Queen Crimson

Emma Louise Jordan is the latest of the Poolbeg Crimson ladies to publish a novel of ‘Romantic Suspense’, the idea being to take the best of chick lit and crime fic and create a commercial genre mash-up. Which is more or less what I tried to do with THE BIG O, and failed spectacularly to do so, very probably because I thought having a hormonally challenged flirty-something gal as one of the main characters would ‘do’ for the chick lit bit. Ah well, you live and learn.
  Anyway, Emma Louise Jordan’s novel is called BEYOND SIN, with the blurb elves wittering thusly:

The picture-perfect O’Neill family is both admired and envied, near and far. But in the week leading up to Andrea O’Neill’s high-profile society wedding, life-changing trouble is suddenly brewing and sinister cracks begin to show in the previously solid foundations of the O’Neill household.
  When the bride’s angelic sister Jessie disappears from the wedding reception and is still not found days later, the finger of blame switches from person to person as the hours before her vanishing are scrambled together in a jigsaw full of missing pieces.
  Could Jessie have been living a double life, unknown to those who love her? And could anyone hate her so much that they would make her suffer the ultimate punishment for her dreadful secret sin?

  I’m saying Yes to Jessie having double life, and Yes to someone hating her that much, but I’m guessing that some gal in the book (probably not Jessie; possibly Andrea) has the kind of smarts and hidden depths that will allow Jessie to escape the ultimate punishment. Or not, depending on how unconventional Emma Louise Jordan is about her romantic suspense.
  Is it any good? Well, they liked it over at the Irish Independent …

Poolbeg: Putting The ‘Crim’ Into Crimson

You know things are all a-stir in the Irish crime fiction world when Poolbeg – the home of all things glittery, shiny and chick literary – dip a toe in the ‘psychological drama genre’. The first of their ‘Poolbeg Crimson’ line is GUARDING MAGGIE by Ellen McCarthy, with the blurb elves wibbling thusly:

Maggie walked into her yard and found a strange man standing there, with her dog walking circles around him. Maggie has lived at home all her life with only a brief stay in Scotland and Dublin. She cares for her elderly mother and older brother Pascal, who has controlled and dominated every aspect of her life. After Pascal’s suspicious death from an apparent asthmatic attack, secrets from the past start to emerge and Maggie discovers someone is watching her every move. Maggie thought she had control of her life for the first time in over forty years after Pascal’s death but now she’s more scared and alone than ever. All her life her family have sheltered her from the outside world. But who is guarding Maggie now?

Ooooooh, spooky. Incidentally, the novel is set in rural Donegal, which is where Brian McGilloway and Paul Charles have set their recent novels. Will there be anyone left alive to be murdered in Donegal by the end of the summer? Only time, that notoriously loose-lipped doity rat, will tell …