I am delighted that LOUISE VOSS is joining me on my blog today. Louise's women's fiction books have all been updated and are available as e-books from Amazon (published 13 July 2015).
So Louise, what inspired you to write books in the first place?
I
hadn’t planned to write books, as such.
It was almost twenty years ago, I was working for a record company in
New York and wanted to do something creative in my spare time, whether
photography, art, or writing – I decided on writing, and enrolled in an evening
class at the West Side YMCA. The tutor
made us work with one character all term, so I ended up with lots of pieces of
writing about the same person that I realised had the makings of a novel. I haven’t stopped since.
Where do your ideas come from?
Ooh. Writers hate this question! Anywhere and everywhere is the usual answer I
think. Stories you’ve heard from
friends, news items, or sometimes just a ‘what if’ theme (for example,
Are You My Mother? came about because I
was fascinated in the idea of someone adopted trying to search for her birth
parents, and how being adopted can affect your sense of identity and
belonging).
Have your personal experiences influenced your writing? And if so, how?
To some
degree, I suppose.
To Be Someone was written after I lost a close friend, and I wanted
to set it against the backdrop of the music business, and how a band goes from
playing in their dad’s garage to playing Wembley Stadium. So for that one, I did call on my experiences
working in record companies, and my friend’s battle with leukaemia. I think my others are less based on any sort
of personal experiences – my other protagonists are, respectively, an
aromatherapist, an actor and a pro tennis player, none of which I have direct
experience of!
Describe your romantic fiction writing style in 10 words or less?
Accessible,
warm, page-turning, compelling, funny and emotional (I hope!!)
Do you have any strange writing habits?
Not
really, although I’m trying to write standing up as often as possible, and have
to rest my laptop on top of the bread machine on a kitchen counter in order for
the screen to be near enough eye-level….
Do you plot out the whole book before you start or just start writing and see where it leads you?
I have
NEVER plotted out a whole book ahead of time.
I just start and see where it goes.
When I co-write (thrillers) with Mark (Edwards), we usually plan out in
chunks what happens, but not more than about ¼ or 1/5 ahead, with little
knowledge of what will happen after that until we get to it. And then panic!
What do you consider to be the hardest part of your writing?
Plotting! That’s one of the reasons I really like
writing with Mark, as he’s better at coming up with twists than I am.
What's the most interesting place you have visited when researching your books? And what's the strangest?
The most interesting place I went to was when I was researching the
original version of
To Be Someone. Phill
Jupitus, who’d I’d recently met through a mutual friend at a recording of
Never Mind The Buzzcocks, kindly gave me
permission to sit in on his then-radio show on London Live (I think it was
still GLR in those days). It was brilliant, and massively helpful – and better
still, Phill later read the book and gave me the amazing quote that I’m now
using on the cover of the new version.
The
strangest was probably when I went on a research holiday for a scene in
Games People Play where one of my main
characters has a nasty accident on a ski slope.
It was a singles holiday to the Italian Alps and I had foolishly joined
an Intermediate/Advanced group for the week, when my skiing was very much of
Beginner standard! Fortunately I didn’t sustain any sort of accident, but the
other people on the holiday were pretty strange (in the way that people on
singles holidays often are, if you’re unlucky…)
Do you read? If so, who are your favourite authors?
I read constantly and
avidly. I can’t remember the last time I
didn’t have at least 2 books on the go.
My favourite all-time authors are Kate Atkinson and Margaret
Atwood, but there are so many
others. I love women’s psychological
fiction authors like Elizabeth Haynes, Rachel Abbott, Tamar Cohen, Sophie
Hannah and Sharon Bolton…. So many good ones out there at the moment.
If you were writing a book about your life, what would be the title?
‘
Regrets – I’ve Had A Few’ (Joke.
Although I’m so bad at thinking up titles that Mark probably wouldn’t be
surprised if I suggested it for one of ours)
What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Writing
is a craft and like anything else, you do improve the more you practise. So keep practising, and if your first novel
gets turned down, write another one. It
will be better.
And lastly, why should people read your updated books?
I don’t
know which one to plug because I’ve just had all four of my women’s fiction
novels republished, having updated them, given them lovely new covers and added
new material… it’s like choosing between one of your children!
