International best-selling author LJ Ross will be returning to her Northumberland roots next month to catch-up with fans of her North East-based crime fighting hero, DCI Ryan.
The Ponteland-born novelist will be at Ashington Library on September 13 to meet readers, chat about her remarkable three year journey from London lawyer to million-selling crime fiction writer, and her latest DCI Ryan hit, Cragside.
The 31 year old will also reveal how her beloved Northumberland and its diverse landscape and people, has influenced her work, with five of her six DCI Ryan books set in England’s Border county.
LJ – whose real name is Louise Ross – says she is thrilled to be coming back to Northumberland for what promises to be a very special meet the author event at Ashington Library
She said: “It is always a delight to not only come back to my home county, but to the North East.
“After moving to London for work, I have latterly been living in the West Country. But my heart is, and always has been, very much in Northumberland and the region I still call home.
“Indeed, I owe DCI Ryan’s creation and my current career as a bestselling author to Northumberland’s amazing and ancient landscape with its vast skies, remote and tranquil hills, open moorland, windswept seascape, and wide open views.
“It was travelling to Edinburgh on the train and looking out of the window at Lindisfarne that first set me thinking what a great location the tidal island would be to set a murder-mystery. The result was DCI Ryan’s first outing in Holy Island, which went straight in at the top of the Amazon charts.
“As the Northumberland landscape continues to inspire DCI Ryan, so it is fitting that I should be back in the county and chatting to the very readers whose love and enthusiasm for him continues to motivate my own writing.
“I am very much looking forward to being in Ashington next month and meeting everyone at the library.”
Holy Island was published in January 2015, and went straight into the Amazon charts, pushing Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, off the top spot.
LJ’s following novels – Sycamore Gap, Heavenfield, Angel, High Force, and Cragside – have all been Amazon bestsellers.
The seventh book in the DCI Ryan series, Dark Skies, is scheduled for release before Christmas this year.
It will again see DCI Ryan solving a gruesome murder, this time in remote Kielder in western Northumberland.
The title of the book pays tribute to Kielder’s Gold Tier Dark Sky Park status awarded in December 2013 by the International Dark Skies Association, making it the largest area of protected night sky in Europe.
Only one of the DCI Ryan books – High Force – has been located outside Northumberland, instead taking its inspiration from the County Durham natural phenomena of the same name in Teesdale.
LJ worked as a regulatory lawyer in London before turning her hand to writing and creating what has become, in just under three years, a hugely popular series of crime books selling a staggering one million copies worldwide.
She was offered a traditional publishing deal for Holy Island. But she turned it down in favour of self-publishing on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform.
Her books are also published in paperback and audio edition.