Blog Tour: Vixenhead - Guest Post by Eve Seymour

Today I am kicking off the Blog Tour for the psychological thriller by author Eve Seymour, Vixenhead. Eve is sharing with us books and authors that she enjoys reading:

Books and Authors I Enjoy 

by Eve Seymour 

I have wide tastes in reading. If you were to view my bookcases, you’d notice that historical fiction, spy and commercial women’s fiction sit happily alongside crime, psychological thriller and non-fiction books on forensics and guns. There’s also a smattering of odd titles, which were sent to me as a result of writing book reviews for the Cheltenham Standard before it folded. These include some fabulous novels for children. 

Like a decent dinner, I enjoy contrast so I’ll often switch from one genre to another. If I’m writing, I tend to read non-fiction or a genre well outside my own. The only genres I don’t particularly gel with are, (shame on me) science fiction and fantasy. 

Looking back, it seems that my reading tastes reflect particular stages in my life. Jean Plaidy’s tales of Tudor England, the gorier the better, dominated my chaotic growing up years. I also tanked through Ian Fleming’s ‘James Bond’ novels, and did a fair trek through Agatha Christie. Pan Books of Horror also captured my vivid adolescent imagination. At school, classics were a staple. I loved Dickens, Shakespeare and Webster, and was fascinated by Chaucer – for the sheer sound of the language. This is probably the time I whisper very softly that I’m not a fan of Jane Austen. Some of my best writing mates will kill me for this.

During my student days – which were really short because I dropped out after six months – I had a stint of reading French novels - in translation, I hasten to add. These included Colette, Francois Sagan, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Sounds impressive but, hand on heart, my ‘French phase’ started out as way to impress others, a boyfriend in particular! 

When I had children, unsurprisingly, I read family sagas by writers like Elizabeth Jane Howard. I also tucked into Fay Weldon, Irish Murdoch and Edna O’Brien. I can’t really remember how I fell into reading spy fiction but once I’d gobbled up le Carre, and Frederick Forsyth, I became, and still am, a huge fan of Gerald Seymour (no relation). His later work is as good as his earlier novels and, whenever I read him, I feel as if I’m in a safe pair of hands. Similarly, I love Bernard Cornwell’s Viking series and Conn Iggulden’s novels about Genghis Khan. 

From this, you can accurately deduce that I was a late convert to crime. However, once I got started, that was it. I first dipped my toe in the water with a psychological thriller from the wonderful husband and wife team, Nicci French. ‘Beneath the Skin’ remains one of my all-time favourites. I then graduated to Minette Walters and Val McDermid. Lee Child’s ‘The Killing Floor’ knocked me for six. And then, mercy me, I tuned into crime fiction by US writers. Michael Connelly was my first intro. After that, I devoured as many of his novels as I could lay my hands on. ‘The Poet’, for me, is still one of his best. Others swiftly followed: Harlan Coben, marvellous for his twisty, turny, ‘keep you guessing’ plot lines, and writers like Robert Crais, for whom, initially, I needed a translator to interpret some of his Americanisms, but loved his novels just the same and because of the use of language. And then there are writers like Dennis Lehane, with his epic stories that simply grab you and never let you go. 

Glancing over my bookshelves, it would be remiss not to mention Irish authors like John Connolly, Tana French and Stuart Neville. Often people talk about a writer’s ‘voice,’ and these are easily identifiable by the lyricism of their prose. 

So who and what floats my boat just now? Unsurprisingly, my bedside table groans with ‘Must Reads’ that sometimes turn into ‘No Time to Reads.’ In my defence, as a freelance editor, I read up to four unpublished novels every month. But any novel with a dark family dysfunctional theme will inevitably sneak through. Then I’m as happy as hell! 

About the book:

Title: Vixenhead 

Author: Eve Seymour

Published: March 24th 2017 by HarperImpulse

Amazon | Amazon UK

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