Author Interview: Stephen Lloyd Jones

Where do you typically write?
I’m currently writing this in a coffee shop, next to a large latte. I like to work in different places but I do the bulk of my writing on the sofa at home, the laptop propped on a cushion. With the exception of rodeo riding, it’s probably the worst way of treating your spine possible. I urgently need to buy a desk, but at the moment there’s nowhere to put it.

Tell us about your writing process.
It usually starts with a single image – a snapshot of a scene. That percolates for a couple of months until I begin to sense the story and the characters around it. I don’t need to have everything worked out before I start, but I do like a rough sense of where I’m going. Once the actual writing begins I can motor along fairly comfortably, averaging a few thousand words a day.

Tell us about your publishing experience.
I used to walk past the offices of Headline Publishing on the way to work and fantasise about being called there to a meeting one day. When my agent phoned and told me I had a deal with them, it was a surreal moment. Shocking and thrilling. I was standing outside a pub with the guys from work, a few hundred yards from the Headline building. It felt like my life had just jumped out of the tracks.

In what ways do you promote your work?
With any opportunity I try to decide whether it’s going to be more beneficial than spending the time writing. There are so many ways and so much time you can devote to it, that if you’re not careful you’ll find you’ve stopped producing any actual work. I’ve worked in media all my adult life and although it’s oft quoted it’s true nonetheless: the most powerful advertising is word of mouth. It’s human nature to share positive experiences. What matters most is creating the best experiences you can with the talent you have.

What are some of your current projects?
I’ve just delivered the sequel to ‘The String Diaries’ to Headline. It’s called ‘Written In The Blood’, and is out on 6th November. Now that’s done, I’m starting work on my third novel. It’s an idea I’ve had for a while, and I’m incredibly excited about it.

Where can my readers find you?
My website is  www.StephenLloydJones.com.
I’m on twitter as Stephen Lloyd Jones (@sljonesauthor).

This interview was first published at https://neverimitate.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/author-interview-stephen-lloyd-jones/

A little more about November's author...

Stephen Lloyd Jones

      

Stephen Lloyd Jones was born in 1973, and grew up in Chandlers Ford, Hampshire. He studied at Royal Holloway College, University of London, and now lives in Surrey with his wife, three young sons and far too many books.

His first novel, The String Diaries, was published by Headline in 2014. It was selected by Amazon as one of their top ten crime and thrillers of 2013. Translation rights to The String Diaries have so far been sold in six countries. A sequel, Written In the Blood, was published in 2015, also by Headline.
In 2016, Headline published his latest terrifying new thriller, The Disciple. 
 

‘A neo-gothic treat; original, richly imagined and powerfully told’ – The Guardian

‘[Jones] doles out his narrative revelations with patience, turning over his cards deliberately like a well-trained casino dealer’ – Entertainment Weekly

‘The String Diaries is terrifying, and deliciously so… a remarkably adept first novel..  a page-turner, all right, a sophisticated horror story that induces elemental terror.’ – NY Daily News
‘A gripping, multi-stringed thriller…The String Diaries is a page turner, and will keep you awake late into the night’  – SFX

‘You don’t see many debuts more ambitious and memorable than this one.’ – Booklist (starred review)

‘A big debut.. fast and furious.. Terrific stuff.’ – The Bookseller

‘Stephen Lloyd Jones has created a new mythology of the monstrous to rival Stoker’s or Shelley’s… this is a book of magic for the doubtful, a fantastic tale for skeptics, at once transporting and convincing. –  Andrew Pyper, author of The Demonologist

‘I have never read a book with such frenzied impatience. The String Diaries is unputdownable. Stephen Lloyd Jones has written a debut novel as frightening and layered as Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian and as clever and riveting as Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.’ -Benjamin Percy, author of Red Moon, The Wilding and Refresh, Refresh

‘I loved this book. –  Marcus Sakey, author of Brilliance

‘The String Diaries is an engrossing, mind-bending supernatural tale, and Stephen Lloyd Jones is as exciting a new voice as I’ve come across in some time, a writer who understands what makes the pulse race’ –  Michael Koryta, author of Those Who Wish Me Dead

‘Reading The String Diaries made me feel, in the best sense, like a child again. Nothing was more important than the fate of Stephen Lloyd Jones’s courageous and very human heroine Hannah Wilde. Meals went uncooked, bills went unpaid, as I waited to find out if she would win freedom for herself and her daughter against the forces of darkness. I was scared, enthralled and amazed by this stunning debut’ Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy

‘At once chilling and soulful, this hauntingly powerful tale weaves together the best elements of the psychological thriller, fantasy horror, and historical fiction. Stephen Lloyd Jones has penned a deeply inventive, dazzling debut novel’ Eliot Pattison, author of Edgar Award-winning The Skull Mantra

‘So gripping you’ll want to read late into the night; so terrifying you shouldn’t’ – Simon Mayo, the Radio 2 Book Club

Daring to delve into The String Diaries?

A family is hunted by a centuries-old monster: a man with a relentless obsession who can take on any identity.

 

The String Diaries opens with Hannah frantically driving through the night—her daughter asleep in the back, her husband bleeding out in the seat beside her. In the trunk of the car rests a cache of diaries dating back 200 years, tied and retied with strings through generations. The diaries carry the rules for survival that have been handed down from mother to daughter since the 19th century.

But how can Hannah escape an enemy with the ability to look and sound like the people she loves?

Stephen Lloyd Jones's debut novel is a sweeping thriller that extends from the present day, to Oxford in the 1970s, to Hungary at the turn of the 19th century, all tracing back to a man from an ancient royal family with a consuming passion—a boy who can change his shape, insert himself into the intimate lives of his victims, and destroy them.

If Hannah fails to end the chase now, her daughter is next in line. Only Hannah can decide how much she is willing to sacrifice to finally put a centuries-old curse to rest.

"The String Diaries is a neo-gothic treat; original, richly imagined and powerfully told."
 The Guardian.

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