Joffe Books Prize becomes UK’s largest crime fiction award

 

Joffe Books Prize becomes UK’s largest crime fiction award with £25,000 support from Audible

Joffe Books is thrilled to announce that Audible has committed to supporting the Joffe Books Prize, with a £25,000 audiobook deal for the winner of the prize for the next three years, making it one of the most significant prizes for crime fiction in the UK.

The prize aims to find brilliant unagented crime writers of colour, and to support these authors in their journey to build a sustainable career.

The winner of the prize will now receive a £25,000 audiobook offer from Audible for the first book, in addition to a two-book publishing deal with Joffe Books and a £1,000 cash prize. The winner will additionally receive an editorial consultation with one of the judges and a two-year membership to the Society of Authors.

Audible has also extended the audiobook offer to include Northumberland-based debut novelist Christie J. Newport, winner of the Joffe Books Prize 2021.

In celebration of this partnership, the submission period for 2022 has been extended to midnight on 31 October 2022.

This year, the judging panel includes Oyinkan Braithwaite, critically acclaimed, award-winning author of the bestselling My Sister, the Serial Killer, and Ella Diamond Kahn, co-founder and partner of the Diamond Kahn & Woods Literary Agency.

The prize, launched in 2021, is a direct response to the paucity of diverse voices being published in crime fiction. It invites submissions from un-agented authors from Black, Asian, Indigenous and minority ethnic backgrounds writing in crime fiction genres including electrifying psychological thrillers, cosy mysteries, gritty police procedurals, twisty chillers, unputdownable suspense mysteries and shocking domestic noirs.

Full Terms & Conditions can be found at www.joffebooks.com/prize.

Emma Grundy Haigh, Editorial Director at Joffe Books, says: “I am absolutely thrilled by Audible’s commitment to not just our prize, but to amplifying underrepresented voices in a very real way. Their involvement is utterly gamechanging — it promises to make this one of the most significant crime fiction prizes in the UK. Audible’s enthusiasm and advocacy has been evident right from the start. It’s been a pleasure to work with them so far, and I can’t wait to see what we can achieve.”

Aurelie de Troyer, Senior Vice President, International English Content says: “Audible is delighted to be able to offer the winner of the Joffe Books Prize this additional opportunity. We are passionate believers in the power of storytelling and want those stories to come from the widest possible range of people. We hope that our support will help set the winner on the path to a sustainable long-term writing career and look forward to giving them a well-deserved platform in audio.”

Why Fiction Needs More Female Action Heroes

‘Female action heroes don’t sell books. Fact.’

That’s what they say in conventional publishing, and by that, I mean the world of print and paper, Waterstones and WH Smiths, the big five and their huge marketing departments.

And, broadly speaking, they are right. 

Male action heroes don’t sell that many either, with a few exceptions like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. Even spy thrillers don’t shift in huge numbers, apart from those by John Le Carré and a select handful of others. If you want a UK spy thriller (the reading public reasons) you go to John Le Carré, king of the genre. Why would you go anywhere else? No need to reinvent the wheel. Le Carré’s appeal is broad - he is read equally by men and women and beloved by both, something he shares with Lee Child. And this is the key to their success. 

Because it is women who buy fiction. 

According to Helen Taylor in Why Women Read Fiction (and I see no reason to doubt her) 80% of fiction books are bought by women. Pretty staggering, right? And it’s not that women don’t like action, it’s just that, all things being equal, they prefer other genres, and if they are reading action, they seem to prefer (for whatever reason) male heroes. 

Now let’s consider the brave new world of content consumption that is Netflix, YouTube, Audible, Amazon Prime, Tiktok etc. Compared to twenty or thirty years ago, there is vastly more content being delivered now, in vastly more original ways, and every bit of it is in direct competition with print books. Books are up against it in the fight of their lives. 

