Thursday 19th saw Tess visit Rainham Library to talk about her upcoming book The Killing Place to a packed room of avid fans. When asked, “what do you do when you get writers block?” Tess said “it happens with every book” and that it’s normally because she puts something in that doesn’t feel quite right. Tess never plans her books in advance but puts pen to paper and handwrites them before typing the script up on to the computer when finished. Consequently, the first draft often looks nothing like the finished book. To combat writers block she goes for long drives, sometimes 2 or 3 hours mentally ticking off the options for what her characters should do next.

Tess then went on to talk about her inspiration revealing that her ideas come from thoughts that she can’t shake or that she finds disturbing. For example for Harvest she read a story about children in Russia who were suddenly disappearing at just the age when they could be used for adult organ donation. The subsequent thought was so horrible that two weeks later she was still thinking about it. Her background in medicine lead her to know about the practice of donating organs and Harvest was born.

On Friday 20th Tess travelled to the Welsh border to talk at Bishopswood House, just outside Ross-on-Wye. In this remote location Tess brought up a thought that partially inspired the beginning of The Killing Place. We all blindly follow our GPS or Sat Nav gadgets trusting that they’ll get us where we want to go but this can lead to disaster as Tess found out when researching the book. Apparently there have been over 300,000 sat-nav disasters or accidents in the UK in the past year! So if people follow their sat nav into empty fields, off cliffs or even into lakes it would be very possible for Maura Isles to get stranded on a long snowy road in the middle of nowhere due to the sat nav in her car.

It seems that Tess also may have been inspired to write grisly crime novels from a very young age by being brought up on horror films. Her mother was a big horror movie fan and Tess always writes remembering herself as a child sitting in the movie theatre feeling scared. She wondered whether she’d have become a different writer if she’d watched romantic comedies…

Sunday 22nd - Bloomin’ Good Books Festival at Southport Flower festival

You can definitely say it was a Bloomin’ Good Books festival as the sun can out of the clouds for Tess’s last UK event on the Sunday. After wandering around, buying a few flowers, admiring the show gardens and basking in the sun, the main marquee filled with fans to hear Tess talk of the filming of her Rizzoli & Isles series over in America. The series was filmed in LA, although being originally set in Boston, and real homes were used for filming. To make sure that the setting was authentic for Boston in the Autumn and to the horror of the flower enthusiasts listening to Tess she said that it was ordered that the large rose bushes surrounding the houses being filmed were to be destroyed, a fair sacrifice for the series.

Tess was asked the question “Do you ever feel as if you become the characters in the book when writing?”. Tess replied saying that these characters, both good and bad, vividly materialise in her mind. This was most scarily true when she was writing The Surgeon as she felt she had no trouble knowing how he would react in situations or what the character would say. So much so that the police even approached her regarding a case in the 1970s in America that echoed many of the traits of The Surgeon. They were sure that she had been in touch with him, a very chilling scenario to be confronted with!

After a great week full of events Tess flew back home on Monday ready to start work on her next thriller set in Boston’s Chinatown called The Silent Girl. All I can say is that when Jane discovers a severed hand on a roof in Chinatown it contains the hairs of an ancient monkey, one linked to the legend of the Monkey King. Find out next year what happens but in the mean time get lost in the snowy mountains of Wyoming where Maura Isles discovers a dark secret in The Killing Place.

And finally, CONGRATULATIONS to the winners of the dedicated books:
Linda Abnett
Jennifer Rolfe
Paula Isaacs
Irene Jackson
Dawn W

Do you love to review books? Do you post reviews on Amazon? Are you an avid blogger? If you answered yes to any of these questions then the Transworld Summer Reading Challenge is for you!

Running from June to September we’re letting bloggers pick four titles from the list below to be sent for review. Review the book on your blog or on Amazon and send us the link, then we’ll send you out the second book on your list.* It’s as easy at that!

At the end of the Summer (fingers crossed for a warm September!) we’ll host a mini shindig for the most active bloggers to celebrate completing the challenge and chat about our Autumn titles. We’d love to meet you in person!

