Interview with Author Robyn Kerr & competition

Welcome Robyn and thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule and gabbing with us about your debut novel "Failing Adult".

1. Tell us a bit about Robyn, who is Robyn?

Where do I start with the story of me? I suppose I’m definitely a wanderer, I love to travel and live in different countries and places. Usually either by working in hospitality or as a live in nanny. I’ve always had a great love and appreciation for Tv and film, mainly romantic or comedy focused pieces. I consider myself to be adventurous, I’ll try anything once and love doing new things. Things people would say about me, would be, I’m loud, with an even louder laugh, I’m funny, silly and hopefully, a good, kind person. Becoming a writer has certainly been a surprise, not only to me but everyone that knows me. I never did well in school and it came as no surprise when I was diagnosed as dyslexic.

2. How did the idea hit you wanted to write a book?

Well actually, I wanted and still want to be script writer. I started writing scripts when I lived in the states for two years, then when I came home I decided to gain more knowledge and skills by going to university. I started my creative writing degree four years ago, as a mature student. During my second year, I found my love of prose and gained the confidence within myself, to believe that I could write a book. So I did.

3. What research did you do?

My lectures taught me a lot about structure, storytelling and things to avoid. In regards to research for the book, that mainly came to personal experience and Google helped.

4. Are any of you characters based on real people or events?

Yes, and no. The supporting characters definitely have traits of some of my friends and family, but no one is directly based off anyone. Some of the smaller events are true events that happened me or my friends or both of us.

5. Is there going to be more in the series?

This is the first in a four part series, the first following Dotty, in her pursuit of personal growth and finding love. The second will follow her best friend and roommate, as she attempts to do the same.

6. Tell us about your publishing journey?

Publishing in any form is not for the faint hearted, it can be daunting, terrifying and all consuming. I decided very early on to not send my book to agents or publishers, but instead to self publish, well not completely self publish, I paid a three party to edit, proofread, design my front cover and format for me. Once that was all finished, I was on my own and the marketing began.

7. What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

It sounds so clique but you need to just start writing. Even if the first few thousand words are utter rubbish, it’s the only way to learn and grow. Always remember that your work won’t be for everyone, take the praise and criticism. Your writing will find its audience and whatever you produce, be proud of it, writing isn’t easy and takes a lot of your heart and soul.

8. What are the pros and cons of writing a novel?

The pros are:
1. The unbelievable sense of pride and happiness finishing it and holding it in your hands.
2. Having even one person love your work.
3. Seeing your characters and story on black and white, instead of just in your head.

The cons are:
1. The time it takes.
2. The imposter feeling you get.
3. The fear everyone will hate it.

9. Do you have any quirks or rituals or lucky items/must haves?

I love a post it note and they are so handy in keeping track of things. For some reason, when I write, I need the Tv on. Often playing reruns of my favourite shows like Frasier or Schitt’s creek.

10. What is next for Robyn?

Currently writing the second book, which will hopefully be finished by March and released by summer. I also hope to in the next few years, be working in the Tv and film industry, you have to dream big after all. I also want to add a huge thank you to everyone that has supported and championed me so far, it means the absolute world to me.

We are huge supporters of authors where able and Robyn is a mate. Whilst I haven't yet read her book *gasp* I know I know, I have an ebook copy and a treebook copy, I recommend it all the time. To those who have read it, friends, sil, sister they all recommend it and looking forward to the next so I need to get a move on and read it myself. Anyways, we are doing a giveaway for x1 ebook copy of the book. Open UK ONLY as the ebook will come directly from Amazon to your kindle and Amazon won't allow me to gift outside my own country. In order to enter please use the Rafflecopter below, good luck and as always thanks for entering/sharing/supporting.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Q&A with author Paul Burston

Q&A with author Paul Burston



Photo by Krystyna FitzGerald-Morris


• The book I hear is based on something you experienced yourself, is that true and if so what happened?

Yes, it’s true. Several years ago, I had a cyberstalker who made my life hell. It started with emails and trolling on Twitter, then spilled over onto various websites where I was employed as a journalist or featured as an author. It was mostly homophobic abuse. At its worst, I was receiving dozens of malicious communications every day. The stalker also contacted people who employed or supported me in some way, trying to persuade them to drop me. Then they started buying tickets for my events, posting the booking info on Twitter and making veiled threats to come and sort me out. Eventually I went to the police, who were very understanding. The scene in the book where Tom reports Evie to the police is pretty much as I remember it. I then helped the detective to build a case by taking screenshots of everything and making numerous police statements. Basically, you have to relive the abuse over and over again. Eventually the woman responsible was arrested and tried, found guilty and given a suspended sentence and a restraining order. I never heard from them again but the after effects of the harassment lasted for months.

• How did you get over something like that?

