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Dead Ringer wins fiction prize at Lakeland Book of the Year Awards
I bumbled up to Penrith last month for the 2021 Lakeland Book of the Year Awards, the very picture of “I’m just glad to be nominated”. After all, there was no way my debut thriller, Dead Ringer, with its doppelganger vs. doppelganger showdown on the sinking sands of Walney Island in Cumbria, was going to…
Is there a stranger out there who shares your face? (guest post for Confessions of a YA Reader)
What is the likelihood that you have a doppelgänger somewhere in the world? The scientific facts are stranger than you think. The idea of the doppelgänger – a stranger who looks uncannily like you – stretches back through history. The superstition is that encountering your “double” is a bad omen that could lead to your…
3 things that inspired my novel Dead Ringer
Inspiration isn’t always linear; oftentimes, story ideas emerge out of unexpected nuggets colliding. Here’s how the premise for Dead Ringer ultimately came together. A clickbait article “I found my twin on YouTube.” When you’re scrolling distractedly through Twitter, that’s the sort of thing that catches your eye. Some 5 years ago, I stumbled across the…
“Tense and compelling” — Daily Mail review of Dead Ringer
Christena Appleyard of the Daily Mail gives her review of Dead Ringer. The idea of this book might sound a bit far fetched — two girls find their doppelgängers via a new facial recognition app and decide to swap lives. Nicola Martin spins this slightly dodgy idea into a tense and compelling story that courageously…
My doppelgänger story
Have I ever met my double? Is Dead Ringer secretly a true story…? Er, no. But here’s a quick rundown of the times I’ve been mistaken for people who look like me. I was on the island of St John in the US Virgin Islands recently, (and, yes, I know this is a hideously braggy…
The North/South Divide in Crime Fiction (guest feature on CrimeTime)
I wrote a feature for CrimeTime about the North/South divide in crime fiction and how setting can impact on a story. Name an island off the coast of England. Isle of Wight? Isle of Man? Maybe Lundy, if you’re feeling clever. How about Walney Island? It’s an island, a beautiful windswept island, off the north…