Harriet Steel – British Raj mysteries

Harriet Steel’s Inspector de Silva historical crime series takes us back to the exotic sights, sounds and smells of 1930s Ceylon under the British Raj, in classic Golden Age mystery style. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Harriet talks about how an encounter with Chocolat author Joanne Harris changed her life, and her passion for the remarkable Lola Montez, who in her time was second only to Queen Victoria in fame and notoriety. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: The chance encounter that led to her first novel The holiday that led to a mystery series Her passion for the remarkable Lola Montez Balancing historical accuracy and entertainment The writers she admires most What she’d do differently second time around Where to find Harriet Steel: Website: http://harrietsteelblogspot.co.uk/ Facebook: @harrietsteelauthor  Twitter: @harrietsteel1 Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5423444.Harriet_Steel What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny:But now, here’s Harriet. Hello there Harriet and welcome to the show, its great to have you with us. Harriet: Well, thank you so much for inviting me, Jenny. It’s a great pleasure to be here. Harriet Steel – author of British Raj mysteries Jenny: I’ve loved the Nuala books and I just wanted to ask you, was there a Once Upon a Time moment when you decided you really had to write fiction or somehow your life wouldn’t be quite complete? And if so, was there any sort of special catalyst for it? Harriet: Yes, I think there was a catalyst. But I’ll start from the beginning. I grew up on a farm in Wiltshire, which was then a very quiet part of England, and there weren’t many other children around to play with. So I had quite a solitary childhood, as my sisters both went away to school when I was still quite young,  if I wasn’t outside playing on the farm or in the garden, I would be usually found inside with my nose in a book. And I think because I loved reading, I eventually came to the feeling that I would like to try my hand at writing. Beginnings as a short story writer I think as a lot of people do when they start off, they write short stories because they seem a manageable length. Although short stories are actually a great deal harder than most people think to write successfully. But, you know, I was very pleased that I managed to get a few published in magazines, which was lovely, but I never really aspired to anything longer than a short story. And then when I was in my 40s I entered a national short story competition. The idea of it was that six well-known writers would write the first half of the story and the people entering the competition would write the second half. And you had to choose whose story you would like to pick. And I chose the story started by Joanne Harris, who I imagine most people have heard of. An important mentor She wrote the book Chocolat, which was a very popular novel about 20 years ago. You’ve probably heard of her. I was lucky enough to get to the finals, which was very exciting, and a lot of people said very nice things about my story. I met Joanne Harris at the final judging and somebody said to her, what advice would you give to aspiring writers? And she said, just drop the word aspiring and get on and write. And I think that gave me the confidence to think, you know, maybe I should just do that. Maybe I should allow myself to take my writing more seriously rather than just thinking of it as a little hobby. Maybe I could make more of it. So I think that was my catalyst. Jenny: . Oh, that’s great. It’s amazing to me to think that it’s 20 years ago since Chocolat was published. I mean, the time does goes so fast. Harriet: Yes. It’s just had its 20th anniversary. Jenny: It’s exciting when you meet someone like that. And it makes the idea of being a writer a lot more real, doesn’t it? Chocolat: The movie, from the Joanne Harris book. Harriet: It does. Yes. Joanne was very charming and very approachable. And I think she gave the three of us who got to the finals a lot of confidence, which was which was really kind of her. She met us at her home, which also was lovely because you felt very welcomed rather than just meeting her in a television studio. It was really quite a pivotal moment in my writing career. The Inspector de Silva series Jenny: And tell me, do you know, did either of the other two finalists continue on to be published authors like yourself? Harriet: As far as I know, they didn’t. In fact, sadly, one of them became very ill about a couple of years afterwards and died. But the other one? No, I don’t think she did. Jenny: Well, that’s a feather in your cap. So your most recent work –  we’ll get on to to talking about some of your earlier work a little later on – But you’ve become known in recent years for this historical crime series that you’ve been working on. A 1930s Ceylon crime series featuring a Sri Lankan police officer married to a British woman. Tell me how that the concept with that came about. Harriet: Well, I did actually start writing historical novels. I think we’ll probably talk about later, but I was very keen to try a