With time and support - from my partner, my GP, friends and victim support. I had counselling and was also prescribed anti depressants. I wasn’t in a good way! I was very angry, not just with the woman responsible but also with myself for letting it get to me. Of course I realise now that I was wrong to feel that way. Harassment or stalking is seriously disruptive and unsettling. I was diagnosed with PTSD. I wanted to communicate some of that in the book. The impact of what happened to me still lingers, but in a more positive way. I changed my online behaviour. I’m far more discerning about what I share on social media now.

• How did you find writing the book when it is something so close to something you experienced?

It was very therapeutic. I often mine my own life experiences for my fiction, so I knew I’d write about it at some point. The idea for the book really seeded itself when I moved into crime fiction a few years ago. I knew it would make a good story. It was a story I had a specific insight into.

• The characters, well the main male and female, are not the nicest by any means how did you come up with them?

They’re partly based on various people or character types I’ve encountered over the years. I also put a bit of myself into each character I write - in this case, my less admirable qualities! I’m not really interested in nice characters. They’re not as much fun to write. I’m far more interested in characters who are compelling or damaged in some way. They’re more of a challenge.

• The female character, her voice was so authentic was that hard to create?

I found writing her the most enjoyable. I wanted the story to be more ambiguous than it was in real life, and for her character to be more sympathetic than the person who inspired her. Once I had her voice, writing her came quite easily. I’d hear her whispering in my head, sit down and write.

• Who was more fun, Evie or Tom?

Evie, for lots of reasons. She’s clearly damaged, obsessive and relentless but also very witty and well read. Her pop cultural references were great fun to write, too - Morrissey, obviously, but also Blondie, Bowie and Madonna. I’ve interviewed Debbie Harry and I met David Bowie. I’ve gone off Morrissey but I’m still a big Madonna fan. She’s a great pop star. So Evie and I have a few things in common.

• What is next for Paul Burston?

I’m working on my next book. It’s another psychological thriller, also set in Hastings, and revolves around a man seeking revenge for things that happened to him in the past. It’s more of a family drama than the current book. I’m also touring with my literary salon Polari and preparing for our Polari Book Prize event with Tracey Thorn in October and our twelfth birthday event with Russell T Davies in November, both at the Southbank Centre.

• Where can fans find you? (dare I ask that after reading “The Closer I Get”

My website has information about upcoming author events and Polari events. www.paulburston.com

I’m also on Twitter @PaulBurston, Insta @paulburston1 and Facebook @paulburstonauthor

• Anything else you would like to add/answer that I haven’t asked?

I’d like to encourage your readers to please support local bookshops and libraries! They do so much for authors.

About the book, My Review, Blurb from Goodreads




Tom is a successful author, but he’s struggling to finish his novel. His main distraction is an online admirer, Evie, who simply won’t leave him alone. Evie is smart, well read and unstable; she lives with her father and her social-media friendships are not only her escape, but everything she has. When she’s hit with a restraining order, her world is turned upside down, and Tom is free to live his life again, to concentrate on writing. But things aren’t really adding up. For Tom is distracted but also addicted to his online relationships, and when they take a darker, more menacing turn, he feels powerless to change things. Because maybe he needs Evie more than he’s letting on. A compulsive, disturbingly relevant, twisty and powerful psychological thriller, The Closer I Get is also a searing commentary on the fragility and insincerity of online relationships, and the danger that can lurk just one ‘like’ away…


And if I haven't spoiled you enough with the interview I have a wee giveaway of the book. x1 ebook, UK ONLY, sorry guys but Amazon doesn't allow me to gift outside my own country. To be in with a chance just fill in the Rafflecopter below, good luck.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Q&A with Karl Drinkwater

Welcome to So Many Books, So Little Time Karl. Thanks for taking time out for a bit of a grilling with me. FYI readers, there are some swear words ahead!






So "Lost Solace", for anyone who hasn’t read it or heard of it, tell us what is it about?

If I was being flippant, I’d say it is the first of a trilogy about a kick-arse pair of women taking on every-fucking-threat in the universe, including the military-industrial complex, and still finding time for noodles and sisterhood. I don’t want to list their main goal, because it’s one of the revelations at the end of Lost Solace. If I was being serious, I’d say it’s a sci-fi book with a heart that gives me the chance to ask questions. What is strength and humanity? Can a machine feel things like a human? How does a woman make her way in a man’s world? And how far will someone go to keep a promise?


You normally write horror, what made you change over to sci fi genre?

To be honest, horror is what I’m best known for, but it’s only one of the genres I write in. For example, my Manchester 2000 books are purely about finding love and happiness, and how our pasts and our obsessions sometimes get in the way of that; one of my current works-in-progress is a literary and contemporary short-story collection with a big focus on love and ethics. My primary interest is telling a story; the genre and style evolve out of that. My books contain different combinations of elements that fingerprint me, but not all are present in every book: examples include family, horror, suspense, love, strength, humanity, action, and reality breaking down.


