Good Deeds Week 2nd – 8th March

Welcome to my weekly roundup of my year long challenge to do one Good deed a day for a year. This challenge began back in April 2013 and is still going strong. My inspiration came from reading “A Year of Doing Good” by Judith O’Reilly. Here is what I’ve been up to this week.

March 2nd – Helped a fellow author out, Rachel Roberts, promote her book in a Kindle Countdown Deal, she was at no.27 in the top 100, with her book Medea Complex.

March 3rd – Helped out at school this morning. Had some wonderful help from fellow bloggers with some of the last letters on my A to Z Challenge. Volunteered to read and review Me and Billy The Kid for author Briana Vedsted.

March 4th – Got up seriously early this morning so that I could get my social networking done before sitting in traffic jams with the kids and finally getting to work. After this morning I really appreciate the fact that usually, I can avoid rush hour. Have been promoting The Griffin’s Boy and author Julia Hughes over the last 2 days. Julia’s been busy herself helping out a fellow author who is fighting cancer. Author Stephen C Spencer writes the Paul Mallory series, America’s answer to James Bond. Julia and Sean Campbell (who was our guest a few weeks ago with his book Cleaver Square) are helping Stephen to re-launch his books. I’ll be helping out on the blog with the re-launch in a few weeks and will appreciate help from you all to spread the word where possible during that time.

March 5th – Bought Land of the Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel book 6 in the Earth’s Children series, for my Mum ready for Mother’s Day. We’ve both enjoyed the series and Mum has been looking for a copy for a while. Started reading The Singing Bowl by Roy Dimond. Good Deeds received; Today I was a guest author over at fellow book reviewer A Woman’s Wisdom.

March 6th – Made a charity donation whilst out shopping today in one of my favourite stores, Lush.

March 7th – Posted my review of Flawed Perfection by Cassandra Giovanni on Goodreads and Amazon inline with the book launch today. Dropped off a birthday gift for a very good friend.

March 8th – Today’s book on the blog is a FREE travel download available from my friends at Blackfrog Publishing. “Overlanding- How, What, Where and Who with…”  by Andy Robinson and Kirsty McGregor. Check out the link to the post here http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-4UG

I’m ploughing my way through The Singing Bowl by Roy Dimond it really is an brilliantly epic book full of amazing characters and places, it is about a Tibetan Monk who is given a mystery to solve and a lost book to find as he flees from Chinese communists who want to destroy the ancient religion. It spans many cultures and travels through The Ancient World, The Old World and will end in The New World. The monk learns so much from inspiring people, I feel that I am travelling along with him. My deed today is to spread news of this book to you. May you too, find time to read this book and enjoy it as much as me.

Guest Authors Sean and Daniel Campbell

Today with have writing duo Sean and Daniel Campbell as our guests. They are the author’s of yesterday’s book Cleaver Square. Here is a link to the post if you missed it. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-4p2

Let’s find out more about them.

Sean Campbell

1) Where is your home town?

We’re both from Portsmouth, which is a Naval city on the south coast of England. Sean’s been a Londoner on and off for all of his adult life, but Dan’s still in Portsmouth and is currently at the city’s Highbury Catering College (which includes culinary luminary Claire Smyth among it’s alumnus).

2) How long have you been writing as a duo?

We’ve been writing together since 2012, when we made a St Patrick’s Day bet that we could write a novel in 90 days or less. Dead on Demand, our first book, was the result.

3) Where did the title of the book “Cleaver Square” come from?

It’s a real place – with one of London’s finest pubs in it. There is no 36B, but we’ve otherwise been pretty faithful to reality. The square is a unique slice of London that is almost surreally quiet, with gorgeous townhouses and a huge green that is used for street parties and boules in the summer.

4) If this your first murder mystery?

We had several murders in Dead on Demand, but that was told from the point of view of the antagonist, who tries to plot the perfect murder (and comes pretty close to succeeding!). Cleaver Square is our first book that’s firmly in the ‘mystery’ bracket, but it also crosses into the suspense genre too.

5) What writing roles did you both take on?

Dan does some of the big picture stuff, but I get the research elements (so if you find an error in forensics or police procedure, that’s probably my fault).

6) How long did it take to research the material for the book?

