WHERE DOES MY INSPIRATION COME FROM?

My voice as a writer comes from many directions; some literary, some philosophical, and some from my own experience. And it would be impossible for my former profession as a landscape architect not to have influenced me as a novelist. I spent years working on the idea of how the interplay of place (geography) and time (history) can, as a designer, be used to create special places. As a novelist, therefore, it’s not surprising that creating a vivid and unique picture of where the story plays out is a key aspect of my storytelling. You’ll see this in the fjords, forests and freezing winter in INVASION.

Like all writers I’ve read widely and I am sure that, over the years, this has subconsciously helped shape what I believe to be important in a novel. For me, many of the greatest novels are those which create a world, or a character, or maybe a mystery (sometimes all of these) that stick in my mind for many years. The last page may have been turned, but there loiters a yearning to resolve something untold or unresolved, perhaps questions that even the author can’t answer; even a compulsion to want to step in and correct an injustice or save a character from terrible harm. Reality and the novel become blurred.

I also have an interest in the effects of randomness and chance in shaping events and people’s lives. Sometimes, an outcome turns on the roll of the dice or someone’s decision based on barely sufficient information. In a novel, some readers want a clean resolution in the ending but, for me, not everything should be too neatly wrapped up. As in real life, a few mysteries should continue to linger and challenge our imagination.

Add in the gripping plots of the best modern thrillers, great storytelling by writers like Robert Harris and Ken Follett, the Scandi-noir film genre and the many true stories of espionage, deceit and extraordinary bravery in the Second World War, and we start to close in on where my writing has come from. If this sounds like the sort of writing you enjoy too, then you’ll be sure to love INVASION. Get your copy today.