Book: Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders
Click to buy
Genre: Crime / thriller / neo Victorian (!)
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Publication date: July 2013
About: I was amazed when the first three chapters of Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders were chosen as the winning entry for the 2012 Faber / Stylist ‘New Crime’ competition. When I sent off those 6000 words I was pretty sure the judges were looking for a gritty, contemporary tale of police procedural; possibly something a bit Scandi and definitely featuring a tough female cop with a challenging back story. Despite my pessimism, I sent off the entry and honestly didn’t expect to hear any more. Luckily I was wrong. Turns out that the judges, who included the late, great Ruth Rendell, were looking for a gothic, neo-Victorian novel set in a seedy East End music hall - a rollicking, full-bodied, melodrama featuring an ancient opium-addicted crime baroness and a sharp-talking 17-year-old female trapeze artist. Well, maybe that’s not exactly what they were looking for, but Kitty broke through. That winning competition entry has become a series. The sequel to the first novel is published in July 2015 and is called Kitty Peck and the Child of Ill-Fortune. I am now working on the third and fourth novels in the sequence. (I was thrilled when my debut book Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders was shortlisted for the CWA Endeavour, Historical ‘Dagger’ in 2014.) I never expected to be a published author at the age of 50. I’ve spent most of my working life writing for other people, firstly as a journalist and latterly as a press officer. It’s very liberating to write what you like! I still work part time as Communications Manager for Britain’s oldest heritage charity, SPAB (Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings). I think the seed for Kitty Peck was sown when I visited the wonderful Wilton’s Music Hall in Whitechapel in the course of my work. I live in St Albans, I’m very untidy and I have a long-suffering husband called Stephen who is also a journalist. My two claims to fame are that I once played Hermia to Paul Bettany’s Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (I’m not quite 5ft tall – and he‘s over 6ft, just imagine that for moment), and I once sat on one of Jane Asher’s cakes by mistake at a press launch!
******************************************************************************************************************************************
Book: Kitty Peck and the Child of Ill-Fortune
Click to buy
Genre: Crime / thriller / neo Victorian (!)
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Publication date: 2 July 2015
Website: http://kateagriffin.me/
Twitter handle: @KateAGriffin
Writer Superpowers (specialist subjects): Becoming an author via an unusual route. The world of Neo Victoriana. History as an inspiration rather than a millstone. The importance of cheese for those difficult moments when your book refuses to write itself. (And gin!)
