“Where d’you get your ideas from?”
‘The Quiet Ones’
by Theresa Talbot
Guest Post / Blog Tour

My spot on this Blog Tour is conveniently place smack bang in the middle of events, an excellent time to take stock and check out this lovely Guest Post by author Theresa Talbot, who is always willing to provide as many unique articles as possible in support of her book promotions.

My thanks, as always, go out to the brilliant Vicky from Aria Fiction and the ever helpful crew at NetGalley, without whom all the lovely downloads just wouldn’t be possible!

…

THE QUIET ONES

If only someone had listened…

When the supposed suicide of famous Scottish football coach Harry Nugent hits the headlines, the tabloids are filled with tributes to a charitable pillar of the community that gave so much back to sport and to those less fortunate.

But something isn’t right. Normally celebrities are queuing up to claim to have had a very special relationship with the deceased, but investigative journalist Oonagh O’Neil is getting the distinct impression that people are trying to distance themselves from Harry.

Oonagh’s investigation leads her to uncover a heartbreakingly haunting cover-up that chills her to the core… and places her in mortal danger from those willing to protect their sadistic and dark secrets at any cost…

…

THERESA TALBOT

I was born in Glasgow, Scotland and studied Economic History at Glasgow University, where I gained an Honours degree.

With numerous jobs under my belt, including Library Assistant, Medical Rep and Pepsi Challenge Girl, I eavesdropped my way into my current career in broadcasting, which has been almost as diverse and varied.

I was a freelance comedy writer for BBC Radio Scotland; produced music documentaries for both Radio Scotland and Radio 2; was former presenter of The Beechgrove Potting Shed, a radio broadcast gardening programme; and I am currently a BBC Radio Scotland presenter, best known as the voice of traffic and travel, although I do occasionally read the news.

As a journalist, I am regularly asked to chair author events and signings.

As an author, I have appeared at several festivals, including ‘Bloody Scotland’.

As a writer, I am available for readings, residencies and workshops.

As Theresa Talbot, my hobbies include gardening, yoga, making soup and playing around with different font settings. I also rescue chickens and make very good soup. The two are in no way connected!

You can keep up with all my news at my website

You can follow me on Twitter

You can connect with me on Facebook

…

Blog Tour Author Guest Post

“WHERE D’YOU GET YOUR IDEAS FROM?“

As an author one of the most common things I get asked is, ‘where d’you get your ideas from?’ It’s the sixty-thousand dollar question and one that strikes fear and dread into the heart of most writers. As though we have an Ideas Factory, the location of which a closely guarded secret, lest someone else discovers it and we’re left adrift in the wilderness, without even a thinly disguised trope to keep us warm. Or perhaps there’s some dodgy geezer down the pub, sitting alone at the back, nursing his pint, a bag of ideas under the counter, waiting patiently for desperate writers to approach willing to give their last penny for a decent plot-line.

The truth is much more mundane; ideas, for me anyway, just seem to evolve. A seed of an idea can be planted from the most ordinary source. As a journalist all of my books are inspired by real life. My main character Oonagh O’Neil is a journalist (I took the ‘write about what you know’ rather literally with this one)
and the stories she investigates have all come from news items I’ve either covered myself, or have been interested in.

The Lost Children was the very first Oonagh O’Neil book, and was based on the Magdalene Institutes. For those of you unfamiliar with the Magdalenes a quick search on Google will fill you in, but basically they were homes for ‘fallen women & unmarried mothers.’ I was astounded to discover that there had been one in my home city of Glasgow and that it only closed in 1958 after a three day riot. I was fascinated to know what sparked that riot and it seemed the perfect mystery for a crime novel.

My second in the series Keep Her Silent, arose from my interest in the contaminated blood scandal. (again a quick Google search will tell you all you need to know) I’d got to know a victim of this medical tragedy on social media and the horror story he told me almost beggared belief. With his permission, I decided to weave a crime novel around this.

Then last September I was embarking on the third Oonagh O’Neil book and was searching for a suitable topic for her to investigate. I’d just got back from honeymoon and was heading into Glasgow with my husband. We’d got chatting to the taxi driver and he told me he was the original whistle blower in an abuse scandal surrounding Celtic Boy’s Club. Through his bravery at speaking out, the coach was jailed and other boys had come forward. We met after that and again, with his permission, he allowed me to create a crime narrative around that. I didn’t want to focus on the abuse, that’s not my writing style, instead The Quiet Ones is a story about how those in power can avoid justice for so long. Men like that rarely operate in a vacuum, they can only continue to abuse because they have a network of people facilitating this. You only have to look at Jimmy Saville, Harvey Weinstein and more recently Jeffrey Epstein to know how truthful this is.

…

…