Lovers of horror and the darkly gothic, rejoice! ‘Night Of All Evil’ is Jean Shorney’s up and coming thriller, so if you enjoy a little guts with your bloody fiction, watch this space for the release. Some of the scenes are quite horrific, though lovers of crime thrillers should enjoy the book also! You may already know about some of Jean Shorney’s bestselling novels to date, including ‘Progeny of a Killer’ and ‘Stalking Aidan’ but the story behind her journey to writing these books is just as fascinating…

Jean lives in a country village in West Berkshire, though grew up in the heart of the Berkshire Downs. Her father and aunt were both psychic: Jean explained that her father often saw dead people when he was a boy, and her aunt had premonitions which usually came true. Their home was a big Georgian house with a ghostly atmosphere. Inspired by her father’s stories, Jean wrote her first novel at only eight years old, and told us that recollecting the story reminds her of Edgar Allan Poe. Nowadays, Jean finds inspiration from listening to music whilst writing (specifically old country, rock and some hymns). After suffering a tragic bereavement, Jean is back to writing; in the last three years she has had five novels published, and there is only more to come! Jean has been influenced by paranormal phenomena since her childhood, and this developed her interest in the Occult. ‘Night Of All Evil’ is her homage to the writers, Dennis Wheatley and Elliot O’Donnell.

We’re afraid to say that you will have to wait until tomorrow to read more into the story when we will post a synopsis, but until then we have interviewed the author to find out more about the novel and its meaning. Jean told us that she wanted to prove the characters’ relationship in ‘Night Of All Evil’, here’s how she put it… “I suppose the bare bones of the story deals with the love between two people, Nick and Freya Monroe. For Nick, a down-to-earth fighting man (he’s done several tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan), he sometimes has difficulty coping with his wife’s mediumistic powers. The spirits contact her at the most inopportune moments. While she is ephemeral, torn between two worlds, Nick is rather gung-ho. He prefers to use a gun or his fists rather than crosses and Holy Water. The gentle woman and the one-eyed war hero seem totally incompatible, but their love is so strong that I’ve strived to show this throughout the book.

Jean also explained some of the surprising elements of these characters that you may not expect: Freya can detect a killer simply by shaking their hand, as she did with Nick when they first met. An electrical charge runs up her arm when someone has blood on their hands. Nick is haunted by an encounter in a bombed out Afghan hotel, when he led his men to discover a young couple making love. During the thick of the fighting, the men thought the couple were Taliban and opened fire, killing the couple. It’s a nightmare he’s lived with ever since. Nick and Freya met in New York when Nick and his sister attended one of Freya’s seminars. Their young brother had overdosed on drugs while Nick was away, leaving his brother, Joel at the mercy of their abusive stepfather. Unable to take any more, Joel killed himself: something Nick has been wracked with guilt over ever since. These characters are definitely more flawed and troubled than you might first expect!

With such a vast list of published novels (including some bestsellers), we expected Jean to be an expert on the ins and outs of writing, with both its challenges and rewards. Aside from the struggles of marketing as an independent writer, Jean told us what she finds most difficult… “As far as the actual writing process I would have to say ascertaining the story reaches a satisfactory conclusion. My son used to love the children’s books called ‘Choose your own adventure’ where you were given certain paths for your story, hoping it was the right one. That’s how it is with writing. Taking a wrong turn can positively throw you off track. Creating an unpredictable ending, as well as ensuring the book is a page turner. You don’t know what’s around the next corner. This can be a difficult process, but an enjoyable one nonetheless.”
Then we asked Jean what she finds to be most rewarding, and she told us that the entire writing process is! “Seeing your book in the Amazon bestsellers, which ‘Progeny Of A Killer’ was. Also, creating characters is both rewarding and exciting, especially when they rebel against the path you’ve set for them. Someone said they could identify my characters by the very inflections of their speech. Creating characters is similar to acting. Everyone has a part to play.”

So now you know about the author, Jean Shorney, be sure to come back tomorrow for a glimpse of what the story entails! We will be posting a detailed synopsis of ‘Night Of All Evil’ here in twenty-four hours.