Writing tips

The Life We Almost Had: Second Chances with Amelia Henley

In my debut love story with a twist, Adam and Anna can’t envisage life without each other but the universe has entirely different plans for them. After a tragedy forces them apart, they long to be together once more and fix their damaged relationship. The Life We Almost Had is… Read More

Wondering and Wandering by Alex Shaw

Alex Shaw, author of the Aidan Snow series and the explosive new Total Blackout, is a well-travelled man! Writing for the HQ blog this week, he shares with us how his experiences have influenced his writing.    As an author, my job is to entertain the reader. I do this… Read More

Jane Bettany on winning the Gransnet HQ Prize

In 2019, HQ ran a competition with Gransnet to discover writers over the age of 40 who were writing about characters of a similar age. The winner of this competition was Jane Bettany’s gripping crime thriller, In Cold Blood, which publishes August 27th this year! We asked Jane… Read More

The Reality Of Fiction with Caroline Flynn

In celebration of the release of The Forget-Me-Not Bakery, author Caroline Flynn is here to talk about the reality of writing fiction!   Reading fiction is fun. It’s time enjoyed and spent in a world created by someone else, a world shared by the author so that the reader… Read More

Q&A with Suzy K Quinn – plus an exclusive extract from Not My Daughter!

Introducing Not My Daughter, the incredible new psychological thriller from Suzy K Quinn! To celebrate the publication of this brilliant book, Suzy has very kindly answered some questions about not My Daughter from her readers – you can check out her answers in the video below. Intrigued? You… Read More

The man behind Jay Qasim: How Khurrum Rahman became an author

Khurrum Rahman, author of the incredible Jay Qasim series, shares his journey to becoming a writer. I never had any ambitions of becoming an author. Never did it once cross my mind that I would be published. It wasn’t a lack of ambition or confidence, it just wasn’t on… Read More

Susannah Constantine on writing Summer in Mayfair

Ahead of this week’s live book club event, author Susannah Constantine tells us all about her writing process for Summer in Mayfair.    This is new to me – to be part of a book club, where I am talking about my own novel, Summer in Mayfair. Where better to… Read More

Faith Martin on why 1960s Oxford is the perfect setting for crime

Many people have asked me why I decided to write a crime series set in the 1960s after writing contemporary fiction for over 30 years; the simple answer is – I wanted to! I’ve always loved the 1960s era (not that I admit to remembering much of it, mind) and… Read More

Why You Should NEVER Give Up on Your Writing Dream – Katie Ginger

This is a post for all those aspiring writers out there who might be feeling a bit discouraged. If you are, I hear you! I see you! But don’t worry, because you’ve got this! I’ve felt exactly the same way and I wanted to share some of that experience with… Read More

Life in Lockdown: How my reading & writing habits have changed by Louise Jensen

My latest thriller is called The Family. It’s the story of Laura and her daughter, Tilly, who are indoctrinated into a cult. It’s set in a remote part of Wales and at the time of writing I had to rely on my imagination to put myself inside the heads of… Read More

Writing Historical Fiction with Nicola Cornick

For me, research is one of the best parts of writing an historical novel. It’s one of the ways I discover new and exciting ideas for future books and it’s no secret that sometimes I have to stop myself researching and make myself sit down and actually start writing, or… Read More

Inspiration is Everywhere by Phaedra Patrick

My fourth book, The Secrets of Sunshine will be published on the 14th of May and I’ll no doubt be celebrating by punching the air and quaffing too much prosecco. I’ll also heave a big sigh of relief because with each book I write,… Read More