On the plus side, the amount of content being consumed is also going up. Accurate data is hard to come by but, in the last couple of decades, it is estimated our content consumption has more than tripled. Smartphones have a lot to do with this. They are with us all the time – when we’re walking, driving, at the gym, in the house. And earbuds make it so easy. They carve out a space for new content where there wasn’t a space before. It is no surprise, therefore, that audio, as a means of delivering content, is increasing its market share fast. 

And here’s the thing - the absolute game changer for conventional publishing - the audio audience is not the same as the audience who buy print books. Because half of them are men. 

Granted, they are not all listening to fiction. There are podcasts and an ever-expanding array of non-fiction titles to choose from, but still. The numbers of men, and the quantity of fiction they are consuming, is steadily rising. 

This is good news if you write spy thrillers with a female lead because here’s the other thing. 

Men like stories with action heroines.

I guess it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Kick-ass women have been popular on screen (and gaming consoles) for years: Ripley, Buffy, Nikita, Lara Croft, the Black Widow, Electra, Trinity, Dark Angel, Sydney in Alias (to name but a very few). Popular on screen that is, but not in conventional publishing.

The only place in a bookshop you will find a kick-ass action heroine is young adult fantasy. The Hunger Games, The Cruel Prince, A Court of Thorns and Roses, Throne of Glass (basically everything by Sarah J. Maas) feature action heroines kicking butt. In fact, if you were to try to sell fantasy YA to an editor, without a strong female lead, you would probably struggle. That’s a whole generation who are growing up loving Katniss and Feyre and Aelin, who have had their tastes shaped at a formative age, and who, when they grow to adulthood, will likely find the current fiction offerings lacking. Put it together with the rise of the male reader, and conventional publishing is going to need to up their female-action game.

There is a certain amount of talking my own book here, of course. I write a kick-ass female spy called Winter, for Audible. Winter is what Bond would be if he was being created today. For a start, in our surveillance age, he would work at GCHQ (snoop central), not MI6, and would be good at coding. Also, there’s a chance he’d be a she. Some things would stay the same – the promiscuity, the weapons proficiency, the combat prowess. The smug invincibility. Winter is all these things. 

But more than this, she is the hero. The Alpha if you like. The mythic hero. She’s not ‘making it in a man’s world’. She is the world. She is exactly what conventional publishers don’t like and audio and screen audiences love. She’s a fantasy. A John Wick, Vin Diesel, fight-to-the-death fantasy. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of many other heroines in modern fiction who can claim this. She is one of the first, but you can be absolutely sure she won’t be the last.

Winter Falling by Alex Callister is available exclusively on Audible from 7^th April 2022.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster....Firestorm is down - the assassin for hire website that had the world by its throat, gone. Alek Konstantin, king of the underworld, is in hiding. But while the world celebrates, Winter is bracing for what must surely follow. All the world’s cut-throats, assassins and thugs are unemployed, roaming the globe without a leader - and nature abhors a vacuum. Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken....Something’s not right, and it’s not only that Winter’s body is in pieces. A boy held captive. An attempted assassination. Thirty men gunned down in rural South Wales. What sinister hand is directing these events, and to what end? GCHQ is a place of secrets, and they follow Winter everywhere. There is so much she must conceal, and Control is keeping something from her, something vital about her past. As she crashes towards the ultimate showdown, Winter faces the hardest decision of her life - and she must ask herself the question - whose side is she really on?

More information about the author can be found on her website. You can also follow her on Twitter @CallisterAuthor. You can also find her on Facebook.

Relieve Omicron Anxiety with Audible

 

In case you’ve been living in cave for the last two years, we have entered the age of anxiety. Reality has turned a tad surreal and rather scary with this ever-mutating virus in our midst. Just when we thought the COVID vaccines would return our lives into some form of normalcy, up pop these variants. Firstly, we had the Delta [variant], named after the 4^th letter of the Greek alphabet [and used in Chemistry and Physics to signify change]; and now we have the Omicron [aka Omikron Variant] named after the 15^th letter of the Greek alphabet – and this variant appears to be evading our vaccine defensive barriers.

But what has this to do with thriller novels, apart from our perceived reality resembling the title of Robert Ludlum thriller?