mystery series. I’ve always enjoyed the mystery genre and I knew the kind of mystery books I wanted to write. I didn’t want to write anything with a lot of violence or sex or swearing on the page. Praise for Harriet Steel’s Inspector de Silva series. I wanted a detective who would be, not middle of the road, he would need to have some issues. But I didn’t think I could write the kind of detective who is an alcoholic with a broken marriage and that kind of thing. I mean, some people do that kind of book very, very well with elements of horror in them sometimes, I think. But it wouldn’t be for me. So I knew the type of person I wanted my detective to be and I knew the type of mystery I wanted. A holiday to be remembered The thing that was lacking was I didn’t know what setting I wanted. And setting is very important to me. I don’t really enjoy books unless they have a very strong sense of the setting. And it was when I went to Sri Lanka on an extended holiday that I fell in love with the country so much that I thought, this is the place I want to set my series and the place I want to write about. And when I got home it was as if the words were just spilling out. I think I wrote the first book in the series in about three months because I was so excited about it all and couldn’t wait to write about the country. And the characters took shape, took more concrete form, as I went along. Jenny: So how long did you actually spend in Ceylon at that on that holiday? Harriet: Well,for my taste, not nearly long enough. I could have spent months there, really, but I spent about three weeks there and also I read a lot about the country, both novels and things that people in the past had written about it. Writings of early travellers there. I read everything I could find. Setting in Ceylon a key ingredient Jenny: There’s a very strong sense of setting, Inspector de Silva loves his garden and there’s such a strong sense of appreciation of the natural world and  gardening and garden plants. I’ve got the feeling that you probably also love your garden. Would that be right? Harriet: Yes, I do. I do. And I think that’s one of the things that greatly appealed to me about Sri Lanka. The plant life is wonderful. It’s so diverse. And also the animals and and the bird life, it’s renowned for its  bird life. It has a huge number of species of birds. And I think because it’s a small island, it’s not terribly built up. And the population per square mile is a lot smaller than India’s. Ceylon hill country ; Photo Credit: https://www.travelplusstyle.com/hotels/ceylon-tea-trails-hill-country You know, you’re not aware of the teeming millions as you are in India. In fact, some people have said that Sri Lanka is “India without the crowds and the dirt.” I think that’s probably quite a true description. It’s also known as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean and the wildlife and the plant life is just so beautiful that I think that’s one of the things that greatly appealed to me. Capturing a past ‘Golden’ age I am a keen gardener, obviously, in a very different sort of environment. In the UK, we haven’t got the lushness that you get in somewhere like Sri Lanka. But I do very much enjoy plants and I very much like playing around with the different shapes and colors and so on. So I think that’s why I gave Inspector de Silva that quality. Jenny: And because it’s set in the colonial time when Sri Lanka was still a British colony, it gives it real flavour of the Classic Golden Age mysteries because you’ve got that structure of social status.  I gathered that in Passage From Nuala, which is the most recent one, you set it on a cruise liner. And that seems to be even more of a Golden Age setting because they’re all stuck in one place and they can’t get off the boat. So it’s a bit like there on the Orient Express, isn’t it? When cruises were high luxury Harriet: Yes. Or Death on the Nile, where they were all stuck on the boat. Or Then There Were None, where they’re all stuck on an island. Yes. It’s it’s a very tempting conceit really. And I think it does work well. I’ve wanted to try some of the traditional Golden Age themes. Passage from Nuala was also inspired by a wonderful exhibition at our Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which was about the Golden Days of Cruising the 20s and 30s. It was absolutely fascinating going into all the fashions people would have worn. And, you know, the luxury of the ships, the wonderful interiors. Amazingly enough,  the creators still managed to find some of the original interiors to some of the ships that would have sailed, particularly a French one called SS Normandie. Cary Grant and Marlene Dietrich on the SS Normandie – a Thanksgiving cruise. They managed to find some the panelling that would have been in one of the lobbies which has been preserved in a museum in France, I believe, and they brought it over. And the lavishness and luxury of these ships was quite amazing. It was marvellous to see it. And very, very inspiring. I was lucky that the exhibition took place at the time that it did. So it really sparked off a lot of ideas for me. Jenny: But you haven’t been on a cruise yourself? Harriet: