Anna Sayburn Lane

Thriller author

Events

January newsletter: reading recommendations and a creative New Year workshop

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I hope you’ve had a good festive break, whether you’ve been celebrating Christmas, Hanukka, Diwali or simply pausing in the depths of mid-winter. I enjoyed a cozy Christmas in Deal with my husband and parents, after a wonderful week’s writing retreat in Devon.

The course was tutored by historical novelists Anna Mazzola and Natasha Pulley. They helped eight of us work on our novels, from my 1920s murder mysteries to Regency romances and sea-faring adventures from the age of sail.

The staff at the 14th century farmhouse where we stayed pulled out all the stops for a celebratory Medieval Christmas Banquet, complete with music. Some of us made impromptu medieval costumes (see my attempt left) – it was a lot of fun!

On the last night we all read pieces from our work in progress and I’m pleased that the sneak preview of Death On Fleet Street went down very well. I’m working on edits this month, and hope to have it with you in February or March.

Thanks to everyone who wrote to say they enjoyed my Christmas short story, A Venetian Masquerade. If you’d like to know more about the inspiration for the story, including more about Venetian masks, take a look at my Substack post here.

Read on for recommendations, book news, a Creative January workshop, and a New Year promotion.

Stepping out: travels through words and song

Exciting news! Following the success of our summer seaside workshop, musician Katie Rose and I are back to offer a creative boost for January.

The singing and writing workshop is themed around travel and journeys, as we take our first steps into 2025. Expect travellers’ tales and songs, creative soundscapes and signposts for your own creative journey.

Stepping Out will be held upstairs at the Brown & Green Life Cafe in Crystal Palace Park, London SE20 8DS.

It takes place on Sunday January 26, from 10.30am to 4pm. Tickets are £50 (£40 concessions).

 

Death On Fleet Street

Death On Fleet Street is the fifth Marjorie Swallow book and it might just be my favourite yet. I began my journalism career in the 1990s, by which time most of the British newspapers had already left London’s Fleet Street, which was the hub of the newspaper industry for centuries. So it was wonderful to research the heyday of Fleet Street, when media barons like Lord Beaverbrook set up newspapers like the Daily Mirror, and the newspapers themselves were printed using linotype machines and hot metal.

I took a trip to the St Bride Institute’s printing workshop by Fleet Street (pictured) to talk to retired Fleet Street printers about how it all worked, and read some hair-raising memoirs and autobiographies of journalists from the street. I particularly enjoyed the autobiography of Lord Beaverbrook’s daughter Janet, which gave me plenty of ideas for my fictional media baron, the loathsome Lord Ravensbourne. I’ll share more about the research when the book is published.

That should be quite soon now – my copyeditor will be working on it this month and I’ll be sending it to beta readers very soon. You can pre-order here. You won’t be charged until the book is published.

Reading recommendations

Spring and flowers might seem a long way off, but Rosie Hunt’s new mystery, Murder At A Flower Show, will have you feeling spring-like in no time.

Lady Felicity Quick receives a peculiar invitation. A prestigious competition between British rose growers seeks celebrity judges, and Felicity is top of their list.

Despite a lack of interest in flowers, and after a spot of meddling by her beloved grandmother, Felicity finds herself surrounded by sweet-smelling blooms in the charming Devonshire village of Bickleford. And as romance blossoms, judging the flower show proves surprisingly enjoyable…

Until Britain’s most notorious rose breeder is found murdered behind the floral marquee — with Felicity’s own grandma as the prime suspect! Can Felicity unearth Bickleford’s secrets in time to save her grandmother? Find out here!

I’m also recommending two excellent novels by my lovely Arvon tutors:

  • Anna Mazzola‘s The Unseeing, about a lawyer drawn into investigating a murder in 1837 London. It’s based on a true life case, the Edgware Road murder, and asks why a convicted woman might not tell the secret that could free her…
  • Natasha Pulley‘s The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, a magical tale of clockwork, friendship and love in Victorian London. Who could resist a tale with a clockwork octopus and a replica Japanese village in Knightsbridge (astonishingly a real place)?

Free e-books for January

I’m taking part in the New Year Cozy Mystery giveaway promotion on Bookfunnel throughout January, where you can find dozens of mysteries to download.

Deal Music & Arts Festival

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William Shaw, Amanda Holloway and Anna Sayburn Lane sign books after the event.
I had a great time taking part in a panel on crime fiction at my local arts festival alongside author William Shaw. I’m a big fan of his books so it was thrilling to share a stage with him and journalist Amanda Holloway. We talked about devious crimes, how to create a scary villain, and why seaside locations in Kent make for particularly good settings for crime novels! There were some excellent questions and I had a lot of fun. This was the first year Deal has had a literary strand to its arts festival, so I hope we can all do it again next year!
Anna Sayburn Lane, William Shaw and Amanda Holloway on stage at the Astor Theatre

December newsletter: Helen Oddfellow in Granada, Dickens in Kent and Sherlock in London

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Work in progress
I’ve spent November in the fascinating city of Granada, in southern Spain. Not in reality, alas, but in my head. Granada is the wonderfully evocative backdrop for the next Helen Oddfellow adventure.

I visited in January and fell in love with its hidden alleyways, Arab-style architecture and multi-layered history. I couldn’t resist sending Helen there – but she doesn’t get the relaxing break she was hoping for! She’s soon on the trail of the legendary Book of Nothing, hidden at the time of the book-burnings in the medieval city and reputed to hold dangerous, ancient knowledge…

I decided to write the first draft of the novel in a month-long daily writing sprint, which is a new writing method for me. It was a challenge, but I wrote 50,000 words, around 2,000 words a day with two days off. It’s a very messy first draft, but it gives me a great base to work from.