Opal is a long overdue kickass strong female character, tell me about her?

She’s flawed. She’s not all-powerful. She has a depth of emotion that she dare not reveal easily. She’s righteously angry. She’s quick-thinking. She hurts. All of that means she’s human. There’s no guarantee that she’ll survive what she faces, but we want her to, because she’s noble when she can be. We root for her. She’s a Greek warrior hero, a female mix of Achilles and Odysseus. A mortal Athena (Athene). She can do what we only wish we could do. But with a hero’s achievements there can be a hero’s suffering.


Is she based on anyone you know?

Strangely, no. Many of my female characters are based on women I’ve known and admired. A reader wouldn’t know it, and the inspiring women wouldn’t necessarily recognise themselves in the characters, but I could easily say who they were. Opal is different. She grew as I wrote her. She redefined herself in the flow of words.


I loved the AI (artificial intelligence) and the relationship between the two, what made you go for an AI?

In my story notes the AI was sexless and emotionless. A pure representation of efficiency, directed towards the purpose of killing by the (originally-male) protagonist. In fact, the AI was in the form of a companion robot. But as I wrote dialogue, things would pop into my head. Weird things; clever things; humorous things, but possibly overlaying either innocence or malice. That was irresistible to me as a writer. So I let the dialogue flow and the AI began to define herself. In my original notes I hadn’t even decided if the AI was going to be good or bad. That revelation just happened.


When I started reading this, I kept thinking Event Horizon type movie with a cross of Alien, particularly the AI. Was that intentional?

Yes, they were definite influences. Not so much events, but ideas – creepy abandoned ships in space; people surviving on ingenuity when technology fails; malevolent dangers that are difficult to comprehend because they are so alien to us. Works that I respect leave me with a feeling; it’s a feeling I then try to recreate in my own worlds, so other readers can experience it. I think at one point I made a list of works that had in some way influenced me, and maybe an element of which had crept into Lost Solace. I probably had about a hundred things on the list. It’s similar to what I once did with Turner.


Lost Solace left a lot of unanswered questions, for me anyway, was that intentional and will fans get closure?

Yes to closure. A book that opens a series can be difficult. You don’t want to bind it in the darkness of exposition. Discovering Opal’s motivation is a reward. The other questions are left unanswered because, at this point, Opal doesn’t have the answers, and we generally see through her eyes. But by the end of book three – if she survives – she’ll have more answers than she ever wanted, and knowledge does not always make you happy. The reader will find out the full deal on the Lost Ships and all the other elements of the story, and the outcome may not be what you expect.


What are you working on just now?

A lot of my time is spent on writing-related activity at the moment: finding the perfect narrator for the Lost Solace audiobook, running a big promo (that got Lost Solace to #3 in Amazon’s UK sci-fi top 100!), submissions for a writing residency and prestigious prizes, and some editorial work for other authors. I’m also revamping one of my early books, 2000 Tunes, and hoping to get draft two of a new short-story collection finished. I’m also drafting out my storyboard for the sequels to Lost Solace so that when I come to write them (hopefully in the nearish future!) the first drafts will be clean and well-structured.


What kind of research do you do for this kind of book? Keeping in mind Sci Fi fans are hardcore and can be uber critical, does that make it easier or harder for you?

It didn’t feel much different from any other work I’ve written. I always do preliminary research while storyboarding, but then write the first draft and just fill in the gaps with my imagination, so as not to break the flow. Then there is a lot more research and fact-checking during the numerous rewrites. With Turner I stayed on a remote island for a week; with 2000 Tunes I researched the history of Manchester music, and the city centre layout in the year 2000; whereas with Lost Solace I was researching repair gels, ship layouts, and biological sensing systems. Luckily my degrees mean I have some background in astronomy, geology, natural science, information science and computing, so that helped shape my story. I think there was only one correction that needed making to the real science aspect.





Where can fans connect with you?

My website and blog can be found at http://karldrinkwater.uk and it links to everything else. I am active on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/karlzdrinkwater/ and Twitter http://twitter.com/karldrinkwater and regularly interact with everyone there. Superfans also sign up to my quirky newsletter at http://bit.ly/newsletterkd


Anything else you would like to add I may have forgotten?

I love hearing from people. Only today I had a long email from someone who had just read Lost Solace, and it was fascinating because it was their first book set in space. It gave me a good glimpse into how that alters the reader’s expectations. Luckily they loved the book. I’m surprised you didn’t bring cats and dogs into the conversation. Thanks for having me!



And if a fabulous Q&A wasn't enough for spoiling you guys, I am giving away my copy of "Lost Solace" - to enter just fill in the Rafflecopter as usual. The more entries you complete the more times your name is entered into the draw.


a Rafflecopter giveaway