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One of my favourite songs is Nobody’s Hero, by Rush, about everyday acts of heroism so commonplace they slip under the radar. My hero and heroine are a British brother and sister you won’t read about in a corporate thriller or anywhere else. No one wrote songs about them, and even they would have accepted they were part of something bigger than themselves. Yet the freedom we enjoy today, men and women alike, is a direct result of the actions they took. It was the first anniversary of WW1 last year and it’s Women’s History Month right now, so I’m celebrating an ordinary man and woman who made history.

Harold and Jessica Bond were born in Wallasey, Merseyside, in the latter part of Queen Victoria’s reign. Their background was solidly middle-class and libertarian; a father who was Chief Clerk of the Mersey Docks and a mother who campaigned for women’s equality. Let’s remember that, for most of Victoria’s life, married women were nothing more than the chattels of their husbands and couldn’t own property in their own right. That had been addressed by the time Harold and Jessica arrived on the scene, but women still couldn’t vote and therefore had limited political influence.

It was natural that Jessica would become a suffragette, agitating for votes for women. Her sister Frances, twelve years younger, recalled Jessica encouraging her to chalk slogans on the pavement at the tender age of five. Jessica herself was quoted in the press as saying she chained herself to railings many times in demonstrations against the status quo. She was quite prepared to be arrested and almost disappointed when it didn’t happen.

While his sister was a suffragette, Harold was a soldier. Called up to serve in WW1 like so many of his generation, he died at the Somme in 1916. Only a few years before war broke out, he’d enjoyed his first and only foreign holiday; ironically, in France. He and another young man of about eighteen had taken advantage of a cheap ferry offer and explored the Calais area. The letters he wrote from Calais, and later from the front, were kept by his little sister Frances for many years. Even the war letters reveal gallantry; we all now know that conditions for the troops were far from pleasant, but Harold made his life sound very jolly indeed. Nearly a century later, my father, Frances’ eldest son, said he couldn’t bear to read them knowing what happened next.

Ultimately, Britain won the war and the suffragettes were successful. Our society would be very different, and not for the better, if that hadn’t been the case. Today, all men and women are free, not just to vote, but to contribute their skills for the good of all.

So those are my heroes: the soldier and the suffragette, proof that working together we can achieve great things. Who are yours? Tell me on my Facebook page and do like the page while you’re there!

Smoking’s bad for you, right? We all know it. More than 50% of the deaths in my corporate thriller Up In Smoke were caused by smoking. The World Health Organisation says tobacco kills half its users. While as a British crime writer, you might expect me to be drinking gallons of whisky surrounded by a blue fug of cigarette smoke, I’ll leave that to the gumshoes of legend. Strong coffee is a different matter, as I said in my blog two weeks ago.

In my younger days I smoked occasionally, enjoying the hit (confidence, clarity of thought, feeling like a superhero) without getting hooked. Only once did the spectre of addiction loom; when I thought “I could really use a cigarette right now; it’s exactly the time of day I had one yesterday and the day before.” That’s the moment I walked away. So many friends and family had spent years grappling with their nicotine addiction, and if you can’t beat it, the consequences aren’t pleasant (as Tony, the fast-living, womanising, tobacco boss discovered in Up In Smoke).

Why is it so hard to give up? Like any addictive substance, nicotine has physical withdrawal symptoms. The hit I received lighting up was a beautiful, positive blast of pleasure. Imagine the exact opposite; that all the joy, confidence and energy has been sucked out of your life, leaving you with the headache from Hell. On top of the physical symptoms, there are the psychological ones: missing your smoking breaks at work and the camaraderie of fellow smokers, fidgeting with your fingers when there’s no fag to hold, comfort eating.

So quitting’s not easy – but it doesn’t have to feel tortured and lonely. There’s lots of support out there, and No Smoking Day is proof of that. Run in the UK by the British Heart Foundation, it’s this Wednesday, 11^th March. There’s a wealth of resources and, importantly, encouragement from other smokers and non-smokers. I’m sure the timing is no accident, either. In the spring, days are lighter and it’s much easier to start a new initiative. New Year resolutions, made in the depths of winter, have a 90% failure rate – although I’m pleased to say that I’ve succeeded with mine so far (it was to blog once a week)!

Having a supportive buddy is one of the best ways to make changes, of course, in any area of life – not just smoking. Addicts who give No Smoking Day a miss will vastly increase their chances of quitting later if they hook up with a buddy to cheer them on.

A longer, healthier life, and more disposable income are such great goals, there’s no need to give up on giving up. With so many cessation methods available, even if one doesn’t work, another will. Hypnotherapy, e-cigarettes, nicotine gum and good old-fashioned willpower – all have their fans. The psychological blocks to quitting aren’t insurmountable either. The US site http://smokefree.gov/cravings has excellent advice for dealing with them, for example taking a deep breath and focusing on all the cash you’re saving. At £9 a pack, it adds up fast.

After all, the only winners from smoking are the Big Tobacco companies and, worse, the counterfeiters who make fake cigarettes. Thriller Up In Smoke, while humorous and entertaining (read this great review by Ron Askew), pulls no punches about the devastating effect of tobacco on its consumers. You can buy it here for as little as £1.99 – far less than the cost of a packet of cigarettes, and just possibly, the best investment you’ll ever make.

As a professional interim manager as well as a corporate thriller writer, I go to interviews a lot. Spring tends to be a busy time. The New Year has brought new budgets to spend, and employees follow up on their New Year Resolutions to seek a new job. If you’re one of them, what should you be doing?

