Tag Archives: Linda Huber

SUNDAY SCENE: LINDA HUBER ON HER FAVOURITE SCENE FROM THE UN-FAMILY

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I write psychological suspense, which isn’t well known for being a ‘cheerful’ genre. Although my books have their fair share of tension, I feel it’s important to include some warmer, happy moments too, whether it’s a touch of humour about something a child says, or an incident to do with a character’s relationship, or – as in my new release The Un-Family – their job. I think this helps to make the characters more real. Psychological suspense is basically about bad things happening to people, and readers are much more likely to sympathise with a character and cheer them on if they come across as realistic, rounded people, in spite of the tense plot and darker moments in the books.

In The Un-Family, Holly is a vet, having huge problems with her husband Dylan’s behaviour as well as smaller (she thinks) ones with his family. One day, however, she goes to look round a wildlife centre where she’ll be taking on some work from then on. Adam, the centre head, shows her round:

 

Holly looked in on a deer with a torn shoulder, a swan with an infected wound on one foot, and a hedgehog, who’d been stuck down a drain and needed fattening up. They walked on round the enclosures, which included two ponds, a home-made badger sett and a row of pens. Holly heaved a happy sigh – this would be such a great place to work.

A gaggle of teenagers on bikes was approaching as they arrived back at the main building, and Adam gave them a wave. ‘The after-school brigade.’

Holly watched as the teenagers dispersed around the buildings. ‘My niece Megan would love this. I’ll suggest she does a stint in the summer holidays.’

‘We always need volunteers. Okay, let’s go back in and sort out when you’ll be here next week. Then I’m heading down to the river to release a duck, now the water level has fallen again. Want to tag along? We’ll release you into the weekend when we’re done.’ He gave her his lop-sided grin.

Good, she’d be home well before Dylan arrived. With him away on his course, tonight would be their only opportunity to spend time with each other all weekend. Holly arranged her first shift for the following Monday and joined Adam in the centre’s green van, the duck in a pet carrier in the back.

He drove the short distance to the river, which was still full, but much less violent now. They walked along the bank to the place the duck had been rescued, and Adam stood back with Fred on his lead while Holly crouched down and opened the pet carrier. What a special moment this was, the first time she’d released a wild creature back into its natural environment.

She waited, motionless, then a yellow beak emerged from the carrier, followed by a beady eye, and three seconds’ flurry later, the mallard was swimming down the river, quacking loudly. Warm satisfaction spread through Holly. This was perfect.

 

Holly’s job turns into her main consolation as the plot develops, and as you can imagine, the wildlife centre provides many such lighter, human moments, and it also provides sanctuary for Holly later in the book. Does everything work out for her and Dylan in the end? You can find out more about The Un-Family on my website www.lindahuber.net

 

SISTER SCRIBES GUEST: LINDA HUBER ON FAMILY SECRETS

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I’m delighted to welcome the lovely Linda Huber, a prolific author and fellow Swiss resident, to Frost Magazine today, where she’s talking about how family secrets inspired her writing.

It’s always fascinating, talking to older family members and hearing their stories of days gone by. I remember my grandmother talking about her life growing up in Edinburgh with her parents and brothers. The family were keen photographers so we have a wealth of photos ranging from Granny as a toddler in 1890-something, all the way up to her last years, when she lived in Glasgow with her younger brother.

What she never mentioned was either of the wars she lived through, apart from the odd comment about food rationing. Another taboo was the death of my grandfather when my mother was just fourteen. He died in an industrial accident on the railway, where he worked, so Granny was given compensation – a return train ticket to London. It was her first and only trip outside Scotland. How I wish I’d been old enough to know I should be questioning her greedily, saving up her answers for my own children. I was still a teenager when she died, and there was too much Mum didn’t know either.

That’s how it is with family secrets, I think – usually, they’re not so much grisly skeletons in the closet as things that are just too hard to speak about. Or maybe, details are simply forgotten over time, not mentioned because nobody thinks to. When I was researching my family tree, I came across a distant little cousin who’d drowned in a Glasgow swimming pool in the 1940s, aged eleven. I’d never heard of her, and my mother could only just remember hearing her talked of. It was a tragedy lost over generations, though I’m sure little Agnes’s close family still remember.

Other secrets are grisly and terrible. A few years ago, I read a news story where someone had kept something truly awful from his nearest and dearest for over twenty years. I won’t say more because they are real people, but this man’s wife and children had no idea that the person they were living with was capable of what he had done. That started me thinking… and the end result is my ninth psychological suspense novel, The Runaway.

Cass (left) and Linda (right)

In the book, Nicola, Ed and Kelly Seaton relocate from London to lovely Cornwall. It should be a fresh start for them all – teenager Kelly had got in with a bad crowd, Ed had lost his job and Nicola was struggling to keep the family on an even keel. So they moved into Ed’s old family home by the sea. Nicola was determined to make a success of the new life, but little did she suspect what had happened in the house when Ed was growing up. He’d kept his secret well…

This is the third book I’ve set in Cornwall; I’m making no secret of the fact that I love the place! The Seaton family’s new home is near St Ives, which has fabulous beaches and a beautiful old town. It’s years now since I’ve been there, but one day I’ll go back. And meanwhile, I can write about it.

 

Linda Huber grew up in Glasgow but went to work in Switzerland for a year aged twenty-two, and has lived there ever since. Her day jobs have included working as a physiotherapist in hospitals and schools for handicapped children, and teaching English in a medieval castle.

Her writing career began in the nineties, when she had over fifty short stories published in women’s magazines before turning to longer fiction. The Runaway is her ninth psychological suspense novel.

