‘Love your latest book … couldn’t put it down.’

These are the sorts of lovely comments that make a writer’s life worthwhile. The comment came today via Facebook from a reader who took my latest book ‘Heirs and Successors’ with her on a cruise. 

The killer line of course is:

‘is there going to be a follow on?’ 

There is now. I’ve committed to it. But I was always committed to it unless readers didn’t like the fourth book. 

I love writing. Writing a series though comes with its own challenges. Not every reader will be happy with the choices some of the characters make.

One reviewer picked up on this aspect and I wondered if the book should come with a ‘morality warning’ – no, she said, it made it a very interesting story. So readers might ‘tut tut’ a little but they secretly enjoy the wayward love lives of my characters.

I’ve always enjoyed reading books with continuing characters. It’s a regular thing in the crime and thriller genre – Lee Child couldn’t write a book without Jack Reacher, for example.

But I was more influenced by generational sagas like Winston Graham’s Poldark. Did you know the twelve books in the series were written over a 50 year period? My Belleville series started in 1942 and is now up to 1970 so there’s every chance it will cover a fifty year period of the family’s life, but it won’t be fifty years of mine, I know that for certain.

Black Friday deal – 15% OFF

In the spirit of steep discounts at this crazy sale time of year, there’s a 15% off my print edition books at this link

By using the link, you can bypass the need to enter the code ‘Black Friday’ at www.pmabooks.com