Well, not that kind of cruise. I have been on a few cruises, but they’re not as luxurious these days as they were in the 20s and 30s. People don’t dress up like they used to. I think everybody used to dress for dinner every night. Certainly, if they were in the top classes – the cabin class, and the class below that. ‘Cozy’ mystery with edginess Jenny: I guess the books would be categorized as cozy mysteries. They’ve got that sense of being in one setting and with one group of people. But there is definitely a nice, edgy sense of subtle social and political commentary going on. And with the relationship between Inspector de Silva and his wife Jane, which would be frowned on in some circles. You’ve got a lot to work with there, in terms of just notching up a little bit from being too cozy, haven’t you? SS Normandie: An “Art Deco masterpiece” – and inspiration for the next Nuala mystery. Harriet: Yes. Cozy mystery is such a wide term isn’t it? It spans everything from the mysteries where the cat helps to solve it. Or there’s a lot of cookery, or  paranormal elements. As you say, this is more like Golden Age crime. Thank you very much for what you said about the social and political issues. I felt it would be dishonest not to touch on that a little, although I didn’t want to labour it too much, because essentially the series is meant to be a light, entertaining read for people. But I felt it was ducking the issue really, not to make any kind of commentary, just to keep it quite low key if I could. Because I’m sure there must have been issues  where a country is colonized. Ceylon, I think, became a dominion in 1948. So 10 years after my series is set. But obviously there would have been the first rumblings of the desire for greater independence. And there was quite a lot of violence in India by then, because Indian independence came about in a much more stormy fashion than it did in Sri Lanka, which was relatively peaceful. So it’s impossible to ignore that element. Challenging the status quo And I think as an intelligent man, even though Inspector de Silver isn’t a natural rebel, he’s not somebody who says ‘we must have change and we must have it now.’ I think he accepts that gradual change is better than a violent change. But obviously, he would have thought about his position vis a vis the British authorities and looked forward to a time perhaps when he wouldn’t have to grapple with that any longer. And for Jane, his wife, of course, she’s got a foot in two camps. She has to fit in with the British milieu, of the sewing circle, the ladies who arranged church flowers, the ladies who do the charitable works and so on. But she’s also got her loyalty to her husband. And I think because they’re older and she is comfortable in her own skin, she is better equipped to cope with that and not to mind too much about what people say about them. But I think they have established their position in the society and Nuala. And it’s not such a difficulty for them now. A hero for his time But in fact, in the coming book, it will be more of an issue. The murder is set in a golf club and that would be a very closed, privileged little world. I think in the thirties it would have been the same here, (in England) actually. Golf clubs were really quite snobby and quite exclusive. And that is a different angle for him to have to deal with. He has to go in and do his job in a place where basically locals aren’t welcomed. He wouldn’t have been able to be a member of a golf club in those days. I very much doubt he would have been accepted. So a little more of that will come out in the forthcoming book. But on the whole, I’ve tried to keep it reasonably low key. I don’t want to make them a political tract. You know, they are meant to be entertainment. A magical mystery literary tour Jenny: Yes. It’s just as you say, you can’t ignore it or it wouldn’t be true to to what was going on. And if your readers were keen on seeing the Ceylon that you fell in love with, have you got places that you would suggest they go to?If you were giving people recommendations for their own little magical mystery literary tour, where would you send them? A trip worth doing: 150 years of trains in Ceylon: https://blog.cinnamonhotels.com/150-years-of-trains-in-sri-lanka/ Harriet: If you were looking around for where to go in Ceylon, I would say definitely go to the Hill Country because it is extremely beautiful and there are some wonderful hotels to stay in up there. Not necessarily expensive luxury hotels, but just charming places. So I would definitely say don’t miss the Hill Country. And if you can take the train up there, which is a wonderful experience. I would say go to Kandy, which features quite regularly in my books because it’s a very elegant town. The Temple of the Tooth, Kandy. There’s a fascinating temple there called the Temple of the Tooth, where they say they have one of Buddha’s teeth. And the time to go is late afternoon when the shrine is opened, and it’s extraordinary. You go in and there are men beating drums all over the place and all the visitors are rushing round, because you have to go really quickly to get your chance to go through the shrine