Thursday 6 July 2017

Hooray, Vile City is on BookBub today 99c 99p for a limited time




I'm delighted to announce that Vile City is featuring on the awesome BookBub today. You'll be able to get the eBook in a variety of formats (for a limited time) for the discounted price of 99 cents or 99p. 






So, if you haven't read Vile City already, why not give this twisty tale of office worker Shelley Craig's fight to stay alive so she can make it home and Inspector Duncan Waddell's relentless attempt to find her, a go? 

It'll cost you less than a cup of coffee.

You might just find another crime series to enjoy. Book 2 Cannibal City and 3 Vigilante City are already written. Book 4, Romeo City is well on its way.

Wednesday 28 June 2017

Vile City - coming to BookBub July 6th




I'm delighted to announce that Vile City will be listed on the awesome BookBub on Thursday July 5th. You'll be able to get the eBook in a variety of formats (for a limited time) for a discounted price.

So, if you haven't read Vile City already, why not give this twisty tale of office worker Shelley Craig's fight to stay alive so she can make it home and Inspector Duncan Waddell's relentless attempt to find her, a go? It'll cost you less than a cup of coffee.

You might just find another crime series to enjoy. Book 2 Cannibal City and 3 Vigilante City are already written. Book 4, Romeo City is well on its way.

Saturday 10 June 2017

Vile City gets reviewed by Bibliophile Book Club




Thanks to Ellen for her review of Vile City on the Bibliophile Book Club blog https://bibliophilebookclub.com/2017/06/09/blog-tour-vile-city-by-jennifer-thomsonellens-review/

Here's a wee taster -

"There is a particularly repulsive character in Vile City – no spoilers but they made my skin crawl and got my hackles up.
Females have a lot of strong roles of varying backgrounds and personalities; glamorous receptionist, sophisticated psychotherapist, local newspaper journalist and the latest victim Shelley Craig. It was refreshing to see this in a crime thriller although nothing (and no-one) is straight forward and I wouldn’t have known who to trust."

You'll need to read the book to find out more.

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Book Links -



Monday 5 June 2017

Vile City in the news

I'm in the Daily Record newspaper talking about Vile City and what inspired me to write the crime thriller.

Id you'd like a wee read, just click on READ IT HERE below the picture to be taken to the piece on the website☺



Thursday 1 June 2017

Vile City (Detective in a Coma book 1) blog tour


Thanks to for this awesome The Book Review Cafe graphic

Detective Inspector Duncan Waddell and his comatose pal Detective Constable Stevie Campbell, is going on a blog tour.

They'll be extracts from the mystery crime thriller, author interviews and reviews. I'm really looking forward to it.



∞∞∞The stops (and I'll be updating the links as they come)∞∞∞

Day one - The Quiet Knitterer - A review of Vile City. 
Day two - The Book Review Cafe - Read an extract from Vile City.
Day three - Novel Deelights - A review from the awesome Dee. 
Day four - Novel Gossip - Read an extract from Vile City and find out how Shelley Craig is taken. 
Day five - Damppebbles - A Review for Vile City. 
Day six - Ronnie Turner - Read a sample from the novel. 
Day seven - By the Letter Book Reviews - The long road to publication of Vile City. 
Day eight - Keeper of Pages  - A review for Vile City.
Day nine - Bibliophile Book Club - A review from the wonderful Ellen. 
Day ten - My Chestnut Reading Tree 

☺Thanks to all these amazing blogs for featuring Vile City and Noelle and Kate at Thick as Thieves Promotion for all their hard work.
May the sun shine on you all, you lovely people. ☺

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Vile City is available as a paperback and an eBook from -
Amazon Kindle (link takes you to your country's site)


Monday 15 May 2017

5 Lessons I've learnt writing a novel (so you don't have to)




 Writing a novel can seem like an arduous task.But there are ways to make it easier, especially with a bit of pre-planning and organisation.

This is what I learnt writing Vile City, the first book in my Detective in a Coma series.
Plan or you'll fail.

1. You need to be able to tell at a glance what's in every chapter. That includes plot and character development.
Unless you're blessed with a photographic memory (if you are, I envy you) there are a few ways to do this. You can have a timeline on paper or a spreadsheet on your computer.
I prefer to have a summary to go with each chapter on a Word document. I constantly update this and when I’m editing I print it out and constantly refer to it.

Get those character details right, or they'll be trouble.

2. If your characters are going to be in a series do a character profile for each character.
This should cover character, background and appearance. I reserve several pages in a notebook I keep for DI Waddell, his coma stricken pal DC Stevie Campbell (who talks to Waddell even although nobody else can hear) & Co for each character in my Detective in a Coma books. I add details as I write each book. I've just finished book three.

You need to have pertinent details of your characters quickly to hand so you can access them without slowing down your writing by having to search through text for that one detail that you need.

How many times have they been married? Do they have kids and if so what are their names? If they were in an accident who'd be their next of kin? What colour is their hair?
You need to know these things so you won't suddenly change your balding, thrice divorced, childless bachelor into someone with enviable hair, two kids and a first wife.


3. Keep a firm grip on the continuity.
You need to be consistent. No changing characters names halfway through your book. Keep an eye on the details - is your character sitting down when they've recently complained of a back injury and said they couldn't sit down?

