The Reason I've Gone Quiet… I've Got Something to Shout About

   

Yes, I know. I've been suspiciously quiet of late. I haven't posted my usual short story. I haven't offered fabulous free book prizes. I haven't asked what you think of Agatha Christie or cozies or covers of the like. Here's why… 

I've got a new book in the works (woo-hoo!)

This one is a thriller like nothing I've ever written before. With echoes of Sliding Doors, a splash of Gone Girl and a good dose of my usual Aussie candour, this new, stand-alone story has kept me tap-tap-tapping away for months, and is almost complete! 

I thank you all so much for your patience and promise you the wait will be worth it. Or at least I hope it will. My most complicated mystery yet, this one is set in three very different places and two completely different timelines. It all starts with a simple scenario:   

A young backpacker meets an alluring stranger on a ferry, enroute to Santorini. When he gets off miles from her destination, she has to make a terrifying choice. Will she jump off with him and desert her travelling companions? Or will she stay safely on the ferry and miss what might be the experience of a lifetime? 

One woman, two choices. Which way does she go? 

What she can not know in her youth and naivety is that one choice will see her finding true love, the other will leave her fighting for her life. 

This is a story of choices, and of surviving their consequences.

Sound enticing? I hope so! And now you know: When writers go quiet it usually means the voices are screaming loudly in their heads and there's a bunch of characters coming to life on a page somewhere.

This book will be ready for a mid-2019 release but I'll be in touch before then with both the title and cover reveals, so stay tuned for that.

Until then, thanks again for your patience. You can catch up on all my other mysteries by heading to my website: calarmer.com or clicking on your favourite book here.

Happy (future!) reading, everyone.

xo Christina

The Heart of Darkness (It's in My Head)

It's scary what goes through my mind at 30,000 feet:

'If someone just wrenched open that door handle we'd all go flying out, ripped from our seatbelts, and sucked through the cabin, starting with that smug bloke spreading his legs out in the exit row.'

and…

'Gee that suction in the toilet cubicle is strong. Wonder if it could vacuum out a small child?'

and… Well, you get the picture.

Don't be alarmed or worried for my mental health. I think these thoughts quite calmly, while sipping my G&T on a Qantas fiight to Singapore (where I'm headed for work). I am not perturbed by the dark images that flitter through my imagination, I just accept them—like you might a distracting throught during meditation—and let them go, as I happily glance around.

This is the way my mind works. Always has. I'm a glass-half-empty, every-cloud-has-a-storm-behind-it kind of person, and that's what drives my writing. It's why I became a crime writer in the first place. Makes sense right?

But it's not all doom and gloom. My (wise-beyond-her-years) niece said to me just before I left, in fact, "Maybe you love mysteries, Aunty Christina, because they get solved, so you're actually being really, like, positive and stuff."

She's right. I might revel in the dark, but it's the fact that I'm shining light on those shadowy corners that really inspires me. It's not the crime that I like. It's the justice that comes for the victim, the answers that come for the family, the order that is restored to the world. And, in the case of the exit door, it's also about the most positive aspect of all—survival. Because after each such thought, I usually go to solutions, like:

'Okay, if that happened, I'd scream out to the bloke to grab hold of his seatbelt, wrap it around his wrist and hold on for dear life.'

And how positive is that?

What about you? As a crime reader, do you also have a dark imagination? Or are you fiercely positive and just happen to stray into dark territory from time to time? If you particularly love cozy crime like me, I tend to believe the answer is the latter, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Are you a naturally dark soul and if so, why? Or is light and positivity your preference? And if so, why do you read crime?

Pop a comment here or jot me an email and let me know.

Until then, happy (sinister) reading everyone.

xo Christina