Letter from the Authors
Dear Reader
Thanks for reading The Blissfully Dead. It goes without saying that we hope you enjoyed it and would love to hear your thoughts about it. Our email address is markandlouise@me.com or you can message us through our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/vossandedwards.
In this letter we’re going to tell you a little about the inspiration behind this book and also how we write together. Please be aware that this letter may contain some spoilers, so please don’t read it if you haven’t already finished the book.
The initial idea for this book came from a TV documentary called Crazy About One Direction, which was shown on Channel 4 in the UK in 2013. In this documentary, a number of teenage fans of the titular boy band demonstrated their extreme love for their idols and revealed the rivalry and jealousy that can spring up when emotions are high and hormones are running riot. One interesting thread of the documentary focused on fan fiction and ‘shipping’, the creation of stories in which members of the band are engaged in a love affair.
The documentary itself was illuminating, but the reaction of One Direction’s fans was even more fascinating. Twitter exploded with outrage and horror, the girls who appeared on the programme were vilified and, bizarrely, thousands of fans began to tweet claims that a number of ‘shippers’ were so distraught they had committed suicide. These claims were false, but it demonstrated how fandom and social media can collide to create what can only be described as hysteria.
We are both big music lovers and first bonded over our love of The Cure (whose song ‘Lullaby’ gave this novel its title). Also, Louise used to work in the music industry. We knew writing a novel set in that world would be fun.
As we started to write The Blissfully Dead, and to think about the relationship between fans and celebrities, our thoughts turned to the Operation Yewtree investigations of the last few years. For non-UK readers, these investigations exposed a number of high-profile pop stars, DJs and TV personalities when women came forward to claim that they had been sexually assaulted as teenagers by these famous men decades ago. In most cases, they had been afraid to accuse them at the time – or had done so and been ignored or ridiculed. As we write, some formerly much-loved stars are now in prison, their pasts exposed, their reputations destroyed.
We should point out that all of the characters in The Blissfully Dead are fictional and not based on any real people, but some of the cases referred to in the book, including Ian Watkins, the former singer with Lostprophets, are factual. OnTarget are not based on One Direction but are a composite of all the manufactured bands who have inspired devotion over the years.
So how did we write it? This is the question we get asked more than any other: exactly how do two people go about writing a novel together? We live several hundred miles apart (that’s not too bad; we wrote our first novel with one of us in London, the other in Tokyo) and don’t meet up very often. But when we start, we get together and discuss the basic plot of the book and create a chapter plan.
We follow the ‘driving in the dark’ method of writing, where you can only see a certain distance ahead. So our initial chapter plan might cover the first ten chapters. We divide them up and get going. One of us writes a chapter and sends it to the other. That person edits it and makes comments, then sends it back. When we are both happy with the chapter it goes into a master document.
Our books nearly always have multiple narrators, so we each choose characters to write, though we take turns to write from our main character’s point of view. There are certain types of scene that suit us best. For example, Mark usually writes action scenes and Louise tends to write more emotional chapters. But we mix these up more than we used to. We’re not saying who writes the sex scenes . . .
During the writing of the novel we meet several times to discuss the plot and when we finally reach the end, we both go through and produce a huge list of points to be addressed. But co-writing is much easier than writing a novel solo because you get instant feedback and somebody to bounce ideas off. We highly recommend it – as long as you find the right person. It’s no lie to say that over the course of six novels together we have never argued. We imagine that married couples who co-write books have far more heated discussions than we’ve ever had!
The Blissfully Dead is the second novel to feature DI Patrick Lennon, following From the Cradle. We have lots more adventures planned for Lennon and we hope that you’ll be there to find out what challenge he faces next . . . and whether Winkler will ever turn out to have any redeeming qualities.
Best wishes
Louise and Mark
P.S. If you want to be the first to find out about our new books, special deals, etc., you can join our email list at www.vossandedwards.com/newsletter.
Acknowledgements
A number of people generously helped with research for this book, including Elizabeth Haynes, Simon Alcock, Chris Phillips, Elaine Burtenshaw and (for Dublin-based information) Alice Brady. As always, any procedural inaccuracies are ours.
Thanks to everyone who helped us make this book better, including our editor Katie Green, our agent Sam Copeland and Sara Edwards who read an early draft and helped with research into the foster care system. Thank you too to Gracie Voss for helping with the teen speak!
A big thank you to everyone at Thomas & Mercer, especially Emilie Marneur, for her passion and enthusiasm, and to the rest of the T&M team, especially Sana Chebaro, Neil Hart and Eoin Purcell.
Finally, we want to thank our readers on facebook.com/vossandedwards who are not at all like the fans in this book – though they can be as enthusiastic! Some names in this book were provided by members of that group, including Cassandra Oliver and Sandra Mangan, whose surname we borrowed. We would also like to thank Tracy Fenton and all the members of THE Book Group on Facebook for being such fun and keeping Mark’s ego in check.
About the Authors
Photo © 2014 Mark Earthy
Mark Edwards and Louise Voss are the co-authors of psychological thrillers Killing Cupid and Forward Slash and two medical thrillers, Catch Your Death and All Fall Down, as well as From the Cradle, the first in the DI Patrick Lennon series.
They met in 1999 after Mark appeared on a BBC documentary about aspiring writers. They were the first British ‘indie’ writers to reach number one on the Kindle chart and have sold over 650,000 books, including Mark’s solo novel, The Magpies.
Louise lives in Surrey with her daughter, and Mark lives in Wolverhampton with his wife and their children. Mark and Louise love hearing from readers and can be contacted via markandlouise@me.com or on www.facebook.com/vossandedwards. They blog regularly on www.vossandedwards.com.
Download a Free Short Story by Voss & Edwards
One Shot
A new short story featuring DI Lennon’s partner, DS Carmella Masiello.
When a man is killed during a dispute with his next-door neighbour, DS Masiello has to prove that it was murder – or let a killer walk free . . .
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