by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’ve been doing a lot of writing today and I’m very pleased with what I’ve managed to come up with. These first few novels, as I keep saying, will have a lot to owe to Mare of Easttown. Even I am taken aback by how female-friendly from an audience perspective these novels may be. Or not. What the fuck do I know. I’m a middle aged white CIS male who should be neither seen nor heard.
But here we are, with me being my usual bonkers crank self, pontificating on shit I shouldn’t.
I’m working on the assumption that if I should actually manage to write the “break out” novel — which, in itself would be a miracle — that I will be canceled at some point soon after because my well documented views don’t always follow the media narrative. I believe what I believe and if you don’t like it, then fuck you. Wink.
But, like I said, I am pleased with how much heart these novels have. How much they at least try to accommodate the needs of the female audience. One thing I’m taken aback by is how this first novel is far, far more Mare of Easttown than the book that started all of this, The Girl Who Played With Fire.
At the moment, it really won’t be until the last two novels I’m working on, when we start what will hopefully be an open-ended thriller series, that the direct homage to Stieg Larsson’s work becomes obvious. But I have to make clear — I’m simply not as dark a write, by nature, as Larsson. I have used The Girl Who Played With Fire as my “textbook,” but it’s a real struggle for me to be as dark and serious as Larsson in, say, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
Anyway. I’m going to throw myself into writing, reading and development this weekend. That, at least, is the plan.