Post this header and the packshot above (we’ll send it to you) linking back to Between the Lines to commence your challenge!
‘I’m taking part in the Transworld Dan Brown Summer Reading Challenge!’

1. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
2. Matters of the Heart by Danielle Steel
3. E Squared by Matt Beaumont
4. If I Stay by Gayle Forman
5. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
6. Forbidden Pleasures by Jo Rees
7. Exit Wound by Andy McNab
8. Second Hand Heart by Catherine Ryan Hyde
9. Assassin by Tom Cain
10. Bryant & May on the Loose by Christopher Fowler
11. Amberville by Tim Davys
12. After You by Julie Buxbaum
13. Lockdown by Sean Black
14. The Wish by Sasha Blake
15. 61 Hours by Lee Child

For more information on any of these titles head on over to www.booksattransworld.co.uk

To take part just post a comment on this blog entry below and we’ll be in touch!

Happy Summer Reading!

 *(EU residents only) Must apply by the end of August

Here at the lofty Transworld tower of art we heard on the grapevine about a sporting contest that happens every four years between teams from all over the world. Having learned about said tournament we decided to adopt it and give it our own spin - after all Unseen Academicals is all about football and being the newest Discworld creation it seemed aptly timed by the literary Gods upstairs to send out the inspiration for the DISCWORLD CUP!

The Discworld Cup is a competition contested by the books of Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.

The format of the tournament involves 32 teams (otherwise known as books) competing for the title of Favourite Discworld Book 2010 over a period of one month. The 32 teams that start the tournament are made of every Discworld novel in the series, except for those aimed at younger readers and The Last Hero, which was officially known as a Discworld Fable*. Sir Terry Pratchett himself randomly selected the books through a highly scientific process.

Having got this far we realised that a tournament of this sort needs a very shiny, trophy for one lucky participant to kiss and wave about and make everyone else feel thoroughly jealous. Created by the elusive Sergeant Braille we have a cup to rival all other cups! (see below) So to be in with a chance to win the highly covetable, scarily limited edition Discworld Cup make your voice heard and cheer on your favourite Discworld book, I mean team, no I mean book.

 All the terms and conditions and voting can be found at www.discworldcup.co.uk head on  over and make your vote count!

*The decision to omit certain books was made purely to balance the competition with 32 titles and stay true to a similarly named tournament that takes place every four years. Any issues with this see the management.

To celebrate the latest releases from three best-selling military history authors, The Tank Museum is proud to be hosting `An Evening of Authors`.

Major Chris Hunter, James Holland and Mike Rossiter are 3 bestselling authors who are coming to The Tank Museum for a special event to discuss “A Soldier’s War”. All 3 have incredible experiences to share with you.

Major Chris Hunter is a decorated counter-terrorist Bomb Disposal Operator who served for almost 20 years in the British Army neutralising bombs and fighting the war against terrorism in Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan and Colombia and many other countries. He tells all in his latest book, Extreme Risk; his reasons for joining the Army, how that long walk to neutralise a bomb feels, his work on the July 7th terrorist attacks in London, and finally why he decided to leave and start his own counter terrorism consultancy.

James Holland is a popular young historian and author of many books on WW2 whose latest book, The Battle of Britain, is currently riding high on the Sunday Times Bestseller list. His research has taken him across the world, interviewing veterans from both British and German forces. His new book sheds new light on the Battle of Britain, he analyses the pivotal role played by Bomber Command and highlights that in fact the Luftwaffe had it a lot worse than our own boys.

Mike Rossiter is an author and documentary film maker. Mike’s work has taken him all over the world, he has been nominated for BAFTA and Emmy awards, he produced the series War At Sea for the BBC and discovered and filmed the wreck of Ark Royal. His latest book, Bomber Flight Berlin, is the remarkable story of a true band of brothers from WW2, the bomber crew of C Charlie. Night after night Sergeant Geoffrey King and his Lancaster Bomber crew risked their lives facing incredible dangers, near misses and close encounters with the Luftwaffe. Now sixty years later, Geoffrey King is only one of this group of friends left to tell the story.

Don’t miss the opportunity to hear these authors talking about their work and discussing the developments of war through the ages. The perfect early Father’s Day treat!

http://www.tankmuseum.org/