Because reading, or listening to audio books can significantly reduce anxiety; the overthinking of our situation, creating existential problems that reside in our mind and keep us from sleep, or focused on the tasks at hand – instead our minds rage with unhelpful thoughts like an ocean in a storm.

What to do?

Bibliotherapy, the reading of fiction / or listening to narrated books are medically recognised and prescribed for the easing of anxiety, and returning the mind to a calmer state.

This article is enlightening –

“During the last lockdown, when my anxiety was high, a friend suggested I tried re-reading books I used to enjoy. While the thought of starting a new book felt somehow daunting, reading something familiar appealed, so I gave it a go. And it worked: I found that I was able to lose myself completely. Absorbing myself in a story I already knew and loved was as good as a mental rest, and now, if I feel anxiety creeping in, I’ll reach for a well-thumbed novel!'

Literature has the power to transport us away from the to-do lists and troubles of life and soothe us with a comforting balm of captivating characters and scintillating storytelling. But how exactly does reading aid our mental health? Here we outline seven of the top benefits”

Read More CLICK HERE

I read in bed to ease me to sleep, but find at times I find reading in itself a challenge because my attention span becomes truncated as my mind wanders from unwelcome thought to troubling thought – but I found a solution. Instead, I listen to a well narrated audiobook.

I’ve been a member of Audible, for some time now and found their thriller range my medication to combat anxiety and worries, both existential and real.  

A number of titles on the audible platform are exclusive, acted as dramas and narrated professionally so they engage and hold the mind captive from those unwelcome worries and anxieties that derail our thinking.

The importance of the narrator’s performance is critical, such as Scott Brick among others such as Stephen Fry.

The market leader in Audio Publishing, is the Amazon subsidiary Audible who not only provide a platform for audiobooks, but also generate their own productions, using actors, vocal artists as well as soundscapes so the reader can become part of an immersive experience.

As reported within the publishing industry –

Even though the availability of audiobooks in digital format is relatively new, their origins date back as far as the 1930s when they were sold as analog cassette tapes and vinyl records and used as an educational medium in schools and libraries. Since the shift to digital, the audiobook market has grown exponentially with new entrants jostling for market position.

The undoubted leader is Amazon-owned Audible, the world’s largest producer of downloadable audiobooks. Since its 1995 launch, Audible’s library includes more than 200,000 audio programs covering all genres – subscribers downloaded 725 million hours of audio last year, almost double that of 2011.

But the market has opened up. Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller argued back in 2014 that audiobooks are “following almost the exact pattern and trajectory as e-books in that we are seeing a massive explosion in response to a switch to digital. But it’s also more exciting because you can do so much more with audio – it’s not just a facsimile of the print book.”

Read More

So, what’s new from Audible?

Well, I’ve enjoyed two particular titles, tucked up in bed and I’d like to share them with Shots Magazine Readers -

Life Sign by Carl Goodman

The second book in the DI Eva Harris series, is a dark and totally engrossing thriller -

In an abandoned warehouse, a schoolboy makes a grisly discovery: ninety-six containers, each filled with exquisitely preserved bodily remains. Detective Eva Harris knows the line between life and death better than most. Having survived a near fatal encounter with the criminal underworld once before, she is still haunted by the repercussions of her actions – and fearful of the whole truth emerging. With the remains showing signs of experiments and modifications, she is forced to contemplate a difficult question: what does the perpetrator of this extraordinary crime imagine themselves to be? Artist, scientist - or something completely new? Her search for answers takes her across Europe, from the upper echelons of society’s glittering elite to the dark and tangled web of the underworld – and finally, to the very limits of humanity.

Read about 20/20, the first in the DI Eva Harris Series CLICK HERE

Read more about Carl Goodman’s writing of LIFE SIGN Click Here

To download LIFE SIGN written by Carl Goodman and Narrated by Louise Brealey then CLICK HERE

To download the first in the DI Eva Harris series 20/20 written by Carl Goodman and Narrated by Louise Brealey then CLICK HERE and search [“20/20 Carl Goodman”]

A Perfect Stranger by Shalini Boland

A troubling and all-engrossing domestic thriller from the dark imagination of the prolific Shalini Boland.

