‘Hooked on my grandmother’s horror anthologies at 12, writing at school about vampires… how I grew up to be an accountant I don’t know!’

There are so many book club groups on Facebook, and loving reading as I do, I belong to several of them – and it’s amazing just who you meet.

Established authors like Adele Parks, Jenny Colgan and M W Craven, to name just three of my favourites, often take part in online group chats – not only about their own novels but joining in about any topic that takes the group’s fancy. For instance, one particular group has a random question of the day feature, and a “Which book character would you fall in love with in real life?”. For the record I was rather partial to Dirk Pitt in the Clive Cussler series.

The other day, I started chatting online to Jane Badrock, an author published by a small independent publisher, and the chat came around to where we live. I discovered that one of Jane’s daughters lives in Bishop’s Stortford and that Jane herself lives in a local village. So we arranged to have coffee.

Jane, who used to be an accountant for a charitable organisation, is now a full-time writer and chose an independent publisher purely on the strength of the name.

“Bad Press Publishing seemed to fit so well with my name that it seemed meant,” she laughed, and she’s right: Bad Press is one of those names difficult to forget.

Sinister Sisterhood was the result, with Jane’s heroine Elle becoming an eco warrior hunting the hunters hunting the tigers. It is an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek take on conservation.

But how did she make the transition from accountant to full-time writer?

“Well, having been made redundant, I’d always wanted to write, and I started writing short horror stories. To my delight, one of my stories was accepted for the Twisted 50 series (volume two).

“My grandmother used to have loads of horror anthologies on her bookshelf, and when I was 12 I was hooked by them. At school I was always writing about adventurers, vampires and ghostly ghoulies. How I grew up to be an accountant I don’t really know!”

Honing her skills, Jane has now moved on to my favourite genre: detective stories.

In her first novel, Comatose, featuring Detective Sergeant Karen Thorpe, Jane has created an unforgettable character. Blunt, to the point and given to offending practically everybody, including young Macy, who has the (mis)fortune to be training under her, Karen is desperate to make her mark in the murder world.

Karen Thorpe’s second outing is Three Little Girls and we can now see how much better she has become at sleuthing.

Jane has now switched publishers to the equally well-named Question Mark Press, and her third novel is The Ice Maiden. No Karen this time, but maths student Maddie, who has only three weeks in which to find out who is trying to kill her.

And watch out for The Woman Who Knew Faces, another Karen Thorpe outing coming soon.

All of Jane’s novels are available on Amazon and you can follow her, Jane Badrock Author, on Facebook.

Lucifer’s Game by Cristina Loggia (Lume Books)

Coincidentally, the other day I received another independent publishing company novel. This time from Cristina Loggia, whose wonderful Lucifer’s Game is high in the Amazon download charts.

Set in Italy in 1942, Cordelia (love that name), a young and determined hotelier, has to hide her Jewish identify when she’s surrounded by the most ruthless Fascist leaders as Mussolini takes control.

She goes to great lengths to help the British by going undercover and leaking military secrets, hoping against hope that somehow she can escape and secure safe passage out of Italy.

Grippingly written, this is a Second World War spy thriller full of intrigue.

The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson (Hodder £19.99)

I absolutely loved loved loved this heart-warming blend of fiction and fact.

In 1944 London, Bethnal Green Underground station hadn’t been finished and so didn’t actually run eastbound to Liverpool Street. So when Londoners began using the Underground as bomb shelters, Bethnal Green was an obvious choice.

Clara Button was a librarian in the Bethnal Green library in the grounds of Barmy Park (husband always used to talk to me about playing in Barmy Park as a child, but had no idea why it was called that). Kate’s meticulous research explains that the library stands on the grounds of an old asylum, hence Barmy Park.

With the building blown to pieces, Clara takes the library underground, and in the space of a few weeks Bethnal Green is transformed with a theatre, nursery, café, medic stations and, of course, the library.

With the help of Clara’s best friend, the very glam Ruby, the library becomes the focus of the women of the East End, who live their lives underground. Clara institutes storytime for the children, a book club and manages to get everyone reading, including taking away the stigma of reading “romance” novels.

But it’s not just a story about a library – it’s a wonderful work of faction combining Clara and Ruby with human interest stories, standing up for women’s rights and throwing in the way in which the casual violence of some of the husbands keeps “women in their place”. There are love interests too for both Clara and Ruby.

Interestingly, Gone With the Wind and Forever Amber make an appearance on publication. The author has such empathy with her characters and, through her research, has unearthed such fascinating unknown facts which, coupled with the way in which she weaves her faction, make The Little Wartime Library a compulsive read.

I stayed up all night finishing this totally enthralling read – I adored it.

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