Guest Post with Evonne Wareham

Continuing with the series of blog posts on research which proved so popular at the end of last year, today I'm delighted that my first guest of 2023 is fellow Cariad author, Evonne Wareham. We write for the same publisher, Evonne writing for Choc Lit of which Ruby Fiction is an imprint. Having read her books, I know what she has to say will be very interesting.

Welcome, Evonne. Over to you!
First I’d like to say thank you to Jan for inviting me on today to talk about research. It’s lovely to be here in the company of the wonderful authors who have already occupied the slot.

Very many writers will tell you that they adore research. It can be a lot of fun, and is the most marvellous displacement activity. You can dive down any number of fascinating rabbit holes that will never go near the book you are supposed to be writing and still say you are working.  It is also quite often a painstaking graft, doing your best for accuracy.

I divide research into two types – the big stuff - which is often also the fun part - and the detail checking. The latter is why I now know more than you might expect about formalities for getting married in France, proceedings in UK courts and the journey times between stations on the French and Italian Riviera.

One of the trademarks of my books are the settings  - glamour, sunshine and escapism - along with mayhem and the occasional murder – well, I do write romantic suspense. (I assure you that the allegation that I know all the best places to bury a body is completely unwarranted.) Location is important, particularly, as you would imagine, in the ‘Riviera’ series – love and crime on the Mediterranean coast. Well - usually on the Mediterranean coast, but we’ll get to that. I’d class this research as big and fun stuff. Best done by visiting, but sadly difficult or impossible in the last few years. In A Villa in Portofino, written in lockdown, I had to rely on memory, guide books and some excellent walking tours of the town that obliging tourists had posted on You-tube.

The latest book, Masquerade on the Riviera, which is currently wending its way through the editing process, to be available around Easter, opens on the English Riviera. To my editor’s relief it does make it to Monaco – the setting for a grand masquerade ball. Sadly I haven’t made that trip yet, so it was the same process as for Portofino for that part of the book. I did have a very enjoyable weekend in Torquay though, attending the Crime Writers’ Association Annual Conference and doing research on the side. When I came to writing, I‘d forgotten how much easier it made things to know first-hand how everything looked. 

Torquay takes us to its most famous resident – Agatha Christie. Dame Agatha has an influence on the book as the opening chapters include a house party, as do many of hers. No body in the library, just a stolen necklace – although there are a few murders along the way.  I’ve tried to capture at least some of the atmosphere created by the Queen of Crime. My one-line summing up of Masquerade is ‘Death on the Nile meets To Catch a Thief.’ Why the Nile? Well, my hero is an Egyptologist.

Where did that come from? I have no idea, and research was needed – books, talking to experts, and an enjoyable wander around the British Museum. Fingers crossed I have got it right. Elliott the Egyptologist – and I have only just realised what I said there - is an academic, as is Megan the heroine of Portofino. I do know a bit about that but I invented my own university, so if things are done a little differently there, that’s my excuse. More research too, to find a suitable name for it. The occupation of the hero in Portofino was easier as he is a landscape gardener. I’m a long-standing, although not necessarily successful gardener, and an avid attendee of the kind of flower shows where Gideon would have won medals. As for the overgrown garden that Megan inherits and Gideon tames for her, I only had to look outside the back door for that! My own garden had taken on Sleeping Beauty dimensions during a period when life threw a lot of spanners in the works, as it is wont to do on occasion. All fixed now, I’m glad to say. I did research the kind of qualifications that Gideon might have as a professional gardener – that is where the detail comes in. Similar detail work has included investigating the helicopter transfer from Nice Airport to Monaco, how an artist would transport a work in progress when it was still wet, the history of famous jewels reputed to have a curse on them and popular bathroom colours from the 1970s.

One element I didn’t have to research for A Villa in Portofino was the period artefacts, as I used items from within my own family. As the book is about family secrets – not things that have been deliberately hidden but just things that are lost in time or are unexplained – I needed pieces that would contribute to the structure of the story. One was a collection of postcards that my father brought back from his war service in Italy. They were very useful in sending Megan’s own research off in exactly the wrong direction. Writers are mean and sneaky like that.

Well - this one is.

Thank you, Evonne. I like the way you have divided your research into the big stuff and then the detail checking. Glamour, sunshine and escapism! What's not to like reading about that?

Here are some more details about Evonne:

Media

Bio

Evonne is an award winning Welsh author of romantic suspense - more crime and dead bodies than your average romance. She likes to set her book in her native Wales, or for a touch of glamorous escapism, in favourite holiday destinations in Europe. She is a Doctor of Philosophy and an historian, and a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, Society of Authors, Crime Cymru and the Crime Writers’ Association.

Twitter  https://twitter.com/evonnewareham

Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/evonnewarehamauthor/

Website  www.evonnewareham.com

Blog  www.evonneonwednesday.blogspot.com

 

A Villa in Portofino , which was a nominee for the Jackie Collins Award for Romantic Thrillers 2022,  is available in e-book, audio and POD paperback from Amazon. https://amzn.to/3jKplk7

Masquerade on the Riviera will be published by Choc-Lit in spring 2023.

Thank you for reading. I'm sure Evonne has whetted your appetite for finding out what her books are about. Look out for Masquerade on the Riviera soon. Do you agree that even the title sounds intriguing? What do you think?

You may also follow me on Twitter @JanBaynham and on my Jan Baynham Writer Facebook page.

For more about me and all my books, please visit my AMAZON Author page. Thanks.