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28 July 2018

The Invisible Case by Isabella Muir Blitz!


The Invisible Case
A shocking death turns a homecoming into a nightmare. 

It's Easter 1970 in the seaside town of Tamarisk Bay, and for one family the first Easter of a new decade brings a shocking tragedy. Amateur sleuth and a professional librarian, Janie Juke, is settling into motherhood and looking forward to spending time with her family. When her Aunt Jessica is due back from Rome after nine years traveling around Europe, she arrives back in town with a new Italian friend, Luigi, and the whole family soon get embroiled in a tangle of mystery and suspicion, with death and passion at the heart of the story.

As time runs out on Luigi as the prime suspect for murder, Janie has to use all of her powers of deduction in the footsteps of her hero, Hercule Poirot, to uncover the facts. Why did Luigi come to Tamarisk Bay? What is the truth about his family?
As Luigi's story unfolds, tragedy seems to haunt the past, present and unless Janie acts fast, possibly what is yet to come.
Author Bio –
Isabella Muir is the author of Janie Juke series of crime mysteries - all set in Sussex.

'The Tapestry Bag' is the first in the series, followed by ‘Lost Property’. Now - 'The Invisible Case' - the latest in the series is available for pre-order from Amazon.

The 'Janie Juke mysteries' are set in Sussex in the sixties and seventies and feature a young librarian with a passion for Agatha Christie. All that Janie has learned from her hero, Hercule Poirot, she is able to put into action as she sets off to solve a series of crimes and mysteries.

Isabella has also published 'Ivory Vellum' - a collection of short stories.

She has been surrounded by books her whole life and – after working for twenty years as a technical editor and having successfully completed her MA in Professional Writing - she was inspired to focus on fiction writing.
Aside from books, Isabella has a love of all things caravan-like. She has spent many winters caravanning in Europe and now, together with her husband, she runs a small caravan site in Sussex. They are ably assisted by their much-loved Scottie, Hamish.

Social Media Links –
TWITTER  @SussexMysteries

Discovering people, places, and words


I didn’t plan to write crime fiction, but just stumbled upon it.  I first met Janie Juke in February 2017.  I was walking my Scottie dog, Hamish, along a Spanish beach and she came into my head.  Back then I didn’t know her name, I didn’t know that she would be a mobile librarian and I hadn’t met any of her family and friends.
One of my short stories (from my anthology Ivory Vellum) was about a little girl whose father had taken her to the park one snowy day.  He crossed the road to buy her a doughnut and was hit by a bus. I wanted to know what might have happened to that family.  Well now I know! Janie is the little girl all grown up and Philip Chandler, Janie’s dad, is blind as a result of the accident.  But being blind hasn’t prevented him from being a wonderful physiotherapist and a marvellous support to Janie as she tries to unravel the crimes that seem to keep occurring in Tamarisk Bay.

While writing the first book in the Sussex Crime series - The Tapestry Bag  - I got to know Janie Juke, very well.  So well, in fact, that I realised she deserved a series of stories.  Janie is a young and unlikely librarian who has a passion for Agatha Christie novels and sees herself as a budding Hercule Poirot.  I chose to set the series in the late 1960s in Tamarisk Bay, an imaginary seaside town, modelled on my home town of St Leonards-on-sea.  As Janie goes about her library work she discovers many of the characters in this sleepy resort are not quite what they might appear.  She cleverly weaves her way through a puzzle of clues, unwrapping secrets and challenging lies.

It's been fascinating for me to see how my novels emerge.  I’m not a great planner, although I am constantly striving to be better!  I have the rough idea of the plot in my head and usually know the ending, but I find that once I am seated with my notebook and pencil in hand the characters tell me what I need to know.  If I try to shoehorn them into scenarios that don’t suit them then I can sense their discontent.

When I start to work on the first draft in earnest, then I aim to write every single day, even if it is just a few hundred words, but ideally at least more than a thousand.  I find it much easier to write by hand and then to transfer the words to my computer several days later. I have always associated sitting in front of my computer with ‘work’, so when I am creating I like to be as far away from every online distraction as possible.

Once the first draft is completed and I have read it through a few times and made changes, then I send it out to my two wonderful writing buddies, Chris and Sarah.  Janie wouldn’t be who she is today without them! They have inspired me to keep writing, guided me with incredibly helpful feedback on plot, structure, character development and so much more.  Chris is a thriller writer of some renown! https://christoffer-petersen.com/  

Sarah is a wonderful nature poet. http://sarahacton.co.uk/
They have shared Janie’s journey with me from the very first page and will hopefully continue to do so as she has plenty more adventures still to come!
With their feedback firmly in mind I then work through a few months of editing until the final draft is ready for that all-important proof-read!  Now that the third book in the series - The Invisible Case -  has been published, it’s time for me to start thinking about the next story…

To keep in touch with progress on future titles in the Sussex Crime series, visit my website: www.isabellamuir.com follow me on Twitter @SussexMysteries or visit my Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/IsabellaMuirAuthor/

Giveaway – Win a signed copy of The Invisible Case (Open Internationally)
*Terms and Conditions –
Worldwide entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will be passed to the giveaway organizer and used only for the fulfillment of the prize, after which time I will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for taking part in the blog blitz for 'The Invisible Case' - happy reading everyone! All the best Isabella Muir

    ReplyDelete

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