because so many people want to do it. Ideally, you want to go with a local guide who could take you, because otherwise you just might become completely confused and never actually see the shrine. Don’t miss the wildlife! But that’s a fantastic experience. And there’s a beautiful lake in the middle of the town called The Sea of Milk, which is a lovely place to walk around. And apart from that, I would say there’s a lot of wildlife to see in Sri Lanka. And I would try and go to one of the game parks. The main one is called Yala. And you’ll see a lot of elephants there and a lot of other animals. If you’re very lucky, you might see a leopard, but that’s not guaranteed by any means. But I think those with would be the places I would say definitely go to. Jenny: Is Nuala in the book based on any particular town? Harriet: It is. It’s based on a town in the hill country called Nuwara Eliya. I decided for two reasons, really, that I wouldn’t use the real town, partly because it’s difficult to pronounce. It took me a while to learn how to say it properly, also partly because I felt that I didn’t want to deal with a real place and commit inaccuracies. It’s difficult to be sure that you’ve got everything right – that every road is in the right place. Or you’ve described a building precisely. So I thought I would allow myself to make up a town, but based on Nuwara Eliya. And then I wouldn’t have that problem. Jenny: It gives you a lot more freedom and for most of your readers, it would be quite irrelevant anyway. It’s not a town like Florence or Rome that people have heard of. Harriet: No, no, absolutely. I mean, I didn’t think it really mattered. And I thought it was just easier, really, to make up a place. Lola Montez: a ‘first love’ in fiction Jenny: Now, as we referred to earlier, before you started your crime series, you wrote several books of historical fiction, including one about Lola Montez, who’s been described as “the most famous woman of Victorian times after Queen Victoria herself.” Tell us about your love for historical fiction. Obviously you began there and then moved on to the crime a little later. Lola Montez; “More popular than Dickens” in her time Harriet: Yes, I’ve been very fond of historical fiction for a long time and I still read quite a lot of historical fiction. I didn’t really have any strong idea of what period I’d write in. And it was purely by chance that I came across Lola when I saw her portrait in a picture gallery in Munich. And I very quickly realized she was an absolute gift to a novelist because she had such an extraordinary life. So the novel I wrote about her, I suppose, should be described as faction or a biographical novel. But she was amazing. She had a scandalous career as a dancer and then she was also an actress. Also, she had a career as a writer and a lecturer in which she was apparently more popular than Charles Dickens for some time. She was a very, very good lecturer, apparently, and a wonderful communicator. And the other thing she was famous for was her lovers, with whom some commentators said she had thousands. I think that’s probably a wild exaggeration, but she certainly had hundreds. A long list of famous admirers They included the composer Franz Liszt and various British politicians, but most notably King Ludwig the First of Bavaria. He lost his throne over her. He was given an ultimatum by his ministers that he should give her up or he should give up his throne. And he gave up his throne, he was so besotted with her. She was just an incredible woman. She travelled widely. She never got to New Zealand, as far as we know, but she did get to Australia where she went to a gold mine. To everybody’s amazement, she also got to California and lived in Grass Valley in California for a while, which I believe you have connections with. (Book One of my Of Gold & Blood mystery series, Poisoned Legacy, is set in Grass Valley – Ed Note.) Lola made herself a lot of money there, she invested in gold mining and made a good deal of money. But money never stuck to her. she just spent it all. She was very generous. She entertained everybody in Grass Valley. She held lavish parties for the children. Expiring in America At Christmas time, she would get in her sledge, harness up her horses and go up to Nevada City to buy presents for everybody and come back and hold a wonderful Christmas party for them. So I imagine she would have been tremendous fun. Yes. And as long as she liked you, I would think she had been great company, but she had a fearful temper. So if she didn’t like someone, if they did something to annoy her, she had a terrible temper. She was a real wildcat. Lola’s house in Grass Valley: a brief but memorable stay. Jenny: She seemed to discard her men just as quickly as she found them too, didn’t she? Harriet: Oh. Yes, she did. Yes. I mean, she didn’t give anybody a second chance. No. Once you annoyed her, that was it. And in fact, she ended up managing her own tours. She toured America and as I said, Australia, with the plays she put on. And after a couple of managers were discarded, who are managers, (stroke) lovers, she decided to manage her own tours and did it extremely