Thanks to Hachette Ireland and Zoe Miller for inviting me on the Blog Tour for Someone New. I have a copy of the book to giveway to one lucky reader. Just enter via rafflecopter link below. Good Luck!
A suspenseful and sophisticated
new novel from the author of A Question
of Betrayal and A Husband's
Confession, perfect for fans of Lesley Pearce.
Someone
New
by Zoë Miller
In
her heart, Grace knows the perfect, reliable, good-looking Gavin isn’t right
for her. Then she meets Danny. Unpredictable and spontaneous, he turns her
world upside down. All of a sudden, Grace is seeing life differently and doing
things she never thought she’d do.
But
tragedy strikes when Danny dies in a motorbike accident, shattering Grace’s
world. As she struggles to come to terms with her loss, she becomes more and
more convinced that she’s being followed – sighting a motorbike exactly like
Danny’s everywhere she goes. And she starts to wonder if Danny’s death was
really an accident.
When
she finally voices her suspicions to her family and the police, though, no one
seems willing to believe her.
Meanwhile
Grace feels ever more under threat as sinister things begin happening to her.
What was Danny hiding from her? And what
kind of danger is she in now?
AUTHOR FEATURE FROM ZOE MILLER
I’d like to say a huge thank you to Margaret Madden for featuring Day 3
of the Someone New blog tour as a
guest post on her blog, Bleach House Library.
Today it’s all about the importance of secondary characters and what
they can bring to the story.
I usually write my stories in the third person as opposed to first
person. It means I am telling the story through more than one pair of eyes. There
are advantages and disadvantages to both forms. First person means the story is
told on a more immediate and intimate basis, and can feel very natural, which in
turn can be very compelling to both write and read, but you are restricted to
writing the novel from only one person’s point of view. I find I prefer to use
two or three different viewpoints in which to explore every dimension of the
story and turn the spotlight onto all aspects of the character. These
viewpoints also help to give the reader a more rounded sense of each person and
to appreciate different sides of the story. You can switch from one person to
another and from scene to scene in a way that racks up the tension. But no
matter what style you choose, you do need to have one main protagonist, who
touches everyone else to some degree and from whom most elements of the plot
will develop and evolve.
In Someone New, the main
character is a woman called Grace Bailey. Thirty years old, and as the novel
opens, at odds with herself and her life, she was the person through whom I
decided to tell the story, but in order to show different aspects to Grace and
enlarge on various angles of the plot and broaden the scope of the narrative, I
needed a secondary character, someone to act as a counter balance to Grace.
Enter Lucia, Grace’s older sister.
It was fun getting to know the kind of person Lucia was so that she could
act as a contrast and bring out a different side to Grace. Lucia evolved in my mind’s eyes a total foil
to Grace, she appears to be everything Grace is not; brainy, highly organised, sparkling
and brilliant, neat and petite in her figure and her clothes, running a
successful career and the kind of house that fully reflects that success,
besides being married to the rather wonderful Robert. Already we can see how having
an older sister like this might have an effect on a younger sister’s life and
the decisions she makes, before we’ve even got to any of the plot points.
The make-up and actions of secondary characters, when they are set side
by side with the main character, can be a catalyst for drama and conflict in
itself with the contrast between them and their divergent approach to life.
They can also help in deepening our understanding of the main protagonist. They
are not merely there to pad out a story but to play an important role in
helping to enhance the plot and strengthen our engagement with the protagonist.
In Someone New, I enjoyed
pitching Lucia and Grace together on the page. What I liked about them as
sisters is that, although they are very different people, they were there for
each other, particularly Lucia in the role of big sister to Grace when the
bottom fell out of her world. Although
Lucia seems to be fully capable of micro-managing her life in an effortless
fashion, underneath that perfect front we see a very human side to her as she
reacts to her sister’s distress, feeling a sense of helplessness swamping her, the
sight of Grace’s white face sending panic fluttering around her.
Secondary characters must develop in their own right, and Lucia is not
featured in Someone New solely to
heighten our understanding of Grace, but she has a story of her own to tell,
because after we see the first glimpses of her as a vulnerable human, we soon
discover there is more going on beneath the surface of that sparkling lifestyle
than you might expect!
Thank you Margaret, for having me on your blog!
Zoë xx
About Someone New
In her heart, Grace knows the
perfect, reliable, good-looking Gavin isn’t right for her. Then she meets
Danny. Unpredictable and spontaneous, he turns her world upside down. All of a
sudden, Grace is seeing life differently and doing things she never thought
she’d do.
But tragedy strikes when Danny
dies in a motorbike accident, shattering Grace’s world. As she struggles to
come to terms with her loss, she becomes more and more convinced that she’s
being followed – sighting a motorbike exactly like Danny’s everywhere she goes.
And she starts to wonder if Danny’s death was really an accident.
Zoë
Miller was born in Dublin where she now lives with her husband. She began
writing stories at an early age. Her writing career has also included freelance
journalism and prize-winning short fiction. She has three children.
Her previous novels include A Question of Betrayal, The Compromise, A Family Scandal and Rival
Passions.
www.zoemillerauthor.com
@zoemillerauthor
Facebook.com/zoemillerauthor
Someone New is published by Hachette Ireland and is available in TPB and ebook format. You can order your copy, with 12% discount and Free Worldwide Postage, HERE. The ebook can be ordered via amazon link below: