Janet Laurence - Editor
Janet has written three series of crime novels and is currently working on the third in a series set in Edwardian England with American Ursula Grandison as a private investigator.
In her previous series, ten novels featured cordon bleu cook Darina Lisle, and three historical starred Italian painter Canaletto in mid-eighteenth Century London. Janet has also written contemporary women’s fiction as Julia Lisle, and food and cookery.
She was included in a Times list of 100 masters of crime writing and has been a Writer in Residence at the University of Tasmania. She runs creative writing courses, particularly on writing crime novels (Writing Crime Fiction – Making Crime Pay, pub Aber). She is a past Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association and is currently chair of the judging panel for the CWA International Dagger, awarded to both author and translator of the best crime novel of the year originally published in a foreign language.
Janet loves encouraging novelists, and aims to stretch each writer’s abilities and encourage their ambitions.
Testimonials
– E. Fleischaue
- C. Stibbe.
- Ginny D.
– John L.
– Paul B.
WHY WE LOVE JANET
We love Janet’s thorough and detailed reports, focusing on a chapter-by-chapter breakdown.
WHAT JANET SAYS ABOUT EDITING
When I first started writing fiction, it felt a bit like trying to find one’s way through a forest, not knowing which path to take, how to provide the right atmosphere, how much background, what to do with dialogue and much, much more. It was when I managed to create believable characters in an interesting setting for the first of my contemporary ‘culinary crime’ novels (A Deepe Coffyn) that I found my way to writing a publishable book.
Now I am writing the third in my third crime series, set at the start of the twentieth century and featuring an American girl who has teamed up with an ex-Metropolitan detective to provide an investigation agency.
I try to encourage each writer I work with to recognise the possibilities in their work. Publishing fiction today is a very competitive business and it needs a professional as well as a creative approach. Self-publishing offers opportunities. I have helped at least two writers successfully publish several of their novels.
What Janet works on
Manuscript assessment
Agent Submission Pack assessment
Post-editorial guidance
Genres Janet specialises in
Janet's published books
A Tasty Way To Die
When Darina Lisle agrees to help out in her old schoolfriend’s rapidly expanding catering company, The Wooden Spoon, she expects to be kept frantically busy, with cookery demonstrations, cocktail parties and elaborate private dinners. But she doesn’t expect to be involved in death …
Even a simple case of food poisoning would be bad for business and once the story leaks to the press The Wooden Spoon sees bookings fall. But when insinuations of murder begin to surface, Darina is drawn further into the web of intrigue. Natural curiosity leads to her own investigations, and when Detective Sergeant William Pigram ridicules her amateur sleuthing, Darina is more determined than ever to solve the mystery herself.
A Deepe Coffyn
The Society of Historical Gastronomes is gathering for a weekend symposium on food from the past. Darina Lisle has been asked to cater for the occasion and has prepared a multitude of exquisite dishes – from salmagundis to a deepe coffyn – culled from ancient recipe books.
But when the chairman is found stabbed to death with a boning knife, the professional pique of the attendant foodies takes on a more sinister meaning. Discarded lovers, jealous colleagues and a plagiarised author have good reason to resent the victim’s success.
Darina, too, is under suspicion and determines to clear her name by revealing the murderer’s true identity.
Writing Crime Fiction: Making Crime Pay
Here is how to become a published crime writer. Writing crime is an excellent introduction to the genre from a well-established and highly respected author.
In this book you will learn:
•How to start writing crime
•How to layer your novel with clues
•How to find a market for your work
•How to be a professional crime writer
Market
All students taking courses to improve their creative writing skills
•Post 16-Level students and first-year undergraduates on creative writing and creative studies degrees
•Adult education centres including WEA
•Teachers, tutors and lecturers
•School libraries, reference and public libraries
•University and college central libraries.
Ideal for undergraduates
To Kill The Past
‘Fear was back like a wild cat that had leaped on to her shoulders. Her body jerked and twisted as she fought the unnameable, the unidentifiable. The darkness never lifted. The fear never lessened. Gradually, she realized that she was in hospital. But the major part of her consciousness was grappling to come to terms with the appalling nature of her situation. She couldn’t remember who she was.’
After a terrifying car crash in which her two closest relatives are killed, Felicity Frear comes to in a Devon hospital blinded, burned and amnesiac. Even the news that she has been left Kingsleigh, the historic and beautiful family home of the Dashwoods, means nothing to her.
Discharged from hospital, Felicity heads straight for her new home, hoping that the sight of a place she’s apparently known since childhood might bring her memory back. It doesn’t…