well. But sadly, she wore herself out. She died in America at the age of 39. It was reported to be from pneumonia. But I think it could have been syphilis, because she had so many lovers. And I don’t think precautions were very good at that time and no antibiotics or anything. So I fear that might have been a bit of a whitewash. But she you know, she certainly lived fast. The Paris Chronicles Jenny: And you also did two books in a series called The Paris Chronicles. Did you spend time in Paris, yourself? Tell us about that. Harriet: Yes, I lived in Paris for about three months when I was younger. And it’s a city I love very much. And I chose the 19th century period because it was a time when Paris had really being transformed by Napoleon the Third, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. It had been transformed from a medieval city into the wonderful modern city that we know today, with lovely boulevards and lots of very modern shops for the time and wonderful monuments. The Paris Chronicles, Book One, City of Dreams, Harriet Steel. And it was a very exciting place to be. It was the most envied city in Europe. There was nowhere else like it. So I thought it’d be a fascinating place to set a book. But it was also a time when shortly the French would go to war with the Prussians and the Prussians won,  which I think was a tremendous shock to the French because they thought they were the top power in Europe. And so, again, I think,  a pivotal time as an interesting time to write about. So that was why I chose that time. And it’s a kind of Coming of Age story with a Russian girl who comes to Paris with her new husband and the marriage goes wrong and she has to survive on her own. It’s the story of how she does that. A lawyer-turned novelist Jenny: Great. Turning to your wider career, away from talking about the individual books, you worked as a lawyer before you became a novelist. I wonder, has that helped you with your writing? Harriet: I think it has. Yes, I think it’s enabled me to be a bit analytical about what I’ve written, because as any other writers will know, getting your first draft down is a relatively small part of the process. When you’ve done that, you’ve got to do some rigorous editing and be very critical of your work, if you’re going to produce something at the end which is worth people’s time and money. And I think it’s very important to remember that. You’re not only expecting people to invest a bit of money in your book, you’re expecting them to invest time, which is almost more of a big ask, I think these days. And so you do have to be very critical I think, and I think it’s helped me to be able to look at my work quite dispassionately and think about whether it does hang together. The secret of Harriet’s success I ask myself, do I need everything that’s in it? I don’t like a lot of padding in a novel. You know, is everything that’s in it absolutely necessary, to develop the plot and the characters? So, yes, I think it has helped to a certain extent. Jenny: And if there’s one thing you’ve done more than any other that you would consider the secret of your success, what would it be? What would you say  to other aspiring writers who are now following in your tracks? Harriet: I think it’s perseverance, really. So it’s a long process. And you need to be patient. You need to not be discouraged by setbacks. I think most people have this idea of somebody being an overnight success, and that’s lovely. But I think it very, very rarely happens. There’s a British writer I don’t know if you know her, called Mary Wesley, who wrote a book a few years back called Camomile Lawn, which certainly took the UK by storm. ‘Overnight success’ took 20 years I don’t know if it was read in New Zealand, but she was interviewed, I remember, and people said she was in her late 60s or possibly in her 70s by then. And the interviewer said, “How does it feel to be a overnight success in your 70s?” And she just looked at him and said, “It’s only taken me 20 years.” And I thought, what a good answer, because it does take a long time. You know, you’ve got to persevere. And I think also you’ve got to have some luck, just good old fashioned luck. Social media does help. I think it’s worth having a social media presence and somewhere where your readers can get in touch with you and then maybe they will talk to their friends about you, and that will help to build up your profile. I think it’s worth doing some advertising. There’s a huge number of avenues now, for advertising and you need to be careful. It can get tremendously expensive if you’re not careful. So you need to be a bit judicious about where you spend your money. But I think really, just persevere. What Harriet is reading now Jenny: Yes. Yes. Look, the show is called The Joys of Binge Reading, and it is predicated on the idea that readers these days really enjoy having a series where if they discover an author they like, they can read more than one of their books. Who do you like to binge read and if you’ve got any recommendations for your listeners on people that they might enjoy? Barbara Cleverly: the Joe Sandilands series set in India in the 1920s. Harriet: Yes, I