It took a little while – we took nearly eighteen months over this on and off. I trained as a barrister so the legal side is dead easy, and I have a number of friends in the forces as well as some handy contacts in the world of forensics to annoy in the hopes of getting things right.

7) You’ve got some great characters in the book, mine were the Lovejoys purely because their name conjured up memories of a favourite TV series of mine. Which character was your favourite?

Probably Tina – she’s a bit of a tart, but she’s loveable with it. And who doesn’t like drinking/ board game mash-ups?

8) Which were the hardest parts of the story to write and why?

Charlie’s back-story – he’s had a rough time of it, and getting the timings/ age consistent with all the minor elements of the forensics, as well as making sure that little things like sunrise times stay consistent takes a lot of co-ordination. Thankfully, we had some excellent editors on board to catch our faux-pas.

9) Tell us about some of your other books

Dead on Demand is the most well-known – there are tens of thousands of copies out there in the readersphere, and we hope to reach a few more this year. We’ve also got a few non-fiction titles out, including one on the British Peerage system. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the ‘Become a Lord or Lady’ Christmas gifts, where you buy a square foot of land, and allegedly become a Lord, but they’re, at best, misleading. Laird is simply Scottish for ‘landowner’ rather than denoting a title. There are ways to become a Lord, but a square foot of mud probably doesn’t cut it.

10) Do you have ideas for another murder for Detective Chief Inspector Morton to investigate?

Absolutely – we’ve got an idea that we’re outlining at the moment that combines a dash of political intrigue with what we hope our most original murder method yet.

Dan Campbell

1) Where is your home town?

Portsmouth.

2) How long have you been writing as a duo?

Duo? I do all the hard work.

3) Where did the title of the book “Cleaver Square” come from?

Well, we thought about Knife Octagon for a while, but that’s just too multi-sided.

4) If this your first murder mystery?

I never killed nobody guvnor. Honest, I didn’t.

5) What writing roles did you both take on?

I wrote. I looked pretty. Sean provided the requisite age to get taken seriously (I was 16 when ‘we’ wrote Dead on Demand)

6) How long did it take to research the material for the book?

Sean did that. Or so he says. I think he just makes it up. He’s got that convincing look about him.

7) You’ve got some great characters in the book, mine were the Lovejoys purely because their name conjured up memories of a favourite TV series of mine. Which character was your favourite?

Bertram Ayala – he’s almost as vain as I am.

8) Which were the hardest parts of the story to write and why?

The middle is the worst. You’ve not got that “just started” motivation, and the end isn’t in sight yet.

9) Tell us about some of your other books.

I’m doing a couple of solo projects this year – watch out for The Utopia Project, an ‘End of the world’ story that comes out in December.

10) Do you have ideas for another murder for Detective Chief Inspector Morton to investigate?

Yes – can’t say exactly what just yet, but if you think an ice bullet is clever, this will blow your mind.

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Cleaver Square by Sean and Daniel Campbell

Cleaver Square by Daniel Campbell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cleaver Square is a murder mystery / thriller set in and around London. It opens with a murder scene in Hackney Marshes on a cold January morning. A body is found by Robert Lyons, a member of the North London Metal Detectors. A post mortem reveals the body is of a young teenage boy, who has been in the ground for some weeks. A key item of evidence is a valuable watch found with the victim by the metal detector.

Whilst the murder investigation gets underway led by Detective Chief Inspector David Morton, the readers are introduced to Charlie Matthews a young lad who is being taken to a new foster home by his social worker. Charlie’s history is tragic, both parents died in a car crash, then a set of foster parents died in a house fire, he is being moved once again through the overloaded social care system.

With a murder case going no where and Morton working long unsocial hours his home life is shattered when he and his wife are the victims of fraud and all their bank accounts and savings are emptied and their credit cards compromised.

DNA testing of evidence lead the team to ask “Who is Charlie Matthews?” But they are no closer to answering the question when Detective Tina Vaughn goes missing whilst following her own line of enquires.

Finally a new detective finds a new angle and a window of opportunity for the murder crime is revealed. The Police can close in on the suspects, but which Police department will get there first?

This was a cleverly written book, which kept me interested the whole way through, I wanted to solve the crimes too. The book tackles some serious real life issues which are sad possibilities in todays world.

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

View all my reviews on Goodreads

Sean and Daniel are our guest authors on the blog tomorrow, so do come back and meet them.