Peter May Archives - Trisha Sugarek, Author, Playwright & Poet

Review of A Silent Death by Peter May

4 out of 5 quills Book Review

Peter May weaves a wonderful tapestry of murder in his upcoming offering of The Silent Death. Set in sunny Spain, the author takes the reader onto the narrow, dusty streets of small towns perched on the cliffs of the Mediterranean. His authentic descriptions are based on his personal experiences. (Did you see my interview with Peter?) The author ‘winters’ in Spain every year.

This reviewer does not write spoilers. But I will say that May’s story and the spectacular subplots takes the reader into the world of darkness and silence of people afflicted with deafness and blindness. The reader comes to deeply care about the character, Ana and the danger she knows she’s in but cannot hear or see it. And learning about ‘touch sign language’. Something which I had never heard of

but found extremely fascinating.

May always delivers, bringing the reader into a complex story of true crime and law enforcement.
I highly recommend this book to my readers.

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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Dervla McTiernan – January: David Poyer, March: Olivia Hawker, April: Dan Sofer
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Cast Iron by Peter May ~~ A Review

5 out of 5 quills A Review

Flawless writing! Some writers have simply got IT! Peter May is one of those.

Cast Iron is proclaimed to be the final episode in the Enzo Files. Years ago Enzo Macleod was challenged/dared to solve seven cold case murders. This one was the toughest of them all because the original evidence (which there was damn little to begin with) was flawed. Macleod must unravel what happened years before in the long dead dynamic of the victim’s family and friends. Powerful people want to thwart this detective’s efforts at all costs and it gets very personal.

Another aspect that this reader really enjoyed was getting to know Macleod’s personal life without it intruding into the murder plot. The subplot is masterfully accomplished.

Let’s hope it isn’t the acclaimed finale to the Enzo Files!

Did you miss my Interview with Peter May?
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? September: Dylan Callens. October’s author is Donna Kauffman. In November we say hello to Rita Avaud a Najm.

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Entry Island by Peter May ** A Review

5 out of 5 quills A Review Peter May has done it again and we should hold a parade because Entry Island is being released in the USA September 15th.
A bustling murder mystery to be sure…but as Sime Mackenzie is called to the crime scene he experiences an almost debilitating deja’ vu.

Detective Mackenzie is haunted by the certainty that he knows the widow of the murdered man, even though rationally he knows he’s never seen her before, in this lifetime. His dreams are filled with a time long ago when he, as a young man, witnessed and then fled the ‘clearances’ in the Highlands of far off Scotland.

Being a historian buff at heart, I adore any story that tells me a tale about a time that I was not so aware of…. Continue reading “Entry Island by Peter May ** A Review”

My Interview with international best selling author, Peter May (part 3)

CANADA! Peter May is headed your way. Don’t miss it! http://www.ur-web.net/PeterMayMain/tour2014.htm

Q. How do you get from ‘finished’ book from ‘no book’? (continued)

A. When I am happy with my outline, I can see what and where I still need to research. I make a list of all the locations in the story and I make a point of visiting every one of them. A sense of place is very important in my books, whether it is France, China, or the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. I never write about a place if I haven’t been there. I like to go and take video of the locations, making notes about what sort of things strike you when you are there – the heat, or cold, the smells etc.
When I get back from my location research I will make a short video of each location that I can replay when I am writing the scenes that are set there. Sometimes visiting the locations will cause me to have to change the story outline. I make any changes necessary, then I am ready to write.
Writing the actual book is probably the most difficult and least enjoyable part of the process. I want to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. I adopt a very strict routine that absolutely nothing is allowed to interfere with.
I get up at 6 am, take my breakfast to my desk, Continue reading “My Interview with international best selling author, Peter May (part 3)”

Part 2 of my Interview with Peter May, best selling Author

Q. When did you begin to write seriously? (con’t.)

I wrote stories all through my teenage years and at the age of 18 I finished my first serious attempt at a novel. I sent it off to Collins Publishers and of course received a rejection letter. The editor who wrote to me took trouble and care to reply to me, saying of my writing: “…we do like it. It has a direct and emphatic narrative style and has an oddly memorable – even idyllic flavour about it. We feel you ought to go on writing, and would like to see anything you write in future – which may not sound very much, but is, I can assure you, a great deal more than we say to 95% of the people who send in their typescripts!”

Those words stayed with me all my life. And there’s an amazing coda to this story, because that very editor, a writer named Philip Ziegler, recently wrote the definitive biography of Lawrence Olivier which was published by Quercus, the publisher of my own books. My editor at Quercus was able to arrange a meeting for me with him, and 42 years later I came face to face with the person whose words of encouragement all those years ago, gave me the incentive to stick with my writing and keep trying.

Q. How long after that were you published? Continue reading “Part 2 of my Interview with Peter May, best selling Author”

Interview with International author, Peter May (part I)

Peter May, best selling international author, granted me an interview. I was very excited as his newest in The Lewis Triology was released September 1st. Through this process his wife, Janet, and I have become new friends. Starting this month they will be on a book tour in the US…..more about that later. Read my review of The Lewis Man.

Q. Peter, where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?

A. I live in France and spend my winters in Spain. In France I live in a two hundred year old, stone-built farmhouse. It’s a pretty rambling place on three levels. It’s in the middle of France and very far from the sea. In Spain I live in a much more modern apartment with sea views. And in both places I have a study. As you’ll see from the pictures, the set up is pretty much the same in each place. I travel with my laptop between the two locations and link it to two extra computer screens. I like to have as much screen space as possible, that way I can have the file I’m writing in open, together with all my research files, and any research video that I’ve taken.

Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.) Continue reading “Interview with International author, Peter May (part I)”

Book Tour *** Best Selling Author, Peter May

TODAY begins Peter’s USA Book Tour in NYC. Peter will be signing books and meeting his fans in NYC 9/2; Boston 9/3; Minneapolis 9/4; Houston 9/6; Denver 9/8; Salt Lake City 9/9; Oakland 9/10 and Seattle 9/12 and 9/13. For a complete schedule and more info go to:
http://www.ur-web.net/PeterMayMain/tour2014.htm

Did you see my Review of The Lewis Man?

Don’t Miss My Interview with Peter May starting September 6th.

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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS!

In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create! Peter May will be my September author.

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‘The Lewis Man’ by Peter May…a Review

Five out of five quills
A REVIEW The Lewis Man by international best selling author, Peter May

Peter May writes in black and white. I rarely see ‘color’ in his books….and that’s high praise.

He plunks me down in the stark, forbidding Outer Hebrides, a group of islands northwest of Scotland and bared to the North Atlantic Sea.
“A sky torn and shredded by the wind. A sky that leaks sunlight in momentary flashes to spill across dead grasses where the white tips of bog cotton dip and dive in frantic eddies of turbulent air….” ( prose at its best!)

After reading about the people settled there one wonders why they stay. And that is at the core of why his characters are so intriguing and entertaining. There is little soil on these rocks jutting out of the sea. And trees for shelter and fuel? Forget that. But peat bogs flourish and provide fuel for heat in the oldest tradition of the Gaelic world. When a body turns up in a bog the remains could be a month old, several decades old, and in some instances, centuries old.

As I’ve mentioned before I’m not a reviewer who fills the page with a synopsis of the story. For me, the reader, it spoils it to be given the plot on a plate. Continue reading “‘The Lewis Man’ by Peter May…a Review”

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