Guess Which Agatha Christie Novel My Book Club Are Exploring Next? (Sneak Peek)

Ever since my Agatha Christie devotees formed their own book club, I have had such fun selecting which of Dame Agatha's novels to focus on next. And you can imagine my dilemma...

Outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare, Ms Christie wrote 66 detective novels, numerous short story collections, romances and plays. But there's always been one book that really surprised me.

Evil Under The Sun is one of Christie's best and, I'd go so far as to claim, one of THE greatest murder mysteries of all time with an extraordinary twist that left my brain spinning. Somehow she had created the perfect murder where everything is turned on its head.

This is my very humble homage.

Evil Under The Stars is the third in my Agatha Christie Book Club series, and it's a classic whodunnit with a super-modern twist.

In my story, instead of Hercule Poirot encountering a dead body lying in the sun on a secluded cove in Devon, my book club friends come across a young woman who's been murdered while lying on a blanket at a moonlit cinema in Sydney. It's a very public event, one they all attended, and yet no one spotted a thing!

My biggest mystery yet, it's due out at Christmas.

Stay tuned for more details, folks, and, if you need to catch up on the story, get your e-copy of the second in the series, Murder On The Orient (SS), at any good e-book retailer now:

• Amazon

• Apple

• Kobo

• Nook

And while you're at it, let me know what you think of my new-look cover for the second book (above). I've gone bright and enchanting—just in time for the Aussie summer—and would love to hear your views!

Until then, happy reading everyone.

xo Christina

Win one of 12 FREE Cozy Mysteries!

I've (finally) started work on the Agatha Christie Book Club's third enthralling adventure and want to celebrate the good news with you. I don't want to give away too much at this stage but I will say this: the next story is based on my all-time favourite Agatha Christie novel, and it's going to have a whopping twist at the end.

All of which has got me thinking… what's YOUR fave Christie book of all time? And why?

I'd love to find out which of the Dame's 72-plus novels you love most. And I'm willing to reward you for your effort (and for your dedication and patience). Get in touch quickly and you may just score a prize!

So, hands on buzzers, guys, here's my latest giveaway!

What's up for grabs?

• GRAND PRIZE: The first 2 entries get a FREE paperback copy of The Agatha Christie Book Club OR Murder on the Orient (SS)—The Agatha Christie Book Club 2. (Just let me know which one you'd prefer!)*  

• RUNNERS UP: The next 10 entries will get a free e-book copy of either The Agatha Christie Book Club OR Murder on the Orient (SS)—The Agatha Christie Book Club 2.

     

What do you have to do to win, again?

It's very simple! To be in the running, all you have to do is answer the following question:

Q: What's your FAVOURITE Agatha Christie novel and WHY? 

Just jot a quick comment below or send me an email with the book's title and two or three words explaining why you love it so much. (For example: you might say, 'Death on the Nile because it has such a beautiful setting!')

But I want to hear from you. Get thinking and don't hesitate. There's 12 books up for grabs and I'd hate for you to miss out.

Good luck everybody and happy reading!

xo Christina

*POSTSCRIPT: Apologies latecomers but this competition is now closed. Awww. I have been overwhelmed by email responses and thank you ALL for getting in touch. All 12 winners have now been notified and their books are on the way. I'd still like to hear about your favourite Christie novel, though! Just leave a comment here, and share your views! xo

Writing Exercise (it's spooky!)

So we got a dog, an Australian cattle dog, a young Blue Heeler we named and renamed for ten frustrating days before settling on Casper (because he has a blizzard-like coat, not because he's an invisible presence, let me assure you of that!)

Casper is adorable for all the usual reasons, of course. He's cute (see the evidence, above), cheeky (ditto) and brings the family together, which is no mean feat now we have teenage sons who'd rather be anywhere but, like, together thanks very much.

But there's one other perk of having a pup that I hadn't factored in, but which has already paid dividends, big time.

Casper is my creative muse.
He jolts my imagination into gear.
He makes me want to write another book.
And he does this by taking me for "walkies".
What a good boy!

Plotting My Path

In case you hadn't noticed, I've been a bit uninspired of late. I've been feeling a little slouchy in the story department. I have a bunch of 'novels' in progress on my hard drive, but nothing that really, well, drives me. Which means the progress has been more Mini Minor than Ferrari 458.

After producing ten novels in relatively quick succession, I'd come to a creative halt. A road bump if you will.

