This week, An Afternoon at Austin Macauley warmly welcomes Wendy Gill, author of Jackson Is Missing.

We’ve been truly looking forward to this interview since the release of Jackson Is Missing in September and without a doubt the popularity of this intriguing historical fiction has been outstanding so far.

An Afternoon at Austin Macauley allows us to delve into the lives of our authors, getting to know them on a more personal level, finding out the inspiration behind their books. This interview has certainly been a humbling one and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know about Wendy’s hobbies, stories and experiences.

Author Wendy Gill was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England and has two grown-up children with her husband, to whom she shares some fond and some quite dangerous memories with in this interview. Wendy is also undoubtedly a twitter bug and has an incredible 14.7 thousand followers!

Jackson Is Missing is Wendy’s third book, a regency romance that’s been cleverly written into three parts. Part one of this journey finds Ella, virtually penniless and homeless. After a brief meeting with the postman, Ella finds herself in search of a family she didn’t know she had and along the way, finds herself hiding a strange gentleman with two bullets lodged inside him.

Part Two moves away from part one and rekindles an old romance, telling of a mother’s cruelty to her son that has disastrous consequences.

Part Three brings the characters from Part One and Part Two together, where Ella finally finds herself a husband.

The synopsis for Jackson Is Missing certainly leaves us with an abundance of questions about all three parts of the book, striking curiosity about the three-part structure, the character of Ella, the mystery bullet ridden man and how all of this links together.

SPOILER ALERT - Wendy doesn’t reveal too much about the book in this interview either, so you’ll just have to buy a copy of Jackson Is Missing to find out!

You can engage with our authors and An Afternoon at Austin Macauley more on Facebook and Twitter, we hope you enjoy our in-depth interview with Wendy Gill just as much as we have.

Jackson Is Missing - Wendy Gill

What books do you enjoy reading? Do you have any favourite authors?

I don’t think I have a favourite book. I have read many books and when I find an author I like, I try to read all the books they have written. The very first book that got me into reading was a book my mother gave to me called The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer. These are set in the Regency period and I have read them all. 

Georgette Heyer also wrote mystery stories but I can’t say I enjoyed those as much as her period books. I like Patricia Cornwell, Michelle Connelly, J.D Robb who is the pseudonym of Nora Roberts. Again, I have read some of the books under the authors name Nora Roberts, but I don’t like them as much as her Eve Dallas books under the name of J.D Robb. And of course, I can’t leave Barnsley author Roger Silverwood out, who employed me when I was 15 years old, straight out of school. 

These are just a few of the authors I enjoy reading. I have also read Lord of The Rings, Watership Down and some of the Harry Potter books, enjoyed them all.  To name but a few. 

What inspired the characters and plot for Jackson Is Missing?

I wish I could say something clever and illuminating but I am sorry to say, I can’t.  When I start to write, I have no plot in mind, no characters planned and no end to the story. The characters just appear as the words are set down on paper. 

In real life we all have different characteristics, some people are happy, some are sad, some are good, some are bad. You get kind people and cruel people, there are the intellectually clever whereas others are practical and adept. The list goes on.

I try to put a mix of characters natures into my stories. All characters are completely fictional, not based on any persons I know. If a person reads my books and thinks I am referring to them, I can honestly say, it is not intended, I make up the characters and the places as I go along.

Were there any challenges you encountered whilst writing? If yes, how did you overcome them?

Whilst I was writing the first chapter of Jackson, I decided that it needed to move on faster. I decided to make it into a three-part story so when the puzzle of who the two uninvited guests were, was solved I brought it to a temporary closure. 

I continued part two with another story, this time inventing a mother and son scenario and when part two was brought to a temporary closure, part three kicked in. 

I printed the manuscript off and handed it to Kevin my husband to proofread for me.  A couple of days later he said, “Wendy, you’ve made a right mess of this, all of a sudden you have changed the names and places, it doesn’t make sense.” I had forgotten to place a blank piece of paper saying Part Two between end of part one and start of part two. Trying to explain what I had done and why the characters had changed a third of the way into the book was a bit challenging.

Did you do any research for Jackson Is Missing?

No, I can’t say I did any research at all for this book apart from checking to see when the police were formed in Scotland and that didn’t take long, a quick nip to google and on with the story.

Did you only start writing after you retired? If yes, can you tell us why?

My writing career began one day in June, I can’t remember what year it was, but I had been retired a few years before writing entered my head.

I retired at the age of 61 so I think it would have been when I was around the age of 65. My husband is a motorbike enthusiast and as you will be aware, June is the memorable month that holds the TT races. The motorbikes were whizzing around the TV screen and the rain was running down the windows outside, so I headed up into my computer room and switched on my computer. At that point in time, I was not on any social media sites, so I was staring at a blank screen. 

I decided to write a children’s story. To my utter surprise, I enjoyed it. When I say to my utter surprise, this is because I have never been academic, I was more into rounders, netball, PT (physical training as it was known way back then) that sort of thing rather than ABC or 123. So where my enjoyment from writing my little books has come from will remain a mystery.

Have you always written in the same genre?

No, the first book I wrote was a children’s story. I had great fun writing this. As it was a children’s story, I decided to do some illustrations for it, not that I am an illustrator, my drawing has much to be desired, but I enjoyed it and as nobody was ever going to see it, did it matter, no it did not. 

