#Guestpost: The Silent Woman by Terry Lynn Thomas @TLThomasBooks @HQDigitalUK

Delighted today to bring you news of a forthcoming new release from Terry Lynn Thomas: The Silent Woman is published on 11th April by HQ Digital, and is available for pre-order. I very much like the look of her books – although I can’t fit this one in for a review by publication date, I’ve added it to my reading list so I can catch up later. Here’s the book description – see if it captures your imagination the way it did mine…

Would you sell your secrets?

Catherine Carlisle is trapped in a loveless marriage and the threat of World War Two is looming. She sees no way out… that is until a trusted friend asks her to switch her husband’s papers in a desperate bid to confuse the Germans.

Soon Catherine finds herself caught up in a deadly mixture of espionage and murder. Someone is selling secrets to the other side, and the evidence seems to point right at her.

Can she clear her name before it’s too late?

It’s a real pleasure to welcome Terry Lynn as my guest on Being Anne, to tell us more about her books and writing…

Like most writers, I had a passion for books, stories, and all things gothic from an early age. My grandmother and I used to watch the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows in the 1960s. It scared me, but I liked it. (I know, I’m dating myself.) I always held a secret dream of writing professionally, but real life got in the way and writing went by the wayside. My love of books and reading did not. I had a taste for the gothic mysteries of the early twentieth century—the books with the covers depicting a woman running across the moors in her nightgown.

For some reason, those were the books I reached for when I was looking for something to read, long after these books were popular. I mined used bookshops for them, collected them, and read them over and over. These stories, coupled with my love of writers such as Mary Stewart, Agatha Christie, Patricia Wentworth, and Dorothy Eden influenced my writing in so many ways. I love mysteries, especially those written by British authors. When I set out to write in earnest, I wanted to pay homage to these great writers of the past and this specific style of writing.

This idea gave birth to the Sarah Bennett Mysteries, which are set in San Francisco during the 1940s. Told in the true gothic tradition, Sarah Bennett is a medium whose family thinks she is mentally unstable. The first book in the series, The Spirit of Grace, introduces us to Sarah just as she is coming home after spending a year in a mental hospital.

The next two books in the series, Weeping in the Wings and Neptune’s Daughter—which just won an Indie B.R.A.G. medallion—follow Sarah as she discovers who she is and how she can use her “gift” to help people.

I really loved writing and researching the Sarah Bennett stories. California was a hub during the Second World War. Thousands of troops flooded into the area, and ship builders sprang up in the Golden Gate due to its proximity to the Pacific Theater. Workers came west seeking good jobs. I spent a large part of my career working in San Francisco, and it was really easy for me to imagine what life must have been like during the war when the City was abuzz. My intention was to bring San Francisco during the 1940s to life for my readers and to honor my favorite gothic writers.

My new series takes place in Britain during the time leading up to World War II and features Cat Carlisle. Cat is a thirty-seven year old woman stuck in a loveless marriage. She is reckless, inconsistent, and puts way too much stock in her intuition. She’s miserable at home and her husband is dead set against getting a divorce. The Silent Woman is set in the summer of 1937, a time when divorce was grounds for social ruin, no matter how influential your family. Cat’s husband has an illustrious career as an engineer. His designs have landed his company a top-secret project. When Cat discovers that someone in her household is taking her husband’s work and feeding it to the Germans, Cat agrees to switch the documents in an attempt to thwart the unknown spy in her home. Thrust into a cloak-and-dagger world that Cat only read about in novels, she sets out on a course to help her country and in the process, goes on a journey of self-discovery. I see an interesting road ahead for this character.

Thanks for letting me introduce Cat Carlisle and Sarah Bennett to your readers.

Thank you Terry – wishing you every success with The Silent Woman, and I’ll very much look forward to getting to know Cat Carlisle.

About the author

Terry Lynn Thomas grew up the San Francisco Bay Area, which explains her love of foggy beaches, windy dunes, and gothic mysteries. When her husband promised to buy Terry a horse and the time to write if she moved to Mississippi with him, she jumped at the chance. Although she had written several novels and screenplays prior to 2006, after she relocated to the South she set out to write in earnest and has never looked back. When she’s not writing, you can find Terry Lynn riding her horse, walking in the woods with her dogs, or visiting old cemeteries in search of story ideas.

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