Hello fellow book lovers!

Well, May has certainly brought with it sunshine and warm weather. Beautiful! I hope you’ve had time to sit in the sun and work on your TBR list as well as your tan.

Faulkes and Stone update: While book one of my crime series is done and awaiting round two of edits, book two is growing. At 57k words, I feel I’m on the home stretch, then it’s more editing and into the querying trenches.

“In the moments after a death, I often place my fingers on my neck and feel my heartbeat. It pulses so hard and fast, while the creature in front of me is still. Dead. Most death goes unnoticed; a spider crushed under a boot heel, a bird shredded by a cat, a deer hit by a car that limps into the undergrowth to die. I like being unnoticed.” - Love and Blood by S.J. Clarence (my pen name).

Introverted Indies is also taking a break but we will be looking to open up interviews at the end of May as well as introducing a new feature—mini interviews! So keep your eyes peeled!

AVA is only £2.99 for the ebook so don’t miss out on a bargain and its free on KU! Grab a copy here!

Current read: Nero by Conn Iggulden

Blurb:

ANCIENT ROME, AD 37
It begins with a man’s hand curled around another’s throat.
Emperor Tiberius first dispatches a traitor.
Then his whole family.
Next all his friends. It is as if he never existed.
THIS IS ROMAN JUSTICE.
Into this fevered forum, a child is born.
His mother is Agrippina, granddaughter of Emperor Augustus. But their imperial blood is no protection. The closer you are to the heart of the empire, the closer you are to power, intrigue, and danger.
She faces soldiers, senators, rivals, silver-tongued pretenders, each vying for position. One mistake risks exile, incarceration, execution. Or, worst of all, the loss of her infant son.
For Agrippina knows that opportunity waits, even in your darkest moments. Her son is everything. She can make this boy, shape him into Rome itself – the one all must kneel before.
BUT FIRST, THEY MUST SURVIVE . . .
This then is the story of Nero's birth and raising under the watchful and scheming eye of his mother Agrippina – a woman every man crossed at his peril.

An Interview with Suzanne Berget
Author of Let Slip the Beasts

Thank you for joining me at Indie Author Insight, Suzanne. Tell me a little about yourself and your writing journey so far.

I'm a bookseller and video game journalist from Oslo, Norway. I've been writing for what feels like forever, but Let Slip the Beasts is my first proper published novel. I have a few fanfics and short stories out there, and roughly 5000 texts about video games, haha.

Amazing. It must be helpful as a book seller to know what is selling well when it comes to promoting your own book. Tell me a bit more about Let Slip the Beasts.

Let Slip the Beasts, which is the first book in the Monstermorphosis series, is a near-future, dystopian scifi about a ragtag crew of escaped genetic experiments who are out for revenge against their makers. It's a fast-paced, action-packed and queer story brimming with feral women, eveil corporations and hot mutant men!

I think I've been writing some version of it since I was 17 (37 now), but if I only count actual proper dedicated writing it took somewhere around three years from beginning to publication. Some important themes are man vs society, man vs monster, identity and self. Some fun tropes are 'family to enemy', 'hurt her and die', 'cinnamon roll sidekick.'

Trigger warnings: Murder, torture, blood, gore, confinement, brainwashing

Sounds like a dystopian rollercoaster, exciting! What else are you working on at the moment?

I'm currently working on the sequel to Let Slip the Beasts, which I hope to have published some time next year. It promises to be bigger, better and brutaler than the first book. I also have an unnamed horror novel I'm tinkering with, but that one is in Norwegian.

Excellent, so fans have more dystopian fiction to look forward to. Can you tell me some of the highs and lows of your writing career and how you kept going? Being an author is hard work!

The best moment of my career so far has probably been receiving hand embroidered fanart from a reader! There have been many lows too. A lot of rejections. A lot of setbacks. I've had doubts about my skill as a writer. A lot of doubt about whether or not to even bother with a sequel. That kinda stuff. In those times I look at the fanart or read one of the few 5 star reviews my book has received and think to myself that I can't let those people down, haha. It's helped quite a bit!

As a book seller you must have some tips on marketing and getting your book out there. I know personally I find marketing a nightmare. I had promoting myself!

Aaaw jeeez, marketing! I hate it so much and I'm really terrible at it. But I think a smart thing to do is reach out to your local newspaper, if you come from a small town like me, and ask if they'd like to write something about you and your book. I got a full page in my hometown newspaper!

Also, do take advantage of readers and bloggers who run interviews like these or featured author spotlights and the like. You can get a lot of traction for free that way. But the best thing to do is to find a group of indie authors who are in the same boat and help each other out. More hands make for shorter work, as they say.

As a bookseller tho I would say that if you're trying to choose between social media platforms, choose Tiktok if you have the energy for it. Tiktok actually drives booksales and we can tell the very next day if a new book has taken off on Booktok, even in little Norway. But getting a book to take off on Booktok requires a lot of hard work and a lot of luck.

If you could go back in time and give one piece of advise to your past self, what would it be?

Don't query too early! I did that and it lead to a lot of unnecessary rejections and self-doubt. Also, your first draft doesn't have to be good, it just has to be. In fact, your first draft will probably suck, and that's totally okay! Editing is where the magic happens.

I totally agree with that. I’ve shot myself in the foot rushing to query and then regretting rushing in. And yes, the first draft is meant to suck but its down and you can make it better later. Do you have anything else you like to do when you’re not writing?

I obviously play a lot of video games! Currently, I'm playing Dustborn, Mineko's Nightmarket and Space Marine 2. When I'm not doing that I love to draw, especially characters from my book, make silly jewellery and sew clothes. I also love to go to pub quizzes!

Sounds like you’re super creative! Anything else you’d like to add?

My all-time favorite book is The Bees by Laline Paull. You should read it :D Also, if you like stuff like Resident Evil, Ginger Snaps, X-Men and Orphan Black, you should definitely check out Let Slip the Beasts!

Awesome. Thank you so much, Suzanne, for chatting with me at Indie Author Insight. You can find Suzanne’s book, Let Slip the Beast here and join her newsletter here.

Thank you for reading!

Lydia x