I am so happy to welcome Jane Risdon to my blog today. I've been following her posts for sometime. If you're active on Facebook and the mystery/crime scene, you no doubt have seen her postings, too. She is very visible, with interesting commentary and a wide-range of interests and materials. Please be sure to let her know what you thought of today's post in the comments below! Welcome, Jane!
Writing Only
One Woman with Christina Jones (Accent Press) heralded a change of genre
for me. I’m a crime/thriller writer and when I came up with the idea for the
novel I seriously intended to write a crime story set in the music scene of the
late 1960s.
I was looking through some of my musician
husband’s memorabilia and diaries – for research – and began to make notes. An
idea formed and I began to write, but somewhere along the way I realised I was
writing ‘women’s fiction,’ and there wasn’t room for a murder - which was a
surprise for me.
Only
One Woman is somewhat of a social commentary on the
late 1960s in Britain, and how life was changing for those growing up at the
time, the way in which world events and the Cultural Revolution shaped their
lives; when Britain influenced the world with music and fashion.
At its heart there is a complex
love-triangle which takes the reader deep into the world of live music, record
making, and the lives of musicians on the road in the grooviest decade of the
20th century. My character, Renza, is a lonely teen who meets and
falls in love with lead guitarist, Scott, on the eve of her family’s move
overseas soon after he arrives in England for his first tour with his band,
Narnia’s Children, and to record his first record.
I soon realised that another character’s
point of view would help the story and sent it to Christina to consider, as my
co-author. She agreed and added her parts (Stella) into the novel – not easy to
do – and once she’d finished we sent it to our publisher who loved it and asked
for additional chapters. Considering it ran to 130,000 words already, we were
surprised, but managed to bring the final total to 160,000 – 500 pages – which,
our readers tell us, is a fast read.
Christina Jones and I go way back. She was
fan-club secretary for my then boyfriend’s band and a rock/pop journalist and
short story author. We share a love of fashion, music, and most things 1960s,
and have always wanted to write together but when I eventually managed to find
time to write (crime/thrillers) – I’d been working with my husband in the
international music industry and the opportunity hadn’t arisen - she was
writing Bucolic Frolics and was an
award-winning, best-selling author by then. Never the twain we thought - until Only One Woman.
We didn’t meet to discuss writing; I’d already
finished the book from Renza’s POV. Christina had to get inside my characters
and plot and write her character, Stella, with everything which had happened in
mind. Not easy. In fact the whole book was written in a very 21st
century manner – via email, text and Facebook messages.
I’m sure that our shared past, our love of
music and fashion helped us no end. We knew how life was back then, the food,
the perfumes, the clothes and the music – we’d lived it after-all. We just
happened to have been teenagers during the most exciting, intoxicating era of
the 20th century, when everything and anything was possible, when
the fashions were outrageous and the music innovative.
It was fun to write but we both cried too.
It is a work of fiction but we both drew upon our experiences and some events
in our book are based ‘lightly’ upon real situations; the venues, the charts
and some of the bands at that time, the political events and the Moon Landings
are, of course, real. That’s why guys
and musicians love it too.
Jane Risdon writes mostly
crime thrillers often set in the music business or with an organised crime or
espionage element. With a former career in the international music business
managing songwriters, singers, musicians, and record producers, she often draws
upon her experiences in Hollywood and SE Asia for her plots.
She is also the author of short stories which have been included in
15 anthologies to date, as well as in magazines and online newsletters. She
also contributes articles and writes flash fiction.
In November 2018 Jane publishes her first collection of short
stories – Undercover: Crime Shorts –
via Plaisted Publishing House.
Jane is married to a musician and with author Christina Jones has co-authored Only One Woman, set in
the UK Music Scene of the late 1960s using her experiences married to a
musician in the sixties, and her subsequent career in the international music
business, as background research. This is Jane’s first outing into writing
Women’s Fiction and the paperback was published 24th May 2018. It is
also available on most good digital platforms as an e-book and in Waterstones branches.
Iconic rock singer
Graham Bonnet has written the foreword to Only One Woman which was written for
The Marbles in 1968 by The Bee Gees.
Jane’s Links:
Waterstones
Paperback: ISBN: 9781783757329