I can’t sing either, but I can sing in the bath and nobody objects.  Just after I had completed the children’s book and placed it on the shelf as finished and started on my first romance, I was in a charity shop looking at books when I spotted a book entitled, Writing a Novel and Getting Published For Dummies.  Wow I thought, that’s me, a dummy, it was priced at 50p, so I bought it. 

I went into the next charity shop and I couldn’t believe my eyes when they alighted on another book entitled The Beginner’s Guide to Getting Published, this too was priced up at 50p, so I bought it. Both these books said exactly the same but in a different context. Both books said your chance of getting published was slight, in fact one of the books quoted 5,000 to 1.

I think these books were printed when emailing was in its early stage, as both books said to send your first three chapters by registered post, enclosing a registered return envelope and the publisher would return your first three chapters telling you what was wrong with it. Apparently if the first three chapters of a book reads alright then the odds are in favour that the rest of the book is worth investigation.

Well, being a tight Yorkshire lass, I could see no point in wasting my money sending off a Manuscript just to be told it was no good. Then there was the section about drawings, it said that publishers did not like illustrations included in the manuscript, to send the illustrations under separate cover. Well that was another nail in the coffin of my children’s book, I couldn’t take some of the illustration out as they were incorporated in the story. So, all thought of publishing went out of my head.  But I carried on writing for my own enjoyment really and when I had finished the story, I printed it off and took it downstairs to read through it in the comfort of my armchair. 

My sister Valerie dropped in on me and when I was in the kitchen making a coffee, she picked up the manuscript and started to read it. Nothing was said about it until she was leaving, and she asked if she could take the manuscript with her to read, she wanted to see what happened. I had no objection to her taking the manuscript, in fact, as she was an ex-teacher, I thought it would be interesting to hear her views.  She told me to get it published. No chance. We went on a family visit to my other sister Carol down in Devon and the book discussion ensued. All of them told me to send it off, what had I to lose, they can only reject it. 

So, when I got home, I googled publishers and Pegasus came up, but not only that, it told me to email the first three chapters. EMAIL! No postage to pay, and the rest is history as they say.

Can you tell us about the next book you’re working on, Chester’s Fault?

When I started to write Chester’s Fault, it occurred to me that in my other three books there were no children or dogs, so I was going to introduce both into Chester’s Fault as the story evolved.

I didn’t know what part their role in the story was going to be and I was surprised that both the children and the dog entered the story from the very beginning.  Once again, I changed the title more than once until I decided on Chester’s Fault. 

This story too is a work of fiction, all characters and places are a figment of my imagination. My forth book, Chester’s Fault, is currently under production at Austin Macauley and I have returned the manuscript after the first proofread.  

A drawing for the cover of Chester’s Fault was requested by Austin Macauley and I am proud to say I sent them one of my own designs. I can’t wait to see what Austin Macauley make of it.

What has your experience been like being published at Austin Macauley Publishers?

I was given a piece of advice which was, ‘try another publisher.’ I decided to take this advice and googled publishers. I also decided to email the manuscript for Jackson Is Missing to more than one publisher and see what happened. 

Austin Macauley was the first publisher to appear on my screen, so the manuscript was sent.  I also emailed it to a second publisher but after I had filled in forms etc I left it at that, two was enough. To my amazement I received a contract from both publishers, and I decided on Austin Macauley because they had a more personal touch. The other contract was so in depth and very clinical, I decided it wasn’t for me. 

The thing is when you don’t work for a company you are unaware of how their systems and procedures work so you are working blind and sometimes things don’t go the way you expect. Any problems that have occurred have been dealt with professionally and patiently by Austin Macauley. 

I emailed one of my famous drawings as a suggestion for the front cover and was expecting to be told they weren’t going to use it and design a cover themselves and send it to me for my approval.

I was over the moon when I received the proof from Austin Macauley that they had created for Jackson Is Missing, it was my suggested design, I couldn’t believe it. My drawing had been professionally adapted but it was still my design and it also had my little owl sitting on a branch. So not only did I write the book, my suggested design now encases the story.  I just can’t wait to see what Austin Macauley has done with Chester’s Fault. The drawing I sent was, shall I say, a bit (or a lot) more challenging than Jackson Is Missing’s cover. 

When I say Austin Macauley had patience with me, an example of this was when the book had been released, they sent me 25 copies of Jackson Is Missing and the cover for the book was different to the one I was expecting. I was ranting and raving at them asking what I was supposed to do with these copies, and they emailed me back and said they are a limited editions, no more of these will be printed. Still not satisfied, I was in the process of sending off another email to Austin Macauley when Kevin came into the computer room and said, “Have you seen this?” and he opened Jackson Is Missing up and on the first page it was printed Limited Edition 10 of 25. I had not looked inside any of the limited-edition books, so I had not seen this writing, it explained it all. Did I feel an idiot, oh yes. So, going from being frustrated about the different book cover I went to being elated. 

For someone who, at school, thought choir was spelt with a q, and 2 + 2 = 3, having a limited edition of a book I had written was amazing. There were also the postcards, postcards with my name on, a very clever initiative touch Austin Macauley. Not only that there were bookmarks with the blurb on the back and well-designed posters. Happy days.