2020 was a rollercoaster ride like something out of an amusement park for me. A Spinball Whizzer of highs and lows with twists and turns that had me out of bed at five am every morning and still at my desk gone midnight most days of the week. You see, in January last year, I decided 2020 was the year I would get my debut novel Leave Well Alone into the hands of my readers. Heck, I’d been working on it for five years, surely it was time? What I didn’t anticipate, though, was achieving this goal during a global pandemic and having my children at home for nearly six months. Not to mention starting my son on the scoliosis assessment programme to prepare him for spinal surgery and supporting my husband through triple heart bypass surgery and two subsequent heart attacks. But by March, when the first lockdown started, before all my family’s trials had even began, it was too late to back down. I felt it was a story that needed telling, and I didn’t want to look back at 2020 with regrets.
Leave Well Alone
With sky-high determination, I carried on to launch Leave Well Alone on August 1st with a fun-packed, virtual book launch party. It was a success, and I couldn’t believe my eyes the day it hit the top of the Amazon bestseller charts. It took a while to sink in. I had written a bestselling debut novel. I was a bestselling author. It was a dream come true.
When my children finally returned to school in September, it was back to finishing my second novel Don’t Come Looking, another psychological thriller set in London. I’d started it while my debut novel was with my editor and already had three-quarters of a rough first draft. Shortly after, we received the dreaded news that my husband needed open-heart surgery. The next five months are a blur. I had to take over the sole running of my husband’s business, and, to top it all, we all came down with Covid, so my kids were off school again. I was determined to get my second book finished, so I plodded on and managed to send the first draft of Don’t Come Looking to my editor on December 1st. I was delighted when she came back with her thumbs up. It still needed a bit of work, she said. That I knew, but she described it as a corker of a story. As an editor should be, she’s always been brutally honest with me, so this filled me with confidence. Following her expert advice, I spent the following two months developing the story, and it’s currently with my proofreader. I’m pleased to say Don’t Come Looking will be published on April 17th. Due to the uncertainty of the pandemic, I will be holding another virtual launch party, full of prizes and surprises, on Saturday, April 17th @ 5 pm, via Facebook Live.
What’s next? Besides executing the publishing schedule for Don’t Come Looking, I’m currently writing my third psychological thriller, which I hope to publish later this year. www.ajcampbellauthor.com
DON’T COME LOOKING
A missing man. A desperate friend. A circle of deceit.
Would you refuse your friend’s desperate plea for help?
It’s eight years on from the dramatic events of Leave Well Alone, and Eva is now a detective constable on the brink of promotion. When her close friend Marc disappears, his wife Sasha is distraught, and Eva is baffled. Sasha and Marc were happy, the perfect couple, or so everybody thought.
Sasha begs Eva to help her find Marc. But he has appeared at the police station where Eva works and has made a statement. It’s on record – when his family report him missing, Marc doesn’t want to be found.
Eva is torn. She has a professional duty not to get involved, but Sasha and Marc have gone above and beyond over the years to help Eva and her husband Jim through their own troubled times.
Ultimately, friendship and loyalty override Eva’s professional integrity, and she is compelled to use her skills to delve into Marc’s life, even if it means going against Jim’s advice and breaking the police code of conduct. As each day passes, the mystery deepens. What was Marc up to? What made him do the things he did in the months leading up to his disappearance? Things so out of character, Eva struggles to tell Sasha about them….
And then a disturbing discovery changes everything