Get ready for … THE ROCKPOOL MURDER
On 19th March the third Shell House Detectives novel, THE ROCKPOOL MURDER, will be published in paperback, eBook and audio. Marianna Tomaselli has once again designed the most beautiful cover; I think it might be my favourite yet.
I can’t wait to share this story with you all. Set during a Porthpella heatwave, we’ve got rock stars behaving badly, old flames and new animosities, and a deliciously enticing cliff-top mansion (the titular Rockpool House). Ally and Jayden are pushed to their limits this time, with emotions running high all round.
I loved writing THE ROCKPOOL MURDER. I laid down the very first words of this novel while I was on the train to St Ives at the end of last February:
‘Baz Carson stands at the edge of his infinity pool looking out over every shade of blue. There’s the chlorinated water at the tips of his toes, the salted stuff beyond – endless miles of it – and up above a sky of such pure cerulean that he wants to take a bite out of it; eat the whole lot up.’
As a result of the editing process, these lines now kick off chapter 2, rather than being in the prologue, but they’re still there – intact – as I wrote them from a Great Western Train somewhere between Bristol and Taunton. I was on my way to meet my writer friend Lucy Clarke for a retreat that included bodyboarding, surfing, skateboarding, and a LOT of writing. It was the end of winter, the start of spring, and they were days of such extraordinarily blue sea and sky, sunshine pouring through the windows of our beach-side pad illuminating the daffodils; with coats and bobble hats, we even wrote al fresco.
I love looking back over a novel, thinking about stand-out memories, and the ebb and flow of daily life during its writing. Those days in Cornwall with Lucy, when I was just feeling my way into this story, were full of joy, inspiration and truly pleasurable graft, and set me up perfectly for the rest of the drafting process. I sent the first manuscript off to my editor just before May half-term, and then spent a glorious week camping with family and friends in Gwithian (the spot I think of as the birth-place of the Shell House Detectives). By summer I was deep into editing, and that meant waking early every day – always easier on light mornings – to get the work done.
It’s fitting that THE ROCKPOOL MURDER, set during a few sweltering days in July, was written in the sunshine months. I hope you experience a warm glow as you read it (and a few chills too …!).