Planned out plots and unchanged prologues: an interview with Allie Reynolds

Kia ora and haere mai, welcome to the fifth instalment of our 9mm interview series for 2021 - we're back on a regular track now after almost a year's hiatus. 

This author interview series has now been running for over a decade (though perhaps we shouldn't really count the last year), and today marks the 217th overall edition. Thanks for reading over the years. I've had tonnes of fun chatting to some amazing writers and bringing their thoughts and stories to you. 

My plan is to to publish 40-50 new author interviews in the 9mm series this year. You can check out the full list of of past interviewees here. Some amazing writers.

If you've got a favourite crime writer who hasn't yet been featured, let me know in the comments or by sending me a message, and I'll look to make that happen for you. Even as things with this blog may evolve moving forward, I'll continue to interview crime writers and review crime novels.

Today I'm very pleased to welcome a brand new crime writer to Crime Watch, former professional freestyle snowboarder turned thriller debutant Allie Reynolds. She's gone from carving up the slopes to playing with classic mystery tropes - with many years and a lot of work in between. Her debut novel SHIVER came out in January and has been getting lots of great reviews. It's an intriguing tale of a group of snowboarding friends who have a reunion many years after a tragedy, only to become trapped atop a mountain at a French resort, wondering who brought them together, and why. 

I really enjoyed SHIVER. Allie Reynolds does a great job texturing a classic set-up (isolated group who may get picked off because of something they were involved with in the past) with lots of colour and texture from her life as a professional snowboarder. The story really soars in the flashback episodes to years before when they were all competing, hooning down the half-pipe and hoping for a place at the Olympics, while juggling all the friendships and rivalries of a disparate group thrust together. 

For now though, Allie Reynolds becomes the latest author to stare down the barrel of 9mm. 

9MM INTERVIEW WITH ALLIE REYNOLDS

1. Who is your favorite recurring crime fiction hero?
Jack Reacher! He’s the ultimate hero. There’s so much wry dark humour in his voice which makes it so compelling as a reader. I also massively admire Lee Child’s writing style. Clean, lean writing, no pretention, no frilly bits. There’s little padding, it’s all story.

2. What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?
The Island of Adventure by Enid Blyton. I just loved how we had a group of characters trapped on a mysterious island. I adored dangerous natural settings even as a seven-year-old.

3. Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?
I’d been trying to write novels since my late teens. For twenty years, off and on, I wrestled a different mountain-set thriller but I could never manage to finish it. About twelve years ago I began writing short stories for women’s magazines. It was a brilliant training ground and allowed me to experiment with genre. I wrote humour, romance, thrillers, ghost stories, and most of all twists. Eventually I quit my TESOL teaching job to focus on writing.

I attempted several more novels but never managed to finish them. I figured it was because I never planned my novels. My weakness seemed to be plot, so I read every single book on story and story structure that I could get my hands on, then spent a whole month planning SHIVER. It made the writing process so much smoother and I had a full first draft within six months.

4. Outside of writing and writing-related activities (book events, publicity), what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?
The Gold Coast is my favourite place on earth. I love the incredible beaches, climate and outdoors lifestyle. I grew up in England far from the ocean, so I always appreciate how lucky I am to live here now. I love to surf, but I manage to smash myself up on a regular basis, so if I’m too injured to surf I swim, walk, run on the sand, or just hang out there with my kids.

I’m also a massive reader. I read 80-100 books a year. Lots of thrillers but also romcoms, YA, historical fiction and other stuff. I love unusual settings, high concepts and anything related to sport. I also enjoy non-fiction including sports memoirs and psychology books.

5. What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?
Gold Coast is famous for its surfing but many people – even locals – don’t know that it also has some great snorkelling if conditions are right. When the waves are flat, I love snorkelling in the local river. There’s a reef and if visibility is good you can see an amazing variety of colourful fish.

6. If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?
To play me during my snowboard years, maybe British Olympic snowboarders Katie Ormerod or Aimee Fuller, although they’re far better snowboarders than I ever was – and way braver. I’m a massive fan of both of them.

7. Of your writings, which is your favourite or a bit special to you for some particular reason, and why?
Tricky question! Maybe the prologue for SHIVER. It’s only short – 100 words – and it came to me almost intact late one night, so I got up to scribble it down. Beta-readers, my agent and editors suggested thousands of revisions to the rest of my book but nobody suggested a single change to my prologue and it has remained just as it was the night I wrote it.

8. What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?
The first time I sold a short story to a magazine, I threw myself down on my bed and cried. I’d been writing for over ten years by then. When I submitted the first chapters of SHIVER to agents, several of them requested the full manuscript within hours and I rapidly found representation. As a time poor mum-of-two, I’d quit surfing that year to focus on writing, so I celebrated by surfing a whole lot. Two months later, when Shiver ended up in a ten-publisher auction, it felt like a total dream. For months afterwards, I was so dazed I was unable to write!

9. What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?
My debut has only just been published and I haven’t attended any events in person yet because of Covid restrictions. But my American publisher sent a huge box of book plates for me to sign. When my five-year-old saw how many I had to sign, his eyes went big and wide. “You tell me what to write and I’ll help you, Mummy.”

Thank you Allie. We appreciate you chatting to Crime Watch. 

You can read more about Allie and her writing at her website, and follow her on Twitter.