know it’s probably rather heretical to say, but I actually am a bit of a series sampler as well as a binge reader, because being a writer of mysteries, I like to know what everybody else is doing. So I will sample a lot of different series, there are so many around. Some more favorite authors But that said, if I’d like a series, I would probably go and read several more of them. I particularly enjoy things with a strong setting and also things with some historical detail suit me very well. I enjoy the Montalbano books by Andrea Camelleri, which are set in the beautiful island of Sicily. Another writer I like is Barbara Cleverly, who writes the Joe Sandilands series that’s set in the 20s in India, which of course, is one of the areas I’m particularly interested in. There is a British author called Elly Griffiths I like very much. She writes a series set in Norfolk. Norfolk is in the east of England and it’s traditionally a rather cut off area. It’s always been a little bit difficult to get to. It’s very, very flat. An acclaimed Norfolk series It has absolutely wonderful big skies. And I think it has a rather mysterious beauty that’s always appealed to me. She conjures up that beauty in the brilliant way. I think it’s one of the things I love about her books and her detective. Ruth Galloway is an archaeologist. She’s an amateur detective. She helps the police as an archaeologist. And I find having that extra element about the archaeology is also very interesting. Elly Griffiths, The Dark Angel a Ruth Galloway award winning book. Jenny: They all sound fantastic. Harriet: Yes they’re good. My only caution about the Montalbano is that there’s a lot of bad language. If that’s something that you dislike when you’re reading, I’d recommend you get the box set of the television series and watch that instead because they’ve taken out all the bad language. So if somebody really dislikes seeing a lot of rude words that they might be happier with the television series On the historical side. I very much enjoy the Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom, which I think is known to a lot of people. I think his grasp of history is is wonderful. Interestingly, he’s an ex lawyer as well. The Giordano Bruno series And another writer who writes rather much in his vein, I’ve only discovered quite recently is SJ Parris. She writes a series called the Giordano Bruno series. And again, it’s historical mystery. Starting off in the mid 16th century and going through the period of Queen Elizabeth, so a wonderfully rich period, you know, a lot of things going on. And Giordano Bruno was actually a real person. He was an Italian friar. He was a philosopher and a mathematician. And he was very interested in the occult, which unfortunately eventually made him fall foul of the church, and he was burned at the stake by the Inquisition. But he makes a wonderful protagonist and I enjoy her books very much. I think she’s not quite as well known as C.J. Sansom, but definitely worth discovering. Doing it all over again? Jenny: Oh, fantastic. We are starting to run out of time. So just circling around and looking at your writing career at this stage. If you were doing it all over again, is there anything you would change? Harriet: I think I would have started seriously a bit earlier. I would like to written more books, really. Jenny: How long does it take you to write a book? Harriet: Certainly. I like to do one a year, and preferably two. I think they are quite short books and by readers always seem eager to know when the next one’s coming out,so if I can, I like to do two.  I did two last year. I’ve written one this year so far, and I’m hoping the next one will be coming out in October or maybe at the latest November. So. yes, two to a year. I think it’s a little bit of a danger trying to write too many. The dangers of ‘over-production’ There’s very much a fashion at the moment, certainly among independently published authors, of which I am one, that, you know, because people do love to binge read and binge watch television series and so on. you must bring out as many books as you can. You know, work as fast as you can. I think there’s a bit of a risk of compromising quality. Well, for me anyway, compromising quality. I can’t say that for any other writers, but I do like to think I’m giving my readers the best possible work I can. Jenny: Yes, I totally agree. And you do several drafts? Harriet: I do. Yes, I do. The first one I’ll probably do quite quickly as I like to write fairly quickly to start with. And then the second one will take me longer, and by the time I get to a third one, I’m going quite slowly. What is next for Harriet, writer? Jenny: That’s wonderful. So that leads rather nicely into asking you about what is next for Harriet, the writer, and the projects you’ve got in the works. When is the next Nuala book due out? Harriet: Well, either next month or November. It’s gone up to my editor at the moment, and so I’m waiting on him. And then when it comes back, I’m sure he’ll have comments and there’ll be a bit of rewriting. Then it needs to be proofed, of course, and cover designs and so on. I’m very lucky to have a lovely cover designer