Hello my wonderful readers and detectives. I’ve got the magnifying glass out and my notepad as Pip and Holly Jackson take over my blog this week. Today is one of two post for the blog tour of Good Girl, Bad Blood – the sequel to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.  I’m currently reading it and I’ll let you on to a little secret, I loving it even more than the first book and I can’t put it down.

Holly Jackson has to come to my blog to be part of my author series ‘In the Mind of an Author’ –  where I bring some of my favourite authors talking about their journey being a writer, what goes through their mind when they are writing their book, the places they write and much more. It can be anything they want to write about. We have an exclusive look into the mind of the detective creator herself. But before that, here is a little bit more about the second book – Good, Girl Bad Blood.

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson
Published by Egmont Books on April 30, 2020
Genres: Murder, Mystery
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The highly-anticipated and brilliantly crafted sequel to the bestselling crime thriller A GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER
Pip Fitz-Amobi is determined that the media won't rewrite the truth of the local murder case that she and Ravi Singh worked so hard to just recently solve. And so, she releases a podcast covering exactly what happened - and unexpectedly finding herself with a massive and passionate following.
When the six-year anniversary of the victims' deaths arrives, fresh from hearing the truth of her podcast, Pip's town decide to host a memorial. And the past, it seems, has finally been laid to rest. But when another young person goes missing, it turns out that Little KIlton is hiding more than one dark secret . . . and this time EVERYONE is listening to hear whether Pip and Ravi can find the victim, before it's too late.
Perfect for fans of One of Us Is Lying, Eva Dolan, C L Taylor, We Were Liars and Riverdale.

In the Mind of an Author with Holly Jackson

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was always intended as a standalone novel. So after I finished it, I moved on to writing another mystery thriller book, completely unrelated to AGGGTM and quite different. I finished that book just before AGGGTM was published, and it was only a month or so after publication that there were first mumblings about a potential sequel (mumblings from myself and others). The decision to go ahead with a second book was only made around summer 2019, which meant that we only had 9 months from agreeing a deal to the book being out in shops.

It’s lucky, then, that I like a challenge.

I didn’t, at that time, have a plot for book 2 because I’d never intended to write one. But luckily (very very luckily) past Holly had cut something out of book 1 that was unnecessary and bloating up the word count. This created a slightly loose end which I could now undo and build upon for the sequel. So, we owe this entire sequel to that small, fortuitous decision past Holly made. Thanks, past Holly.

So now that I had my way back in to this story, I needed to come up with my main mystery. As with AGGGTM, my main inspiration for GG,BB was the world of true crime podcasts. A while ago, I had made a note in my phone of a podcast episode about a case that I found fascinating (They Walk Among Us – season 1, episode 9, if you’re interested). I’d noted it down in case I could use it as inspiration for a future crime book. Well, sorry future crime book, now it belonged to Pip. That, along with another notorious criminal case from the UK, were the springboards for the mystery I built in Good Girl, Bad Blood.

And that’s where I started: at the end, with the solution to the mystery. I then had to work my way back and figure out how Pip would uncover this mystery bit-by-bit, and what clues I should release and when. I am 100% a plotter when it comes to books, so I didn’t start writing the first sentence until I had the entire plot laid out, scene-by-scene, on little revision cards. This stage, of writing down scene ideas and reshuffling the plot until it’s in the perfect order, are my favourite parts of the writing process.

But then I couldn’t avoid the next stage any longer: the actual writing of the book. I started drafting, I believe, in mid-August, and with a Halloween deadline this meant that time was already running out! To keep myself on track and avoid procrastination, I used a site called PaceMaker to track how many words I wrote in a day and how many I needed to in order to finish the book on time. I had to do a minimum of around 1800 words a day and at times it was a real slog! In that 12-week span, I essentially had no life other than Good Girl, Bad Blood, and had to give up all my plans and my weekends (and personal hygiene too). Every meal became cereal and I think my dressing gown started to fuse to my skin by the end. Not pretty. But I finished the book on time (1 whole day early, even) and then proceeded to sleep for a week. I think I’d earned it. 

Now I’m out the other side, I must say I’m not keen to repeat the experience of writing a book that quickly again, but I can look back on it as a huge achievement I can be proud of. It has still been a bit hectic since to get the book out on time, but now that we’ve arrived at publication, I’m so excited for this book I worked so hard on to be out in the world and to see what readers think!

Can you believe that AGGGTM was going to be a standalone. How a murmur can turn into a second book and BAM, 9 months later a sequel is released!

About Holly Jackson

Holly Jackson started writing stories from a young age, completing her first (poor) attempt at a novel aged fifteen. She lives in London and aside from reading and writing, she enjoys playing video games and watching true crime documentaries so she can pretend to be a detective. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is her first novel.

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As I said this is PART 1, so check back on Saturday with my review of Good Girl, Bad Blood. But in the meantime why don’t you follow along with the blog tour this week.