1911317067
· Dimensions : 12.9 x 1.7 x 19.8 cm
'Lost Innocents' is available on Amazon HERE
About the author…
Jacquelynn Luben has been
writing for more than thirty years, and has brought out six books - two
non-fiction, one children’s book and three novels, her most recent being a
crime thriller, Lost Innocents. It was the death of her second child, a
baby daughter, that made writing imperative at that time, and important ever
since.
Although originally a
Londoner, she now lives in Surrey in the house which she and her husband built
and, in which they lived for six months without laid on gas or electricity, as
described in her autobiographical book, The Fruit of the Tree.
Jackie always wanted to
write, and had imagined herself sitting with her notepad, her children frolicking
around her feet as she scribbled, but instead, she was seduced into office work
by three weeks’ paid holiday and luncheon vouchers (who remembers them?),
failing to find the magical job which would lead her to a writing career.
Jackie left
London for married life in Surrey, and for many years, was her husband’s
reluctant secretary/bookkeeper. She dealt with all the administration from
home, but she occasionally managed to escape to attend creative writing
courses, and eventually, gained a BA (Combined Studies) from Surrey University as a mature student, with a
dissertation on the Harry Potter series and other children's books. She now
belongs to a reading circle made up of fellow graduates. She strongly believes
that writers need to read the work of others, and she sometimes reviews her
current choice of book on Amazon (under the penname Minijax) and Goodreads.
Apart from writing, she
has also occasionally participated in writing workshops and used to give talks
to various organisations on writing topics, prior to the pandemic.
With her children, having fled
the nest, she now quite enjoys cooking for two. She also loves her garden, particularly planning what new
plants should be tried out, whilst leaving the labour to others, more energetic.
In addition to her published books, Jackie Luben has written many articles and short stories. More than twenty of her short stories are available as Kindle books - some of which are published by Untreed Reads www.untreedreads.com
Jackie on Twitter: @JackieLuben
Jackie on Facebook: Jackie Luben
Brief
interview…
When did
you start writing your new book?
I started several years ago but got
stuck and put it away. Then had another
try, probably five years ago.
What was
the inspiration behind the book?
I saw a news item on the TV about a dead
body being found on someone’s doorstep. I never heard the reason, or about a
prosecution or who caused the death, and I was intrigued.
Can you describe your route to publication from concept to
completed novel?
Despite my
original desire to write, I dropped it all when I was married. However, when I
lost my baby daughter through cot death – a life-changing event - I started to
write articles and then a book about the experience. I submitted the autobiographical book, The Fruit of the Tree, to many
publishers, but there was very little interest.
When Thorsons, a mainstream publisher, read the chapters, they said it
wasn’t for them, but asked if I would write a self-help book. Cot Deaths - Coping with Sudden Infant Death
Syndrome was published, and later, brought out in a new edition by a second
publisher.
With this
knowledge of publishing, I later decided to self-publish my memoir and learned
a great deal about that. I didn’t use a ‘vanity publisher’, but had my own
publishing imprint, and used a short-run printer, before the days of POD. I was already attending a creative writing
course, and subsequently went on to two further courses, including one at
Surrey University, and after that, joined a writers’ circle in Guildford. Two
of my friends at the writers’ circle decided to get together to publish our
books, each of us working on different aspects of publishing, and my next four
books were published by this company – Goldenford Publishers. My books are available from their website, as
well as on Amazon, Waterstones, and other bookstores.
Finding
inspiration for a long book was always a problem. Short stories took me on to my first fiction
book, A Bottle of Plonk, where a
cheap bottle of wine takes the reader from one story to the next, linking them
together. Then, interest in our family’s genealogy gave me the idea for Tainted Tree, which looks back on four
generations in the 20th century and the skeletons which are revealed when an
adopted girl tries to find out about her family history. Tainted Tree was extremely popular on Amazon for several
years. I loved writing it and found that
the words came effortlessly into my head.
Lost
Innocents - my crime novel - on the other hand, was difficult and I could
only write it by thinking out the next scene and hoping that an idea would materialise
to take me further on. Although I had a
rough idea of what was going to happen, halfway through I had a complete
mind-change, and the book developed in an unexpected way. Miraculously, I eventually finished it, and
so far, have had good reports and reviews.
For some reason which escapes me, I wrote from a male point of view,
that of Nick, the main character, and there are two more male points of view. I
felt quite relaxed about that.
My problem was getting police procedure, etc. accurate, when I am
much more confident writing about people behaviour. Unlike many writers, who love researching,
perhaps even more than writing, I am the reverse and don’t relish having to
research my story. I (fortunately) have
no experience of crime, particularly not a violent crime, or murder, so goodness
knows how I ended up writing this sort of story. I checked up on matters which I was unsure of
with people who seemed to know what they were talking about.
The one thing I
am not happy about is the title, which, more and more, I feel, gives an
inaccurate impression. It is one part of the book with which I am dissatisfied,
and irritated, because all my other titles were just right. Even though I feel
this, I still can’t think of a better title.
I’m happy to listen to suggestions.
What ideas
do you have for any future books?
I am working on a sequel to Lost Innocents, as I felt there were
unresolved issues in it. Of course, I am
in the same frame of mind as when I was writing Lost Innocents. I struggle
to write a few hundred words and then scratch my head as to what happens
next. But I feel I owe it to my
characters to give them a second airing.
Which
publishing services (if any) would you recommend?
Although publishing exclusively through
Amazon is possible now, with the minimum of expertise, we at Goldenford use CPI
Antony Rowe for our books, since because of a link with wholesalers, Gardners,
they can print copies to fulfil any orders received from them, without us
handling them. Gardner's supply to many independent and major booksellers. I
think you must be the publisher of five different books to have this sort of
account.
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