Dickens in Kent
From Helen in Granada, to Charles Dickens in Kent. Dickens inspired my latest novel Folly Ditch, so I spent a lot of time researching his life. This month I’m giving two talks to local history groups about Dickens’ Kent connections.

Did you know Dickens was caught up in one of the first train crashes? He was travelling in the Folkestone to London boat train (the train that met the boat from France) when it derailed on a viaduct in Staplehurst, Kent. Dickens was in a carriage that was stuck half-on, half-off the bridge, and scrambled out to help other passengers. Eight people died and many more were injured. Afterwards Dickens – incredibly – climbed back into the carriage to rescue the manuscript of his work-in-progress, Our Mutual Friend. Even more intriguing, Dickens was not travelling alone, but with Nellie Ternan, now thought been his mistress. Disasters can unmask secrets, however well hidden.

I’ll be talking about Dickens at Deal’s Astor Theatre on Thursday 15 December, as part of the regular The History Project evenings. Tickets here.

Recommendations: what I’m enjoying now
One fictional character that no-one seems to get tired of is Sherlock Holmes. I enjoyed the latest outing for Sherlock and friends, Netflix’s Enola Holmes 2, which gives us the further adventures of Sherlock’s younger sister Enola, who wants to beat her big brother at the detecting game.
Enola, daughter of an undercover suffragette with a nice line in pyrotechnics, investigates the disappearance of a match girl from a factory where an outbreak of ‘typhus’ is killing off the workers. The film is great fun if you fancy a winter evening lounging on the sofa.
I’ve also discovered another enjoyable Sherlock spin-off. Liz Hedgecock’s A House of Mirrors puts Holmes’ landlady Mrs Hudson centre stage as a redoubtable sleuth in her own right. But is she really Mrs Hudson? Not everything is as it seems in this clever introduction to the series. I’ll be back for more.

History and Mystery promotion
Talking of series, my Helen Oddfellow series is part of the History Crime And Mystery Series promotion with Bookfunnel this month. The promotion is a great way to discover your new favourite series. Find out more here.

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November newsletter: News on my next book, spies in Canterbury and Christmas books

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Work in progress

I’ve been plotting out the next Helen Oddfellow mystery – and it’s time to start writing. I’m taking part in NaNoWriMo, the mad month where writers try to complete a 50,000 word novel in November. The idea is to push myself to get a first draft down on paper. Follow me on Twitter @BloomsburyBlue to see how I get on!

Murder, mystery and spies

I had fun guiding 30 enthusiastic visitors around the beautiful city of Canterbury on my Marlowe, Murder and Mystery tour in October. We visited places connected with the playwright Christopher Marlowe, who inspired my novels Unlawful Things and The Crimson Thread. The city centre is full of Elizabethan-era buildings, and we started at the church where Marlowe was baptised in 1564 (number 10, St George’s, on the map below). We also visited the building where Queen Elizabeth I stayed, before Marlowe joined Her Majesty’s Secret Service…

Would you like to join me next time? I know not everyone can get to Canterbury, so I’m offering a free online tour, on Tuesday November 15 at 20:00 GMT. Please register so I know how many to expect.

Registration here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/christopher-marlowes-canterbury-online-tour-tickets-457056206417

1560 map of Canterbury
A 1560 map of Canterbury

My walk was part of the excellent Canterbury Festival, which brings together musicians, artists, performers and writers for two weeks of arts events. I enjoyed an entertaining talk on women and espionage, by the spy writer Nigel West. Did you know that the Canterbury playwright Aphra Behn, one of the first women playwrights, was a spy for King Charles II, back in the seventeenth century? There must be something about Canterbury writers that makes them into good spies!

Recommendations: what I’m enjoying now

I heard crime writer Dorothy Koomson talk at the Fatal Shore crime writing festival recently and couldn’t resist her latest novel My Other Husband. It’s tense, twisty and tremendous fun. The heroine is a successful crime writer, author of The Baking Detective series. When people around her start dying in ways that resemble the crimes in her books, she thinks she knows who it is – but how can she clear her name?

I’ve been diving into some old movies recently. I enjoyed the wit and style of the 1960s spy thriller The Ipcress File, starring Michael Caine and based on the Len Deighton book. It’s very much of its time, but just the thing for a dark autumnal evening.

Offer: Christmas book bundles

What could be more Christmassy than a set of signed books by your favourite author? I’ll be signing and sending out a limited number of book bundles in December. If you’d like to buy one, two, three or all four books, signed with a dedication of your choice, drop me an email on hello@annasayburnlane.com and let me know which books you’d like. First come will be first served. The cost will be £9 per book plus postage. Sorry, but because of postage costs this offer is UK-only.

Have a great November, and happy reading!

Signing books at my local bookshop

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Photo of Anna signing books in the Deal BookshopAfter more than two years of online events, it was lovely to be invited to sign copies of my books at the Deal Bookshop in my home town of Deal, Kent. I had fun chatting to friends and customers who dropped by to pick up a copy of Folly Ditch, my latest Helen Oddfellow mystery thriller. It’s a friendly place and quite the social hub on a Saturday afternoon! Thanks to David for inviting me, and to all the staff for their help.