![]() Thank you very much for Rachel for inviting me to participate in the blog tour for this exciting middle grade mystery. Synopsis: Lady in Red Pursuing the truth can be a dangerous game… School’s out for the summer, and Eye Spy Investigations have a new case - looking for Lady in Red, a lost masterpiece by Victorian painter, Gabriel Pascoe. The clock is ticking for Alex and Donna, because the artist’s house, Acacia Villa, where their friend Jake lives, is due to be demolished, and vital clues may be destroyed. And Alex has an additional problem: he is terrified of snakes, and Jake has a pet snake called Queenie… As the twins pursue their enquiries, they come up against the man who wants to demolish Acacia Villa. But Mr Mortimer is the godfather of their baby half-sister, Sophie, and criticising him could open up family rifts, which have only just healed. Then Queenie goes missing, setting in motion a disastrous train of events that will turn the search for Lady in Red into the twins’ most dangerous case yet. Today we have a Q and A session with Tessa Buckley, the author of the Eye Spy Series! How long have you been writing? I started writing my own stories almost as soon as I could read, but as I got older, life got in the way, and by the time I was working in my first job, the writing tailed off. It was really only when my children were in full time schooling that I decided to start again. It’s definitely easier to write books when you are older and have more life experience to draw on.. Do you write non-fiction as well as novels? Soon after my first child was born, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. At the time, there were no treatments for the disease, but after I discovered the research that had been done on diet and MS, I changed my diet and improved my health dramatically. I then wrote a book about the benefits of nutritional therapy (The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book) and was lucky enough to find a publisher quite quickly. I now write a regular blog about food and MS, https://msandfood.org.as well as regular articles on the subject. What gave you the idea for the Eye Spy series? One day the voice of Alex, my teen detective, just popped into my head, and I heard him describe his life with his Nan, a school dinner lady, and his eccentric inventor father. It was only later that I realised that he and his twin sister, Donna, were inspired by memories of a brother and sister I knew when I was a child. It wasn’t difficult to choose a setting for the series either – a small seaside town - as I live in a seaside town myself, so it was familiar territory to me. What are your favourite hobbies? I do a lot of cooking, devising recipes for my blog, but I am also passionate about family history. I am hoping to write a book about my mother’s ancestors, a lot of whom ran successful coaching inns. I’m also researching my husband’s family, who have a very different background in mining, socialism, and trade union activism. What is it about writing that has given you the most enjoyment? When I am writing, I can escape into an imaginary world, just as I did as a child when I read Enid Blyton, or the Narnia stories. Today’s children are under a lot more pressure than my generation were, trying to navigate their way through a much more complex and uncertain world, and if my books can provide them with some enjoyable escapism in difficult times, then I will have achieved my goal. Purchase Links Lady in Red Amazon.co.uk paperback https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lady-Red-Tessa-Buckley/dp/1838591699/ Lady in Red Amazon.co.uk ebook https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lady-Red-Eye-Spy-3-ebook/dp/B081B54DPD Lady in Red Amazon.com ebook https://www.amazon.com/Lady-Red-Tessa-Buckley/dp/1838591699/ Lady in Red Ibooks https://books.apple.com/gb/book/lady-in-red/id1487451631?mt=11&app=itunes Lady in Red Matador bookstore https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/young-adult/lady-in-red/ About the author: Tessa Buckley was an inveterate scribbler as a child, and spent much of her time writing and illustrating stories. After studying Interior Design, she spent fifteen years working for architects and designers. She took up writing again after her young daughter complained that she couldn’t find enough adventure stories to read. This led, in 2016, to the publication of Eye Spy, the first in a series for 9-12 year olds about two teen detectives. There are now two more books in the series: Haunted, which was a finalist in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2017,, and Lady in Red. She lives by the sea in Essex and recently completed an Open University arts degree. Social Media Links – Website: https://tessabuckleyauthor.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tessa-Buckley-Author- Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4157057.Tessa_Buckley Thank you very much to Tessa for this guest post. Let's all wish Happy book-Birthday to Lady in Red!
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