Annie comes home from a market trip with her young son George only to make a gruesome discovery. Could the perpetrator be the new lodger she and her husband David just rented their spare bedroom to? Emily dreams of one day owning a house where her son Josh and the little one on the way can grow up, but when her husband Aidan insists on leaving his lucrative job as a luxury car salesman, she senses something more is afoot—even while she harbours a secret of her own. What is Aidan hiding and will it jeopardize their young family’s future? Meanwhile, Aidan’s boss, Marcus, finds himself caught between placating his wife Dani’s all-consuming desire to get pregnant and managing the less than savoury group of associates now helping to run his car dealership. How far is Marcus willing to go to prove his love for Dani? Or will his business come first?

The production values of this audible original production are extraordinary, with vocal talents of Alison Campbell, Tamsin Kennard, and Ciaran Saward who bring this thriller to life.

Highly recommended

To download A Perfect Stranger by Shalini Boland or any of the authors’ previous audiobooks, Click Here and put ‘Shalini Boland’ into the search box.

Images © 2021 Audible Studios

 

Claire McGowan enters The Vanishing Triangle

 

We were intrigued when we heard that Crime writer Claire McGowan has entered the world of Audio True Crime, She conducts a disturbing investigation, entitled THE VANISHING TRIANGLE, exclusive to Audible Studios. In fact, she also narrates this slab of investigative journalism.

The Vanishing Triangle shines a light on the unsolved disappearance of at least eight women from mid-nineties Dublin; their bodies were never found, and no suspect was ever charged. To understand why these crimes remain unsolved, McGowan explores what life was like in nineties Ireland, and investigates how a shifting political landscape and Irish society’s views on the treatment of women impacted the investigation.

An insightful look at the context that shaped a terrifying Irish mystery, The Vanishing Triangle asks how misogyny, shame and secrecy prevented us from discovering the truth behind these disappearances. 

Claire McGowan is the author of the bestselling crime thriller What You Did and the popular Paula Maguire series. She has written several radio plays and TV scripts, and also writes women’s fiction under the pseudonym Eva Woods.

“'I first came across the so-called Vanishing Triangle cases when writing my Ireland-set crime series, and was shocked and horrified that they had never been solved, and that no one really knows about them outside of the country. I realised I had been a teenager growing up in Ireland at the time of the disappearances, but had no memory of hearing about them then. This has been a massive undertaking for me, a different way of writing, a story without an ending, real people with real suffering families. Audible have been hugely supportive and I really hope it will bring a greater spotlight to the ongoing tragedy of these unsolved cases.” Claire McGowan

The Vanishing Triangle will be available to download from 1^st April 2021 exclusively at www.audible.co.uk.

For an insightful look into the attraction of Ture Crime Audio – Click HERE

So, intrigued with this departure for this crime writer, we tracked her down as we had a few questions -

Ali Karim:       The most pressing question first, why the foray into true crime after penning fiction?

Claire McGowan:  It wasn’t something I had particularly planned to do, but the topic came up at the Harrogate crime festival, and I was asked if I could think of any true crime cases I’d be interested in writing about – and this was the first one to come to mind, as I’d learned about it while researching some of my crime novels.

AK:      And so, what intrigued you about the case of these missing eight women in 1990s Dublin to investigate?

CM:     I had always found it very shocking that there could have been a serial murderer in Ireland that not only was never caught, but not even identified for some years. It seemed so sinister that this could happen in such a small and close-knit country, which had always felt quite safe to grow up in.

AK:      After penning many crime novels tell us how difficult it was to change to writing non-fiction?

CM:     I did find it quite a difficult transition – mostly I found myself checking facts over and over while writing, because normally I would just make it up. The other difficulty is that these cases are not currently solvable, and in my books there were would always be a resolution that explained everything.

