Saturday 4th Feb 2022
I am currently reading one of Val McDermid’s books, Out of Bounds, in the Karen Pirie series. For once I don’t have masses to do today, and Mike is planning to watch the rugby all day, so dream of dreams, I might sit and finish it off this afternoon. What I’m loving is the strong female character, Karen Pirie. She’s a police person, working up in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and all around the Firth of Forth. The books are complex, but it’s her I love. The extremely sharp dialogue and characterisation, that plumbs the depths of motivation and mood! And of course misery, pain etc
What made me want to write about this book is that, like the rest of the country, we are also watching Happy Valley, on TV. And again, what is so refreshing is the strong female lead. Deeply flawed, not classically attractive, except that she’s strong and honest, a tour de force, and the dialogue is brilliant. Sally Wainwright wrote and created the series. We need more characters like this in our writing.
I am in awe of these two writers, no question. Anna Maybury, my leading character is also flawed and struggling, and it’s what I wanted to write about, what I am drawn to. She is a weak/strong female lead. Weak in that she is insecure and undecided, strong in the fact that she ploughs on regardless, which is often the strength of women, though not exclusively so.
Both of the first two books can be ordered from any bookshop, or from Amazon. Watching You Fall, Falling Tide and the last, (for now), in the series, Saving Me will hopefully be published in September.