About Louise Voss
Louise Voss began her writing career in 2000 with four contemporary
fiction novels, all of which have recently been updated and reissued: To Be Someone, Are You My Mother?, Lifesaver
and Games People Play.
She successfully switched to publishing thrillers with Mark Edwards in
2011. She and Mark were the first British indie authors to reach No.1 on the
Amazon charts with Catch Your Death,
where they stayed for the month of June 2011. This led to a four-book deal with
Harper Collins, although they are now published by Thomas and Mercer for both
their joint and solo books.
Louise’s first solo psychological thriller, The Venus Trap, came out in February 2015, and her and Mark’s sixth
novel together (and the second in the DI Lennon series), The Blissfully Dead, will be out in September this year.
Find Louise Voss on her official Facebook
page (shared with Mark Edwards) and follow Louise on Twitter -
@LouiseVoss1
Are You My Mother?
E-book sold by Amazon (published 13 July 2015)
Synopsis:
From
the age of nineteen, Emma Victor has had to bring up her much younger sister
Stella. It has shaped both their lives. Now Stella is almost grown up, and
Emma's nurturing instincts extend to her work as an aromatherapist, and inform
her relationship with the unreliable but irresistible Gavin. But something is
missing, and Emma has to confront her deepest need - a need she's been denying
for years - and embark on a search for her birth mother.
Find it on Amazon UK by clicking
here.
Click here to read my review of Are You My Mother?
Games People Play
E-book sold by Amazon (published 13 July 2015)
Synopsis:
Change
is sometimes hard to face up to.
Rachel
is a rising tennis star. But does she want success more than she wants a ‘real’
life, and a steady boyfriend like everyone else?
Susie
is Rachel’s mother. All she wants is her partner Billy - but he’s left her, and
it’s a huge shock. Is she brave enough to start again?
Gordana
is Rachel’s grandmother. She has everything she ever wanted: health, wealth,
and a loving family - or at least she thinks she does.
The
link between them all is Ivan: Rachel’s father, Susie’s ex-husband, and
Gordana’s son. It’s no secret that he can be difficult. But nobody is
prepared for what happens when he gets arrested, or the changes that it forces
on all their lives.
Find it on Amazon UK by clicking
here.
To Be Someone
E-book sold by Amazon (published 13 July 2015)
Synopsis:
Helena
Nicholls - ex world-famous pop star and prime-time DJ - wakes up in hospital to
find her looks, her career and her personal life in tatters. She has been let
down by her boyfriend, and the one person she loved most in the world - her
best friend since the age of five - is dead. She feels that she belongs
nowhere, and her sense of identity, fragile at the best of times, is in pieces.
So
Helena turns to the one thing that has always got her through, the one thing
that has real resonance: music. And she begins to concoct The Plan. Using the request
format that made her radio show so popular, where listeners rang in with
detailed stories about why certain songs were so meaningful for them, she sets
out the story of her own life, chapter by chapter, track by track.
Thinking
about the songs that represent important chapters in her own life, Helena
begins to come to terms with her past. But the present is more of a problem as,
while in hospital, she has re-met an old friend to whom she is still hugely
attracted. Her strict adherence to The Plan, however, means that time is not on
her side. If she is to have a future at all, she must work out what it really
means To Be Someone.
Find it on Amazon UK by clicking
here.
Lifesaver
E-book sold by Amazon (published 13 July 2015)
Synopsis:
If
you save someone's life, you become responsible for them.
When
Anna receives a letter from Adam, thanking her for saving his son Max's life
with a bone-marrow donation, it's the first positive thing that's happened to
her for a long time. Grief-stricken at the recent loss of her baby, she's
failed to give life in the past. Now this four-year-old boy is alive and healthy
because of her: it's a heady realisation.
Anna
is desperate to get to know Max, yet terrified at how responsible she feels for
him. So she decides not to tell anyone about him or that she's arranged to meet
his father. Soon she is immersed in a complicated double life, spending half
the week with her husband, who believes her to be filming out of town, and the
other half with Adam and Max.
But
Anna has lied to Adam about who she is. And she's lied about her marriage. And
soon these lies will catch up with her…
Find it on Amazon UK by clicking
here.