AK:      In THE VANISHING TRIANGLE you provide commentary on the social backdrop of Ireland before the millennium, especially toward women. Was it difficult to uncover what lay beneath the veneer of a genteel, religious society?

CM:     Although I knew a fair bit about the cases already, and do remember much of the nineties from growing up in Ireland, I was still shocked to discover the extent of violence against women there, both years ago and now. I also learned that as well as the disappearances there was quite a few murders of women in the same area, many still unsolved, that may be connected. Obviously, the country was not as safe as I had imagined as a young girl.

AK:      How much research was involved in your investigation?

CM:     Quite a lot – I researched a lot in newspaper archives as well as books, and spoke to people connected to the cases. The difficult thing was knowing when to stop, as I kept finding more and more cases that might have been relevant.

AK:      And the Gardai? [aka Irish Police] What was the cooperation from the authorities like, or would they rather your just went away?

CM:     I found them very helpful, both the retired officers who worked on the cases, and the current force, who invited me to an event for missing persons that’s held every year in Dublin. My impression was that the officers who investigated the cases, especially the cold case team who worked on them for three years, were quite haunted by them, and had done everything they could to try and solve them, but ultimately there was just no evidence.

AK:      Did you ever consider fictionalising the events of THE VANISHING TRIANGLE to pen an imagined thriller?

CM:    No – I feel I’ve written a lot about missing persons in Ireland already in fiction, and I wouldn’t want to fictionalise something that is still causing so much pain to the families who’ve never had any resolutions, not even a body to bury.

AK:      And why the decision to turn into an audio book? And more specifically, to narrate the story yourself?

CM:     It was actually commissioned as an audio book first and foremost, although it will also be a print book after some time has passed. I was surprised to be asked to narrate it – it wasn’t my decision – because I don’t have any experience in voice acting, but I think as it’s quite a personal story, it was right that I did it.

AK:      Are going to return to crime fiction, with your Paula Maguire books, or standalones?

CM:     I haven’t stopped writing crime fiction – I have another thriller out later this year, I Know You, which is about miscarriages of justice, Death Row, and old secrets coming back to haunt the present.

AK:      And tell us how your involvement in BELFAST NOIR came about?

CM:     That was a collection of short stories edited by Stuart Neville and Adrian McKinty – I was just asked to write a story for it, which was a lot of fun.

AK:      Are we likely to see another Audible work from your notebook and microphone?

CM:     No immediate plans but they have been fantastic to work with, and I would certainly consider writing some more non-fiction in the future.

AK:      Thank you for your time

CM: And to Shots Magazine too!

Shots Magazine would like to thank Ben McCluskey of Midas, London for his help in this Shots Magazine feature.

For more information about the work of Claire McGowan, follow her on Twitter @inkstainsclaire AND More information about the world of Audio Books, go to www.audible.co.uk OR www.audible.com

Audible’s Sarah Denzil: Relief from Lockdown

 

Many of us have been relying on Audible during the long nights where sleep can be elusive, with all this Covid-19 lockdown business. When travel is prohibited [unless an emergency], and shops remain closed [with exceptions], then health and economic damage weigh heavily on one’s mind – dominating our thoughts. When the solitude becomes a claustrophobic vacuum that is hard to escape – then it’s time to consider bibliotherapy to confront the loneliness and anxiety of this age.

A dear friend of mine, an avid bibliophile would often say to me, “you’re never alone if you have a novel, because books are your friends,” and I would concur, recalling my own bouts of reflective solitude.

Reading for promoting mental health has been shown to be an effective tool, against the black dog [as Winston Churchill described his bouts of depression]. Though there are times it becomes hard to concentrate, to actually read. My strategy is to listen to audiobooks when I can’t read, with a mind all fuzzy with existential angst; thoughts knitting together to create anxiety. There’s much comfort in being read to, especially if the work is sufficiently immersive and hypnotic. It recalls our childhood; of being a developing mind being read stories before bed, as we struggled to understand our world and the scary reality around us.  