Then, last week, Casper changed all that. Here's how it happened.

For those who don't know, my days are usually spent sitting at my desk in the Byron Bay hinterland, tap, tap, tapping away at freelance work, editing and/or fiction—if I'm lucky. I get up from my seat from time to time, to stretch the limbs, make a cup of tea, ransack the pantry, but, for the most part, I'm stuck on my butt, tap, tap… well, you get the gist.

Not anymore, folks!

Now thanks to my feisty canine companion, I'm urged to get vertical more regularly than ever before, and for longer periods of time. And it's not just great for my health and thighs, although it is, in equal measure. It's been like steroids for my leetle grey cells. So much so, the last time Casper and I went for "walkies", I conjured up an entire murder mystery before I even got past the front gate. (Which is actually not as extraordinary as it sounds, I live on seven acres.)

As he pulled me down the road, bursting at the leash, I let my mind gallop along behind him, and gallop it did—straight to a convoluted plot that involves a missing daughter, a shifty family, and an innocent, caught up in the chaos.

And it's not the only one. I've imagined two more storylines on stray adventures with my dog, one for my Ghostwriter Roxy Parker, and one for the Agatha Christie Book Club.

I won't say any more than that, wouldn't want to give too much away, but I'm so excited to have renewed creative vigour and I have a vigorous pup to thank for that.

Now, if he'd just let me sit at my desk in peace, I'd actually get around to writing them...

Happy reading (and walking), everyone!

xo Christina

The Ikea Theory on Writing (it's just as unfathomable)

I was chatting to a neighbour the other day, groaning about a particularly badly written novel I was in the middle of editing.

"Some people just shouldn't write books," I said. "It's woeful and I'm struggling to make sense of it."

"Oh dear," he replied. "Hopefully she'll just self-publish and be done with it."

I was gobsmacked.

What did he mean? Was he saying that self-publishing is only for woeful writers? Was he saying that self-published books didn't go anywhere so it would get lost in a giant black sludgepile and save us all the agony?

Whatever my neighbour was saying, it didn't bode well for me.

While I have had a book traditionally published, I now self-publish my own novels, and have nine indie books available on all the major channels. I sold over 3,000 copies last month on Amazon alone and have an average four star rating. I DIY, and I do so proudly.

Or at least I did, until we had our little roadside chat.

Despite my humiliation, I didn't call my neighbour on his words because I didn't want to embarrass him. He's actually a decent bloke and I knew that he knew I self-published books, so would be mortified by what he'd just said. I couldn't bear the look in his eyes when he realised his faux pas, the frantic backpedal, the attempt to swallow words and attitudes that were, frankly, indigestible.

Come on, guys, let's remove the scales from our eyes and modern up.

We no longer believe that the produce sold at Woolworths and Coles is better than produce from the farmers' market. That's laughable. We accept that mass produced furniture from Ikea usually fails in comparison to bespoke pieces made by a local carpenter. Yet we still cling on to the idea that if there's a Big Publisher behind a book, it must be somehow better. Surely we're better than that? Surely we're smarter? Surely we've read anything by Tara Moss, Mary Higgins Clark or Lynda La Plante?

Now before you get up in arms and accuse me of my own bias, allow me to qualify: I know all three traditionally published mystery authors are HUGELY successful and have an enormous fan base, and all power to them. I'm not saying their work is crap, not at all. But I could name at least 50 indie mystery authors I've read who do a FAR SUPERIOR job. These lesser-known authors create prose that is so much richer, characters who are far less cliche, and plots that leave you gripping the edge of your bed each night.

Yet by destiny or design, they have gone the independent route, and while some are doing really well, others are struggling. And they're struggling thanks to the attitudes of people like my neighbour who clearly wouldn't give them a whirl because they haven't got the words Pan Macmillan or Penguin or Harper Collins somewhere in the opening pages.

How short sighted of him, and oh how he's missing out!

The changing tide
The indie book publishing world IS changing, and it's changing fast. Sales are zooming, profits are booming, and many writers now choose to go it alone. Yet the general population has a looooong way to go to catch up. My neighbour was not trying to be insulting, he just has a bias that should be left in the 20th century where it belongs.

Stories are stories are stories. It shouldn't matter about format or publisher. That's an irrelevance.

