Do you have Second Sight? Interview With UK Author Paula Newcombe!

Hi Everyone! It’s hard to believe that we’re nearing the end of April already. As many of you know I’ve a few more author interviews scheduled at A Writer’s Mind before the promotional criteria changes. Be sure to click here to learn more.

This week it’s my pleasure to welcome UK author, Paula Newcombe.

SKY:   Welcome, Paula. Great to have you over to A Writer’s Mind!

PAULA: Thank you, it’s really good to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this for quite some time.

SKY:  Isn't it wonderful how we can 'cross the pond' so easily via the internet now? Tell us a little bit about you and your work.

PAULA: I am married with two young sons. After taking redundancy from Local Government last year (I was working as a Lean Thinking Consultant) I have changed careers completely and am now hoping to become a teacher for Surestart. I have been writing short stories for a number of years, English Literature and Language were my best subjects at School, writing essays was a joy for me. I have a creative mind and have always loved reading especially murder mysteries – Agatha Christie was one of my favourite authors when I was growing up. I loved the way she kept you guessing until the end who the murderer was and how she built up her characters. I was determined at some point in my life to write a proper novel, I even had an idea for a story which came from an American horror film I had watched many years ago. I kept thinking about characters for my story and how I wanted it to end. It was definitely going to be a murder mystery! It wasn’t until I was on maternity leave in 2006/2007 that I finally put pen to paper. However despite typing up all my notes I didn’t doing anything further about trying to get my story published until a friend at work told me about a Newwriter’s group. This was a group of author’s who had got together and published their work with great success. I went along to a few of their meetings and was pleasantly surprised. The members of the group were very helpful and encouraging. Julie (the Director of the Newwriters group) was an inspiration and encouraged me to get my story edited and published. I got the name of a good editor from one of the authors in the group and the names of two excellent designers who put together a very eye catching front cover. In September 2008 I had my book published and had a launch party with a few other members of Newwriters in Nottingham. It was very successful and I was very pleased with the end result – my story in print! I am currently writing my second Novel – “A Time to Die” and hope to have it published very soon.

SKY:  Good for you, Paula! I also decided to pursue penning my first novel upon pregnancy. Kudos to you for becoming published while raising little ones. No easy task!  I loved reading that you highly recommend that authors read their work aloud after writing. Great advice! Tell me, to whom did you first read your work? Was it yourself or did you have another step in to listen? How did it go?

PAULA:  I did re-read my story a number of times and sent various Chapters to be reviewed by other members of the Newwriters Group. This was extremely helpful and motivated me to keep going. I found the comments I received were very positive and some useful suggestions were given. It is important for someone else to give their views as being so close to the story you tend to overlook consistency errors and potential holes in the plot no matter how much re-reading you do!! I also found close friends will not give their honest opinions for fear of upsetting you which is really kind but not always helpful. I did find building the characters descriptions/personalities into the first few chapters was very useful and hopefully gains the reader’s interest early on.

SKY:   I agree with you, it’s best to get character descriptions/personalities put on the pages as soon as possible. It helps the reader ‘see’ who you’re talking about sooner. In my case, I always go after the color of the eyes and the main personality trait first. What about you? What sorts of character descriptions do you tend to focus on first when it comes to men and women alike?

PAULA: With me it’s the descriptions first (of both men and women) – I want the reader to build up a picture in their mind’s eye of the character’s then discover their personality traits fairly early on. I don’t like to reveal too much of the personality traits – it’s important to keep the reader guessing especially in a Murder mystery novel!

SKY:   Good point! You also talk of consistency being one of the main ingredients when writing a story. So true. Did you find that challenging when you first started writing? If so, what did you do to make sure that you kept in context?

PAULA: Yes consistency is SO important!! I did find it very challenging at first, to help me overcome this I kept notes of all my character’s and events that had happened to date. I still had some consistency error’s which my editor picked up on – a good editor is invaluable!!

SKY: Yes they are! I can tell already that your ghostly murder mystery, Second Sight is right up my alley. What was your main inspiration behind writing this novel?


PAULA: The inspiration was all of the great Murder mystery films I have watched – especially the televised Agatha Christie plots and Alfred Hitchcock thriller’s. I love a good twist in a story plus lot’s of suspense to keep me hooked. This is exactly what I wanted for my book which hopefully was achieved. 

SKY: What are you working on now? Any, “I can’t wait to share this!” novels forthcoming?

PAULA: Well as I said earlier I am working on another murder mystery called a Time to Die. It’s a bit more emotional than the first but still contains plenty of suspense and twists in the story.

SKY:  Sounds fantastic. Such a blast having you visit, Paula! You're welcome back anytime. Let’s leave off with your favorite excerpt bits from Second Site. Floor’s yours!

PAULA: This is one of my favourite’s “ Suddenly, without warning he rushed towards her. Sarah gasped, raised her hands to shield herself; waited for the attack. Felt nothing but a rush of cold air. She spun round but he was gone”.

Story Blurb

Sarah Miller seemed to have it all; she is an attractive young woman with a good career and deeply in love with Adam, her new husband, but when they move into their dream home everything suddenly changes. Sarah quickly discovers the house is haunted and has regular visions of a brutal murder that appears to have taken place in their very home only ten years ago. Her life is turned upside down.

Fearing she might be going mad and afraid to tell Adam in case he thinks so too, she tries to discover what really happened and seeks to identify the murderer. There are so many questions: why is she the only one who sees the ghosts and the gruesome visions? Does someone or something need her help and is she in danger herself? Time is running out as Sarah tries desperately to piece everything together before the Killer strikes 

again. But who is going to believe her and are the visions from the past or the future?

Read Some Five Star Reviews...

A novel that is intriguing, a murder mystery, a ghost story and a story of the foibles of human nature, which the main character and her best friend are both tempted, one falls for temptation with dire consequences for her spouse, which was excellently written with both points of view expressed.

The main plot line of the story is both original and exhilarating which at times makes the hairs stand up one the back of your neck, with its dark, enigmatic and disturbing narrative. A real page turner from start to finish, full of twist and turns which kept me guessing(and enthralled)right until the end of the book.

I would highly recommend this book and look forward to reading more from the author.

Amazon Review by D. Gething

Loved this book from start to finish. Loved the storyline so much sat reading until 3 in the morning on more than one occasion!! My mother also read Paula's book and was totally hooked! Hope there's more to follow - can't wait!

Published on 10 Mar 2009 by G.Hartshorn 

Not normally a reader of 'Thrillers' I was passed this book by a friend and decided to give it a go and was really pleased that I did. The storyline captured my interest from the off and kept me guessing the whole way through.

Second Sight was definitely a book which found me wanting to read more in order to reach the next twist in the storyline. Could not believe this was a debut novel and would definitely go out and purchase any other novel written by Ms Newcombe.

Purchase Second Sight at Amazon.co.uk.

Visit Paula at her Website.

Be sure to head over to The Write Life to meet another fantastic author and perhaps win a prize!

Best Regards,

~Sky