Tag: Hannah Weybridge

Stage Call

At The Old Vic, one of London’s most iconic theatres, the stage is set for one of our national treasures to tread the boards in a new, sell-out play. Joan Ballantyne, now in her sixties, has attracted a new fan base with her role in an award-winning soap, Chicory Road, and they’ve turned out in force. As the curtain rises, it reveals the strangely still body of the leading lady, slumped in an armchair. The show will not go on…

Still recovering from the attempt on her life, Hannah Weybridge is stunned. She had been collaborating with the actress on her memoir. Now she has to contribute to her obituary. Suicide is suspected, but Hannah, from the little she knows of the woman, is sceptical. As is Joan’s son, the famous TV actor, Leo Hawkins, who implores Hannah to investigate the circumstances of his mother’s mysterious death.

Hannah is drawn into the lives of those who knew Joan. But who can she trust in a world where everyone seems to be playing a part?

You can order Stage Call from bookshops or online at Blackwell’s with £1 discount and free delivery.

Stage Call is also available from Amazon in paperback and ebook. the latter free on Kindle Unlimited.

Perdition’s Child

The fourth in the Hannah Weybridge series takes the freelance journalist, now under contract to The News, into new territories and more danger.

Dulwich library is the scene of a suspicious death, followed swiftly by another in Manchester, the victims linked by nothing other than their Australian nationality. Police dismiss the idea of a serial killer, but Hannah isn’t convinced.

Drawn into an investigation in which more Australian men are killed as they try to trace their British families, her research reveals past horrors and present sadness, and loss linked to children who went missing after the Second World War. Have those children returned now?

Once again Hannah finds herself embroiled in a deadly mystery, a mystery complicated by the murder of Harry Peters; the brother of Lucy, one of the residents of Cardboard City she had become friendly with. It soon becomes clear Lucy is protecting secrets of her own.

What is Lucy’s link to the murders and can Hannah discover the truth before the killer strikes again?

Perditions Child is available from Amazon in paperback and ebook, the latter is free in Kindle Unlimited.

Naming Characters

In a recent interview with bestselling author Jane Davis (pictured left) for her Virtual Book Club series, one of the questions was about how I choose names for characters and I mentioned checking out the popular names for the year the character was born.

For Death’s Silent Judgement I went to a website that gave Somali names as well. A friend also wanted to be a character in the book and he fit the bill for one of them but sadly hasn’t made it to book three. That’s the trouble with crime novels – characters die.

In the third Hannah Weybridge thriller to be published by Urbane Publications next year, I have some Asian characters and am name-checking with my Asian friends as well as websites.

Currently I am completing the first draft which is basically a wobbly skeleton of the novel but have got to the point when I can’t keep putting XX or a question mark for the name of a character. Even I am getting confused!

So today’s job is to go through the manuscript naming names. Some characters have made it through from Dancers in the Wind and Death’s Silent Judgement so their names are set in stone. Others I can think about what suits them, their culture and age.

The novel opens with the discovery of a body in Peckham Rye lake – the Pond – by two young boys and I had their names early on: Jace and Ollie. These two local boys from a nearby estate are up to no good and I loved writing their (possibly only) scene!

So now I am off to read through the manuscript to find all those XXs and question marks to insert some names and add them to the little blue book that I keep for name checks, physical characteristics, ages, roles …