Find out more about Linda at www.lindahuber.net or follow her on Twitter @LindaHuber19

SISTER SCRIBES: CASS GRAFTON ON WHY IT’S GOOD TO TALK

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Recently, I was on a writing retreat – one that lived up to its name, being only accessible by boat at high tide (or after a hike through the woods from the nearest village). Hosted by Kath Morgan and Jane Moss of The Writing Retreat, the theme was simply ‘Time to Write’, which we had in abundance.

There were only 6 of us, and we soon developed our favourite spots for contemplation and scribing: at the wooden table by the creek, in the large window seat in the sitting room or even on the pontoon jutting out into the river.

I wrote in my room during the day, either in my own window seat with its fabulous water views or at the desk I’d tugged into place between the window and the extremely large bed (known as Robert Plant’s bed – long story, but there’s also a recording studio under the main house)!

Despite the obvious benefits of a retreat – that longed-for chance to focus on nothing but writing, allowing your mind to wander, your characters to fully take hold of you and the story in a way they often can’t when you’re surrounded by the minutiae of daily life – I was able to indulge in something else: time to talk, not only with fellow writers (usually over the yummy lunches and dinners) but also during one-to-one sessions with Kath or Jane.

These sessions brought answers to dilemmas I’d spent months battling with: what’s my hook; how do I finish this book that’s been almost done for months; what do I write next? Talking it through, being heard, was all it took for solutions to come, often prompted by the tutors’ insights. I left every one-to-one on a high, inspired and raring to get back to the writing.

This hasn’t been my only chance to talk face-to-face with other writers, of course. Aside from get-togethers with my fellow Sister Scribes, I’ve been co-writing with Ada Bright (for her guest post on being an author, see link below) for years, and despite the thousands of miles and 9-hour time difference separating us, we talk when writing 3 or 4 times a week. We discuss plot, why a character is behaving in such a way, battle out the things we’re struggling with, and we laugh. There’s a lot of laughter!

Do you begin to see the benefit of the talking? Writing can be such a solitary profession. Things go round and round in your head, we hit stumbling blocks, trip over our own words, lose faith, regain it, sometimes question whether we love what we’re doing, whether we should even continue.

Living in Switzerland, as I do, can also be isolating – I can’t meet up with my Sister Scribes as often as I’d like – so imagine my delight when I connected with 3 other British writers who regularly meet up for ‘writerly lunches’! They all pen fabulous psychological suspense novels, with Louise Mangos (@LouiseMangos) published by HQ Digital, Alison Baillie (@alisonbailliex) by Bloodhound Books and Linda Huber (@LindaHuber19), who has a wide portfolio, by Bloodhound Books and their imprint, Bombshell Books. She also writes light romance novels under the name of Melinda Huber.

Aside from lunch and laughter, we share our thoughts and feelings on the sort of things writers value talking about: practical experiences, both in writing and publishing, our ups and downs, our current challenges and our plans for ‘what next’. Oh yes, and there’s the odd glass of Prosecco too!

So write and enjoy it. Embrace it, but if you get the chance, talk to other writers, preferably face to face. You won’t regret it!

 

Find out more about my retreat venue at https://thewritingretreat.co.uk.

 

 

SISTER SCRIBES: APRIL READING ROUND UP

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Susanna:

Have you ever read a book that was so good that, while you looked forward to reading more by the same author, at the same time you couldn’t help feeling a bit wary of doing so – you know, in case the next book didn’t live up to expectations..? For me, psychological thriller writer Linda Huber is one of these writers. Since reading The Cold Cold Sea, I’ve never been able to open another of her books without that little iffy moment of wariness.

Linda Huber’s strength lies in her ability to build a creepy atmosphere that creates a thread that runs throughout each book, growing stronger the further you get into the plot. Her latest book, Stolen Sister, is billed as a ‘gripping family drama,’ but it is much more than this. It is a well-crafted, psychologically complex story that is fueled by strong characterisation. It is a chilling tale of ordinary people in what they gradually realise is an extraordinary situation and I wanted to reach inside the story and tell them what was really going on. A thoroughly gripping read.

 

Jane:

The first of my holiday reads followed me around for a while after I’d finished it – always a sign of a great book as far I as was concerned.

I was absolutely fascinated by the premise of Julie Cohen’s Louis and Louise; one life lived twice in a different gender. As well as being a satisfying story it made me think long and hard about gender identity and how it is shaped from childhood and the choices we make – often unwittingly – because of it.

Julie Cohen is a great storyteller and the small town in Maine where most of the book is set came to life in her skilled hands. It takes Louis and Louise from birth until their early thirties, flashing between the present and the defining moments of their childhoods. I found their relationship with their twin friends (a boy and a girl) echoed their own gender identities beautifully.

One thing that jarred a little was the few paragraphs – one quite early on – where the author ‘stepped in’ and explained to the reader what was happening and this really wasn’t necessary.  To me it smacked of over zealous editing on the part of the publisher and was quite annoying being treated like an idiot. Otherwise a great book I’d thoroughly recommend.

Also on holiday I struggled through Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (sorry Cass!), mainly for research purposes, and read Angela Barton’s Magnolia House. This romance has received a ton of five star reviews and tells the story of Rowan, whose life spins apart just after she moves to London and how her new housemates and old friends help her to pull it back together.

But my most amazing holiday read of all was Madeleine Bunting’s Island Song. I’m a fussy reader at the best of times, but this marvellous novel drew me in right at the beginning and held me there until the end. The writing is so natural, so clever, I don’t even really know why it is so effective, but it carried me into a world of wartime Guernsey and 1990s London I was reluctant to leave.

The premise is not an original one; mysterious mother dies leaving daughter to uncover the truth about her life, but the richness of the storytelling and the layers of complexity made it an absolute joy to read. Easily my book of the year so far and I recommend it without reservation.