Author, Penny Grubb, reacts to her most convincing and most confusing reviews.
In a conversation at a book event, a reader asked this:
“When did you live on Orchard Park?”
When Penny said she had never lived there, the reader was insistent:
“You must have, or very nearby. You couldn’t have got to know it, else.”
The reader was referring to Falling into Crime, a collection of the first three novels in Penny’s Annie Raymond, Private Investigator series, which features Orchard Park as a key location.
Penny’s reaction?
“I had never lived on Orchard Park, which is an estate in Hull. In fact, I’ve never lived in Hull, although I worked there for many years. I let the reader assume that I’d lived nearby because I was delighted with this feedback. I did a lot of research to get the vibe right. Orchard Park was a key setting for some of the action in the early Annie books.
“It’s a complex area of Hull. To those who don’t know it well, it has a bad reputation. To those who live there, although they don’t deny its negative aspects, it has another face. As one of the characters in the book points out to Annie, you will find areas of Orchard Park where parents are happy to let their children play outside, secure in the knowledge that neighbours will keep an eye on them; something hard to find in more affluent areas.”
On the other end of the reviewing spectrum, Penny encountered her first 1-star Amazon review with Buried Deep, the fifth book in the Annie Raymond series. The review read:
“Really good story but the package was all torn when it arrived.”
This wasn’t the literary critique one might expect, but Penny took it in her stride:
“This was my first 1-star review. They hadn’t bought the book from me. I had no hand in packaging it. These things happen. I’m pleased they enjoyed reading it. I enjoyed writing it. The review was later taken down. I don’t know why. I didn’t object to it. People sometimes go to the 1-star reviews to see the worst of something before they make up their minds. As a 1-star review, I was happy with it.”
The Annie Raymond PI series currently includes seven novels, plus one “detour” novel following detectives introduced in Buried Deep. The most recent release was Boxed In, and a new instalment is in the works.
Read the opening chapters from Penny Grubb’s books.
Read more about Penny Grubb HERE.
