Every-so-often a book bites so deeply I'm living for the moment when I pick it up again. When it happens, it demonstrates that stories are the best entertainment humankind has invented. 

It doesn't happen often enough.

The reason why we write is to conjure the elusive combination of ingredients that make a reader simultaneously want to binge on a story, yet desperate for it to last forever. If you're reading one of my novels and you don't experience that feeling, I need to know.

Like most writers I read a ridiculous number of novels. These are the five things I want from novels, and what I want to be judged on:

    1. Characters that I believe in and whose fate I care about.
It doesn't matter if they inhabit fantasy, sci-fi, romance or crime; be they villains, minor characters or flawed protagonists - as soon as they say or do something that flips them out of character, a novel fails.
       
    2. Mysteries that come together slowly and grip before I even realise that was where the story was going.
       
    3. Plots which reach a tipping point where almost any outcome seems possible and yet credible.
       
    4. Writing that expects me to contribute as a reader, where not everything is spelt out and the author has left plenty of room for my imagination to fill in the details.
       
    5. Relevance, even when it's a million adjectives away from the here and now. A novel should shed light on the human experience.

No book is for everyone. If that doesn't sound like what you want in a novel and you avoid my books, this bio has done its work.

www.interactpublishing.com