The golden rule is a single word: preparation. Establish what you can bring to the employer and tie that into what they’re looking for. Other than that, turn up both on time and smartly and appropriately dressed. Be positive and know your worth. Try to be nice…stories about interviewees swearing at their interviewers on the tube, in car parks and elsewhere en route to the interview have gone viral recently.

These are the rules of the game and a good interviewee knows them. Interviewers, sadly, don’t always play by the rules. In my thriller After The Interview, poor Andrew does everything right for his interview at GardNet, but still fails to secure the job of his dreams. His interviewer, a man on the autistic spectrum, doesn’t appreciate Andrew’s worth and pays a terrible price for his mistake many years later.

After The Interview illustrates what good employers know (and what GardNet obviously didn’t) – an interview is a two-way street. Even when the economy falters, good candidates can afford to wait for the right job. At GardNet, the directors dismissed their bright Human Resources manager as “the HR bunny”. Is it any wonder they made enemies?

While I’ve never had an interview like Andrew’s, I‘ve had others that were interesting, to say the least. There was the recruiter who sent me to the wrong address, the interviewer who complained of hunger throughout our meeting (but refused food), the interview conducted by phone for a job to start the next day – the list goes on. Actually, I took the job after the last one, and it was a lot of fun. Sometimes, even after a less than perfect interview, you just have to follow your instincts.

Although I’ve never been motivated to take revenge, Andrew’s reaction in After The Interview is all too human – and a cautionary tale. You can read this “delicious tale of high-flying business” here.

 

British coffee used to have a dire reputation: boiled mud with a spot of milk. That’s changed, and it’s in the coffee shops of Birmingham, Bristol and London that I love to daydream and let my corporate thrillers grow. Although arguably the new coffee culture began with US giant Starbucks (let’s stick to the coffee and ignore their tax arrangements!), it’s the independents that are driving it now. So what’s the secret of their success?

Great coffee is a must, but other key ingredients in the recipe seem to be free wi-fi, room to talk and a high-footfall location. That appeals to a wide audience: businesspeople having meetings, friends catching up with each other, and freelancers like me, who are looking for a workspace with caffeine on tap. Delicious handmade food is a bonus, too – I suspect it doesn’t attract customers, but it keeps them there. The indie places understand all this. To them, one size does not fit all. Their food doesn’t arrive wrapped in plastic; they cook what they think people will like, and if they’re wrong, they try something different.

Coffee shops I’ve learned to love include the Boston Tea Party and Coffee #1 mini-chains (starting in Bristol, they now spreading the joy elsewhere) and fab Birmingham indies Yorks Bakery, Brewsmiths and the rather glam CD Coffee Lounge. Brewsmiths has a fantastic deal: unlimited filter coffee all day for £3 or tea for £2. They’re really supportive of writers too, with a regular book club and spoken word events. I love reading stories there to a live audience; there’s a real buzz about the place.

In London, I had a book party at the Haggerston Tearoom. Again, the combination of tea, cakes and books really hit the spot. Nuala, who runs the tearoom, appreciates that customer feedback is her most valuable asset. She seeks it out “Did you like that cake?”, and she listens to it. Her cakes are freshly-baked each day, with recipes tweaked in response to her customers. Obviously, it’s all about tea in Haggerston, with several sorts on offer. For coffee in London, I head to the Fleet River Bakery, not least for its ferociously fast wi-fi. It’s good for people-watching too, as gossipy lawyers and students like hanging out there.

While caffeine kickstarts creativity, it’s the other elements of coffee shops that bring stories into the world. Being able to relax, eavesdrop and daydream keeps me writing without shutting myself away in an office! This is especially valuable at the moment while I’m working on my third corporate thriller, and compiling an e-book of my short stories for the end of March. If you fancy a free copy of my e-book for the next time you visit your local coffee shop, sign up for my newsletter here.

As well as corporate thrillers, I love writing short stories; I’m about to pen a bespoke fairytale to raise funds for the Sue Ryder charity. They’ll auction it this week in their Whiteladies Road, Bristol shop and it’ll be written for the winning bidder’s child. I’ve just written a short crime story too – after the success of the Hearts of Darkness fiction night in Birmingham last week, I’m joining the Bristol Fiction Writers for their Hint of Crime festival in Foyles, Bristol on Saturday 21^st February. British crime author Sarah Hilary is also taking part, giving us a sneak preview of her new chiller, No Other Darkness.

I love meeting readers (let’s face it, I love meeting people!) but live fiction events offer more than that. They’re also a chance to tell a tale the way I want it to be experienced, with tons of dramatic pauses and tension. You can hear me reading a chapter from thriller Up In Smoke here. I promise you that, short as it is, my new story offers suspense and thrills aplenty, and I’ll be bringing them to life on Saturday.

The Bristol Fiction Writers are an interesting bunch, led by Bristol babe Suzanna Stanbury. Suzanna’s own fiction might seem a little schizophrenic: swashbuckling pirate tales for children, and much darker adult stories. Peek inside the Dark Imagined Bristol anthology on Amazon (did you know you click on a book image to look inside?) for a preview of the group’s style.

Foyles is a lovely bookshop, friendly to both writers and readers (they’ll happily offer you a free coffee if you buy a few books from them – how good is that?). Their event space is upstairs, near enough to bookshelves to browse if the fancy takes you but with plenty of chairs if you want to sit and listen. Best of all, the Bristolian writers are bringing great stories and a dash of theatrical style.

Chills, thrills and spills are guaranteed – so if you’re in Bristol this Saturday, what are you waiting for? Join us for this free event at Foyles, from 4-6pm.

STOP PRESS: the Foyles event was really good fun, with an appreciative and friendly crowd of readers. If you’d like me or a group of writers to read stories at your venue or event, please get in touch. Simply email aaabbottstories[at]gmail.com.