Recently, audiobooks have become a crucial part of my mental rampart, to keep negative thoughts at bay, to prevent them linking together to create weird [and disturbing] scenarios in my head, in my thinking, because negative and frightening thoughts are not helpful for our mental well-being.

In 2019, I was fortunate to become obsessed by one such immersive [and hypnotic] reading experience – it was Cari Mora by Thomas Harris. Despite receiving a lukewarm [at best] reception, I found it helped control my mind [in a personally difficult year] from becoming derailed by problems that started to grow worryingly in my mind, and developing beyond ‘the blues’ – and I don’t mean John Lee Hooker, or Howlin’ Wolf.

Bibliotherapy is not purely distracting your mind from the troubles in your head, though the distraction, the corralling of one’s thoughts – is important. Bibliotherapy is more than that. It is helps channels one thoughts, by following a narrative, which at its core is viewing the world [aka reality] through someone else’s eyes. Reading books [or listening to them, via Audible] can help with ‘the blues’ and assist in preventing ‘the blues’ from getting worse, as the black dog’s bark can be heard in the streets, echoing inside the minds of people - as they tackle this Covid-Lockdown business, becoming fearful for the future, and that of our children’s and friends’ future.

This article from The Huffington Post explains more –

Whether or not a book can single-handedly tackle a person’s depression is difficult to determine, but positive thinking has been proven to help. According to a Psychology Today article titled “Depression Doing the Thinking,” “One of the most powerful actions you can take in combating depression is to understand how critical the quality of your thinking is to maintaining and even intensifying your depression—and that the quickest way to change how you feel is to change how you think.” The article goes on to explain how negative thoughts can enter one’s mind subconsciously, and therefore seem more raw or true to the depression sufferer than their own moods and feelings.

Read More HERE

So, what am I reading currently that is sufficiently immersive that it can help quell the barking of the black dog?

Actually, I’m ploughing my way through [actually listening to] the dark and disturbing novels of Sarah Denzil from Audible

I was only aware of this writer of dark and complex thriller novels, from an interesting article from the New York Times in 2019 –

Last year, while promoting his debut thriller, “The Woman in the Window,” Dan Mallory praised the tradition of literary mimicry: “It is often said that ‘good writers borrow, great writers steal,’” he said in an interview with The Guardian, borrowing a phrase from T.S. Eliot.

In retrospect, his choice of words was surprisingly honest, a rare acknowledgment in a medium that prizes originality of how deeply he was influenced by other popular thrillers.

Mr. Mallory — who was recently the subject of an exposé in The New Yorker that detailed his past as a habitual liar who feigned fatal illnesses and fabricated a tragic family history — has acknowledged that the plot of his novel, which became a best seller, owes a debt to several famous works, including Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” and Paula Hawkins’s blockbuster thriller, “The Girl on the Train.”

“The Woman in the Window” is also strikingly similar to a novel by Sarah A. Denzil, “Saving April.”

Read More > HERE

So, who is Sarah A Denzil and which books of hers should I listen to and why?

I would urge you to look out for these two interlocking novels, dramatized by Audible studios - SILENT CHILD first and then the upcoming STOLEN GIRL [Release date: 1 March 2021]

Performed by: Joanne Froggatt (Downton Abbey, Liar), Rosalie Craig (Company, The Queen's Gambit) and Gerran Howell (1917, Catch-22).

The sequel to SILENT CHILD’s dark narrative -

When Emma Price’s daughter Gina is snatched, it is every parent’s nightmare. But Emma has lived the horror before. As the clock ticks, and Gina is still missing, a dark game of cat and mouse begins. Emma and Aiden must piece together the kidnapper’s puzzle, to discover who has taken her – and why.

Emma, Aiden and Gina stand on the brink of a new life. After the trauma of Aiden’s abduction and return, they are slowly healing and returning to a fragile normality. Emma is desperate to protect her children, but the world is fascinated by Aiden, the silent child who is finally learning to speak for himself.

Against her better judgment, Emma allows her son to attend a talk show. Her worse nightmare comes true when her daughter, Gina, is snatched from the studio and a chilling game begins.

