Today I am delighted to welcome back Jan Baynham to my blog. Jan's first collection of short stories, Smashing the Mask and Other Stories, was published last autumn and now her debut novel, published by Ruby Fiction, is also available.
Her Mother's Secret is a dual-time saga, as a daughter goes in search of the truth about her mother's life and what happened to her years ago on a Greek island. Book reviews highlight Jan's "love and knowledge of Greek society and customs". One reviewer said, "There's a bit of everything. . . mystery, romance, thriller and a whodunnit."
Isn't that a gorgeous cover?
I asked Jan some questions about wriitng the book. Here's what she told me:
You started out as a short story and flash fiction writer. What made you decide to write a full-length novel? On retirement, I joined a writing group where I wrote my first short story. Very soon, I could see my stories getting longer and longer. After enrolling on a novel-writing course at Cardiff University, I enjoyed being able to explore characters in more depth and delve further into their stories. I still write shorts but now it tends to be when I’m editing or doing research for a novel. When writing a novel, I love getting to know my characters so well that I miss them when I come to the end and I enjoy visiting new locations with them. The length of a novel allows me to create more involved plots and sub-plots for the characters to experience than I’m able to do in a short story or piece of flash fiction. What was the initial idea behind the story from which it all grew? The novel started out as a short story. At the time, I’d been reading a novel where the rustling in the trees sounded like whispers and inanimate statues took on the form of the ghosts of people they represented. Combining both ideas, I asked myself what if the whispering could show the presence of a past family member. Always fascinated by family secrets and the bond between mothers and daughters, I knew I had the basis for a story. In both the story and the novel, I leave it to the reader to decide what the whispering represents. In the short story, Alexandra’s search for the truth was resolved quite quickly whereas in the novel there are many more twists and turns, obstacles and setbacks before the story concludes.
How important is the mother-daughter dynamic to the story? The mother/daughter relationship is central to the novel. Alexandra is grieving after the untimely death of her mother, Elin. She experiences a whole gamut of emotions from deep loss and its accompanying sadness, through to anger that her mother has abandoned her. When she learns there is part of her mother’s life she knew nothing about, Alexandra goes to Greece with the hope of finding answers.
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