because that’s not certainly not one of my talents. I would take ages just deciding how big the font should be on the cover. I think she’s great. She has perfect eye for doing covers. Jenny: Yes, your covers are very recognisable out there. They’re strongly branded. The importance of good covers Harriet: Yes, they are very colorful. That’s what I wanted because it is so colorful, Sri Lanka. I wanted to get that across. And the elephant, of course, is the country’s symbol. In fact, we started off ,Jane Dixon-Smith who is my designer, and I, with something completely different, something much more in the line of other 30s mysteries. And then decided I didn’t want to do that, I didn’t want to try and piggy back on anyone else’s look. And we went for the elephants instead. And it’s been very popular, a lot of people to comment on the covers and how much they like them. Jenny: I was just going to ask if it’s got a title yet. The new one that is. Harriet: It’s called Rough Times in Nuala. Jenny: Oh We can see that there is a little bit of stormy weather ahead. Harriet: So, yes, I’m hoping it won’t be too much longer. The lovely thing about being an indie publisher is that you can, to a large extent, dictate your own timetable. I’m not one of hundreds of books that a publisher is producing where you have to wait your turn. Jenny: And after that? Dreaming up a new series. . . Harriet: I think possibly another in the series that. Every so often I toy with the idea of dreaming up a new series. I know a lot of mystery writers do write several series, which I think could be very interesting, although more of a challenge to keep them all in your head. But, you know, my readers do say that they love the characters, and when they read the new book, they feel as if they’re catching up with old friends. So I think sometimes, why not just stay with them? You know, people seem to enjoy the books as they are. Jenny: That’s right. And setting up a new series would take you quite a bit longer to get into them, wouldn’t it? I mean, with a series that you are really familiar with your characters, it lends itself to helping you to write them reasonably quickly. West Country is the place Harriet: It does. And also, you know, to think up new plots for them without having to worry too much about who your characters will be, because you know, you get to know them and you know how they react to things. But of course, they develop as well. And I usually bring in a few new characters in each book, some of whom stay  in the mix and some of them go. But, you know, there’s always a few new characters that you need to dream up, which is quite fun. Jenny: Is there a time and place that would tempt you if you were doing a new series? Harriet: I don’t think I’d write to contemporary series. I don’t really think I know enough about contemporary police work and contemporary forensics to write that in a convincing way. I think I would go back probably to the 40s and 50s and choose an area that I know reasonably well. It would have to be somewhere that I knew something about. So it would be probably the West Country I would go for. That’s where I grew up and a part of England I know best. Where readers can find Harriet Jenny: That’s wonderful. Now you’ve mentioned you enjoy communicating with your readers. Where can your readers find you and how can they communicate with you? Harriet: Well, I’m on Facebook as @HarrietSteelauthor. I also have a blog. I don’t actually have a website, but I have a blog. And if people Google Harriet Steel blog, they will find me. Jenny: Fantastic. And you are on Goodreads, too. I’ve seen plaintive little pleas from people saying, “When is the next book coming out?” Harriet: Yes. Goodreads is an amazing place. Isn’t it wonderful? Jenny: Yes, it is.  Well, Harriet, look, that’s wonderful. We’ll put links to all of the things that you’ve mentioned in the show notes that we post for each episode. So listeners will be able to find the links to your books, to the books and places that you’ve recommended that they can find you in the show notes. Thank you so much for taking part. Harriet: It’s a pleasure. It’s been wonderful.  Thank you very much for having me. Jenny: Okay. Lovely. Bye now. Harriet: Bye. If you enjoy Harriet’s books you might also enjoy Sharon Maas historical “Celebrating Diversity” novels set between India, England and Guyana. Hear Sharon talk about her work on The Joys of Binge Reading podcast. Thanks To Our Technical Support: The Joys of Binge Reading podcast is put together with wonderful technical help from Dan Cotton at DC Audio Services. Dan is an experienced sound and video engineer who’s ready and available to help you with your next project… Seek him out at [email protected] or Phone + 64 – 21979539. He’s fast, takes pride in getting it right, and lovely to work with. Our voice overs are done by Abe Raffills, and Abe’s another gem. He got 20 years of experience on both sides of the camera/microphone as a cameraman/director and also voice artist and television presenter. Abe’s vocal delivery is both light hearted and warm and he is super easy to work with no matter the job. You’ll find him at [email protected]