Origin Story
Strangely for a Christmas thriller, No Way To Live was born in Riyadh. There were no Christmas decorations to get me in the spirit, but Riyadh’s surface-to-air missile defences provided a form of seasonal fireworks display.
After my family left Jakarta in the summer of 2020, my wife and children, and our two adopted Indonesian street cats, moved back to England. I secured a job in an international school in Saudi Arabia. The idea was that from Saudi, I would travel back to the UK every holiday. Unfortunately, Covid meant it became harder to leave and reenter the Kingdom.
SURFACE to air missile defences
From September to December, I found myself locked down in a small, dark flat in Riyadh. I didn’t know anyone, and school was closed, so all lessons were taught virtually.
Occasionally, huge explosions made the sliding balcony doors in the flat’s living room shake – Riyadh’s ground to air missile defences destroying incoming Houthi missiles.
“Don’t worry!” the school’s security advisor would email out: “You’re safer here than you are in England!”
To keep my spirits up, I started watching Christmas movies and reading Christmas books from late October onwards.
Inspiration Strikes
All these books and films made me wonder if I could write a Christmas thriller, but with characters I would enjoy spending time with – even the antagonist.
I’d been playing with the idea of a crook walking away from his gang in order to help one of its intended victims, and had thought of setting the story in Portugal and Egypt. But it was November now. I’d been away from my family for two straight months. Feeling homesick, I set the book in the two places I know best – London and the Isle of Man.
Despite the dual settings, No Way To Live ended up being very much a London thriller, with a London gang’s encroachment into the Isle of Man being the spark that lights the plot. And it turns out that the key focus is on the relationship between Tom, who never wanted to be part of the gang, and Billie, who did – but for unexpected reasons. They grew up together, were practically brother and sister…except they weren’t. Their relationship is complicated. By walking away, Tom betrays Billie just when she needs him most.
Early mock-up of the front cover. In the end, I wanted something that hinted at Billie’s dual nature.
Writing a Christmas Book – Trade Secret
Writing advice about how to write Christmas stories, often suggests setting up a Christmas tree in the room where you write and playing Christmas music to get you in the mood. With none of the usual trappings of Christmas around me, I relied on Spotify and a YouTube video of a crackling log fire, but I had to be a bit careful – this was no cosy Christmas story, it was a Christmas thriller! More Die Hard than Love Actually, but with a dash of Love Actually thrown in for good measure.
My Spotify Christmas thriller playlist consisted of more abrasive tracks than a typical one – obviously the Pogues, but also songs I’d never heard before like Oi to the World.
Life, Delta and Other Projects Take Over
With nothing else to do, I wrote the first draft in six weeks, and then went home for Christmas. In the panic over the Delta strain of Coronavirus, I had to return to Riyadh via a two week stay in Bahrain. I started writing the urban fantasy trilogy I’d meant to write when I first went to Riyadh. No Way To Live went on the backburner.
I left Riyadh after only a year of my two year contract, and got a teaching job in Birmingham. It was a long commute and a busy, stressful job. I didn’t have much time to write, but I did manage to publish another novel – Do Not Keep Silent – which I’d written in the second half of 2019.
No Way To Live
But Billie, Tom and Katie lingered in my mind. I dusted their story off and added some more chapters to flesh out some other characters. No Way To Live became the title partly in testament to Billie, who’d forced herself out of the shadows into a major role in the book, and partly because she uses the phrase when talking to another character.
By the time I’d finished the rewrite, I had another idea for the characters. One foggy night, a young boy was stoned out of his face, and he could probably do with Billie’s help…
And so No Way To Live was written – all thanks to being stuck in a flat in Riyadh in teh run-up to Christmas.
Links
If you’d like to meet Billie and Tom, you can read No Way To Live — the first book in my Angel of the South series — on Kindle Unlimited for free, or for £2.99, available for preorder now, and released on 21st November.
If you like gritty London thrillers with heart, complex antiheroes, and you think Die Hard is the greatest Christmas film ever, you’ll love No Way To Live!
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