Emma is convinced the answers lie in the darkest corners of the family’s past, and that Aiden must be able to work out the puzzle, if only he dare reach into the horrors of his memory.

Silent Child written by Sarah A. Denzil and narrated by: Joanne Froggatt

It became Audible’s 2017 Thriller of the Year

Ten years after witnessing the tragic loss of her son, Emma Price is finally rediscovering the joy in life… until Aiden returns. Too traumatised to speak, he raises endless questions and answers none. Named Audible’s Thriller of the Year in 2017, this exclusive production is the first in an unmissable series by Sarah A. Denzil, performed by the exceptional Joanne Froggatt (Downton Abbey, Liar). As one Audible Editor commented, ‘it will make your heart beat, your mind race and your spine tingle’.

If you want to read about extraordinary events in the lives of ordinary people, Denzil’s work may provide comfort in this lockdown and the ubiquity of Covid-19.

More information on Audible and their £7.99 / month membership CLICK HERE

More information on the work of Sarah Denzil CLICK HERE

All images © 2017 – 2021 Audible apart from AJ Finn cover of The Woman in the Window © 2017 HarperCollins

Shots Magazine wish to thank Edwina Boyd-Gibbons and Audible studios for their help in this feature article.

 

An October Surprise from Audible

 

Before Halloween is upon us, it might be worth downloading this remarkable literary crime thriller WHITEHAVENS by Parker Bilal from Audible, in readiness for that night - All Hallowes Eve.

But first a little background: Yet again, Audible present an exclusive, a crime thriller to debut as an audiobook before entering print or as an eBook; Audible’s 2020 October surprise -

So, what is Whitehavens all about?

In a mission that goes badly wrong, loyal assassin Brodie takes out the nephew of the criminal mastermind he works for – and the hitman suddenly finds himself in the firing line. Saved by the woman he was sent to kill, Brodie is injured and at her mercy. But Brodie and Karima know too much about unforgiving gangster Donny to remain alive. Brodie his gun for hire. Karima his accountant. They both know where the bodies are buried.

And when Donny turns the might of his brutally violent empire on them there’s only one thing to do: run. Because as Brodie knows all too well, a moving target is harder to hit. Bound together, this unlikely couple must do all they can to survive. But can Karima ever trust the man who was sent to end her life?

Taking flight, they can only outpace their would-be killers for so long. When they run out of road, they have one last shot at freedom. But can they make it – before it’s too late?

(c) 2020 AUDIBLE UK

Whitehavens by Parker Bilal is a standalone spin off from the Crane & Drake Series. Inspired by personal experience, Whitehavens follows the story of the hitman who suddenly finds himself to be the marked man.

Released exclusively to Audible and narrated with flourish by actor Damian Lynch, it’s a thought-provoking distraction from the Covid-19 lockdown.

Parker Bilal was born in London, he has lived in Khartoum, Cairo, Denmark, Barcelona and currently, Amsterdam. He began writing literary fiction under his own name Jamal Mahjoub publishing seven critically acclaimed literary novels, which have been widely translated.

However, in 2012 Mahjoub realised a long-held dream of breaking into Crime Fiction with The Golden Scales, the first in his Makana series. Set in Cairo, the series covers the decade from 2001 to 2011 and the Arab Spring.

For more information, head to www.audible.co,uk and join the growing numbers who have that £7.99 / month membership.

Click HERE, and HERE, and HERE, and HERE, and HERE, and HERE, and HERE for why Audible is so important for advocates of the Crime and Thriller genre.

Audible’s Prescient Crime Thriller of the Month

 

Book reviewers when congregated [even online in these weird days of Covid-19], often mutter “same old, same old” when discussing some of the latest crime thriller releases. A common wish from the literary community is the desire for something new, something fresh, something unexpected. This reminded me of an intriguing comment legendary Publisher Christopher MacLehose once said, introducing a book back in 2008 at the London Press Club, a debut novel that would breakout into the mainstream, not just circled by the wagons of genre –

He informed us that the job of the publisher is to bring books to the public that they didn’t want; books that they didn’t anticipate; and books that would nonetheless make an impression and challenge their way of thinking.