All I ask today, dear readers, is that you give a book credit based on its content, not the imprint at the front. Take a look at the star rating. Look at the reviews. Read the first few chapters before you diss or dismiss. It's that simple.

Oh and be careful what you say to your neighbours. They might have just published another indie novel and be feeling pretty proud of themselves. Let's give them a pat on the back not a silent slap.

Happy (unbiased) reading everyone.
xo Christina

Under my Ghostie's skin (is she deeper than you realise?)

Q: Do you think Roxy Parker chose to be a Ghostwriter so she could hide in the shadows of other people's lives?

It was a throwaway question, posed to me by a longtime reader and fan, but it threw me for six. I was writing my third ghostwriter mystery when she emailed me from her home in Canada, and I laughed at first before blinking rapidly and having a mini 'Ah-ha' moment that quickly turned into an ''Oh my God!'

Yes. Absolutely. Of course! My reader had nailed it, and I hadn't even realised. Yet I have to confess, that hadn't been my original intention, at least not consciously, not at the start.

Conjuring up a ghost
Roxy Parker was just supposed to be a bit of fun, a bit of a lark. When I first conjured up the protagonist of my new Ghostwriter Mystery Series for the first book Killer Twist, I enjoyed turning her into a merlot-swilling, fast-talking, puzzle-loving amateur sleuth, who just happens to stumble upon corpses as she ghostwrites other people's 'autobiographies'.

Yet as I fleshed Roxy out, as I coloured her in and then drew in her supporting cast, I created something a lot deeper than that, and a hell of a lot more interesting. I'm not talking thesis-inspiring deep, or even something many readers would consciously notice, but it's there and I hadn't even realised it had happened, until one reader pointed it out.

While creating a ghostwriter, I had in effect created a ghost.


Behind the shadows
Roxy lives in the shadows of other people's lives. She's a journalist first and foremost, and most journalists, it has to be said, do exactly that—especially of the print variety. In fact, it's the reason I became a print journo. My communications lecturer had suggested I go into broadcast; I guess he figured I could pull off the voice and/or face for it, but I was aghast at the thought. I loved being behind the scenes, I loved pulling the real story out of other people and pushing them up and into the spotlight.

I wasn't the story, they were! Duh!

It's doubly so for ghostwriters. They don't even get a byline asI generally do, their voice is never heard. Ghostwritten books are usually always in first-person, in the subject's voice, not theirs.  It is ALL about the other, and that's just the way young Roxy likes it.

It's also the reason she has set her life up the way she has. It explains everything about her, from her cosy little apartment, only big enough for one, to her motley crew of mates, all fiercely single, all living through others whether they realise it or not. Like her sweet slob of an agent, Oliver, whose whole career is set up to push other people's careers; and her Scottish pal Lockie, a budding artist who provides a cosy cafe where real arty types can congregate. And Gilda Maltin, of course, the tough-talking cop who is single, lives alone and investigates other people's lives.

Only one person breaks the mould. 

Max Farrell is Roxy's best friend, a photographer, but he doesn't just snap other people, he creates his own artworks, is a minor celebrity in his own right. He lives in an over-sized warehouse and has plenty of room both there—and in his heart—for Ms Parker.

He's the one who tries to break into Roxy's heart, to bring her out of the shadows and put her in the spotlight. And she keeps pushing him back.

She likes her quiet little life, thank you very much! She likes her Thai takeaway, her local cafe and the newsagents who hold the paper for her so she can cut out the complex mystery and misery she finds inside. Maybe Roxy thinks by doing all of this she will avoid more mystery/misery in her own life?

She had a taste of it once, remember, when her beloved father died? She doesn't want to feel that pain again. She'd rather document other people's pain.

And so Roxy has made her life very small, very single, very closed down—just ask her disapproving mother! Perhaps Lorraine isn't as clueless or as cruel as Roxy likes to make out.

Perhaps the reason both Lorraine and Max want Roxy to stop interfering in other people's mysteries has less to do with her personal safety and more to do with Roxy living a life of her own.

None of this matters, of course, if you're just enjoying the ride. But if you like your characters deeper, if you're into psychoanalysis, well... may I introduce the real Roxy Parker. She's deeper than you may realise.

What do you think? Did you, like my Canadian reader, catch any of that? Are we both over-thinking it? Does it even matter? I'd love to hear your views, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below, or get in touch via email.

Happy (deeper) reading everyone!

xo Christina