Read More from that launch HERE

I was delighted to sample a debut that is far from the ‘same old, same old’, and an extraordinary novel that this month's Audible crime and thriller selection.

It’s entitled Deadly Sacrifice by Stella Oni and like the award-winning and celebrated debut, My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, it has comes from an author with a Nigerian heritage – BUT that’s where the similarity ends, because Deadly Sacrifice is something entirely different, and darker.

So, what’s this month’s Audible Crime Thriller of the month about?

When a childs severed hand is found, DC Toks Ade and DS Philip Dean are put on the case. Thrown into a world of Nigerian traditional customs, ritual sacrifice, and international trafficking, they must find the guilty parties before more children are lost and more limbs are found. A chilling new thriller introducing Detectives Toks Ade, Philip Dean, and investigative author Coretta Davis.

And we present an interview with Stella Oni HERE

Stella was born in Clapham, London, brought up in Nigeria and lives in the UK. She has a degree in Linguistics and African Languages from the University of Benin and a MSc in Information Systems and Technology from City University, London. Stella works as a Business Intelligence Analyst and writes on culture, food, travel, health & wellbeing. Stella believes that her experience of growing within two worlds has given her a unique perspective and she is happy to share this. She has been shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize, UK. She is a regular contributor to Thrive Global and currently runs the culture blog African Britishness-a celebration of being African and British.

Audible’s production of this startling debut is brought to life by the actress (Reanne) Weruche Opia known for her roles in I May Destroy You for BBC/HBO, Inside No.9 and Bad Education for the BBC and Top Boy for Channel 4 – as well as narrating Audible’s production of Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, The Serial Killer, among other audio books.

Deadly Sacrifice is also one of the books that celebrates diversity in the Twenty in 2020 literary promotion culminating from a year-long project from Jacaranda Books in association with Words of Colour Productions.

Following a hugely popular call-out for unpublished Black British writers, independent publisher Jacaranda has picked twenty top submissions to publish over the course of 2020. Apart from the crime and thriller genre, the Twenty in 2020 celebration also traverses literary fiction, poetry, memoir, history, romance and more, and together works to add to the diversity of literature, characters and authors available to UK readers—and to inspire a whole new generation of readers, writers and publishing professionals.

If you are not an Audible member, you can join Audible and take advantage of their £7.99 / month subscription, even taking Deadly Sacrifice as your free book, as part of their introductory offer – click HERE for more information on joining Audible.

Audible UK are to be applauded for the support they provide the crime and thriller fiction genre, especially as the importance of audiobooks increases within publishing. They commission new work such as the pseudonymous Alex Callister’s thrillers as well as supporting the genre, including sponsoring one of Crimefest’s annual awards. Previous Audible crime and thriller selections we enjoyed can be accessed HERE, HERE and HERE.

We’d like to advise our trusty Shots Readers that you are welcome to attend the launch of Deadly Sacrifice, which is occurring next week as a free online event [due to the pernicious ubiquity of this surreal COVID-19 situation].

Mark your diaries - The book launch will take place on Thurs 17 Sept from 6.30pm to 8.30pm and will include an introduction, author Q&A with editor, publisher & writer Kadija Sesay, plus readings of extracts from the book by the author.

For more information from The Arts Council on registering for this free event, click HERE. We hope to see many of you there next week, but behind the safety of a PC or Smart-Phone screen.

Stella Oni can be found on Twitter > @SOnithewriter with more information HERE and HERE and actress Weruche Opia’s Twitter > @WerucheOpia can be found HERE

Photo credits: Audible UK, Stella Oni, Weruche Opia, Jacaranda Books, Foyles Charing Cross Rd, Words of Colour Productions, Amazon UK, BBC, HBO, The Arts Council and MIDAS.

Shots Magazine would like to thank Ben McCluskey of Midas Public Relations, for his help with this feature, as well as the team from Audible original productions [UK].