In one of my earlier versions of Vile City, I had Shelley Craig who gets kidnapped in the book, deliberately leaving behind a necklace with a charm based on a Monopoly playing piece in one of the places she'd been kept. When my main character DI Waddell finds it the charm on the necklace had changed.



4. Save your first draft and subsequent drafts to at least three places (or four or five...).
We've all done it haven't we - toiled over our writing only to forget to save the new changes we've made or lost it all when our computer went nuts/was hit with a virus/decided that it hated us.

There is nothing worse than losing hours, days and even weeks of hard graft and somebody saying: "Hey didn’t you back it up?" when you sit there looking sheepish because you haven't.

That's why it's important to save your work at least once a day to at least three places - I send my work to two different emails, save it to Dropbox and save it on my laptop and tablet. That way if something goes wrong I won't lose work. I also save my WIP to all these places every time I do any revamping or substantial writing. 


5. Always edit on paper.
Trust me on this, when you read on a laptop or tablet screen you miss mistakes and because it's your writing your brain can trick you into thinking you've written something different to what you have.


For example - I once wrote that a character was wearing a violent jumpsuit rather than a violet one. Major difference. Don’t let your jumpsuit get violent:)

Jennifer's first novel, Vile City, which ironically will be published a few years after the second and third ones she wrote were is out on May 11th and will be launched at Waterstones in Glasgow’s busy Sauchiehall Street the same day starting at 7pm. 

Vile City is published by Caffeine Nights and available for pre-order now https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vile-City-Jennifer-Lee-Thomson/dp/1910720739 

You can meet her on Twitter @jenthom72 or on Facebook


Sunday 14 May 2017

The Vile City book launch at Waterstones

Setting up
So, how did the book launch for Vile City go, eh?

Quite a few people have asked me that and I've given a few sentences in reply.

Here's how the night went -
A quivering wreck and squinting through one eye because I couldn't see out of it because it was blurred with hayfever, I headed into Waterstones in Glasgow's famous Sauchiehall Street (its a nightmare for non-Scots to say and is pronounced Saw-kie-hall Street).

Before I went there, a few people mentioned this was Scotland's biggest bookstore - no pressure there then.

On the way there, I was contemplating doing a runner because I was so nervous, but my partner John kept reassuring me it would be okay. He had a speech prepared and I wouldn't need to do a thing except for signing books.



Sounded simple enough, but I suffer from agoraphobia (a crippling fear of people and open spaces (see my agoraphobic writer post) my hands were shaking and its hard to write my long name (Jennifer Lee Thomson) in a way that wouldn't ruin anybody's book.

We arrived at the store at 6pm for the 7pm launch, which seemed a bit early but as it turned out, I needed that extra hour.

The events manager Frankie, the most enthusiastic person I've ever met, talked us through what would happen at the event and laid out the cakes we'd brought with mini book covers made out of rice paper by an amazing cake designer.

Frankie talked us through how to use the microphones. Vital if like me you are useless with anything more technologically advanced than a shoebox tied with rope.

John was thankfully going to do all the talking standing at a lectern so in the end my microphone could be switched off.

After Frankie gave me tips on where to sign the book and what to write, it was 7pm and time to roll.

Lynsey Adams from the wonderful There's Been a Murder blog  came early and brought me a lovely, thoughtful gift and so did my brother, Ian. Then a few of John's good friends and my other brother Jamie, so at least my dream of nobody showing up proved unfounded. And everybody seemed to be enjoying the cakes!


Where was everybody? Panic sets in.

But 7pm and ten past 7 came and went and nobody else had arrived. Finally the stragglers, otherwise known as my family arrived fifteen minutes late - they'd got lost).


My partner made his amazing speech and everybody loved it and then it was book signing time, which I thoroughly enjoyed especially when asked questions about writing or my characters.

Would I have a book launch again? Probably, if Waterstones will have me again as they were wonderful to deal with (thanks go to events' manager James and Ben, as well as the amazing Frankie).

Next time (if there is one) I'll know exactly what to except.

For starters, most people who say they'll come won't, especially if Take That are in town and its a sunny day.

Your nearest and dearest will turn up late or not at all, or to a completely different venue (Glasgow has two Waterstones in the city centre alone and they are five minutes away from each other).

Thursday 11 May 2017

Yipee! Vile City is published today


Happy dance time

Vile City was published today and soon I'll be leaving for my book launch at Waterstones. Its on the 2nd floor of the Sauchiehall Street branch, kicking off at 7pm if you fancy stopping by. There will be cake.

Although there's happiness in my heart that at long last the novel that won the Scottish Association of Writers' Pitlochry Quaich for a first crime novel in 2011 is being published, there's fear too. The kind of fear that gnaws at your heart like you're being eaten from the inside.

Doubt is every writer's worst enemy.


It's nail biting time


Will anybody want to read your book? Will the reviews be scathing like knives through your heart?

Whatever the reception you get, being a writer means putting yourself out there. You have to expect and accept that people won't like your writing. But that doesn't make it any easier.


Even Benjy looks worried

But there is joy too in seeing your book on sale. Of knowing that your hard work has paid off.

In the case of Vile City (Detective in a Coma Book 1), I've been working on it trying to get it published for 6 years. In that time, it's gone through so many different versions.

Why Detective in a Coma? 

DC Stevie Campbell, the detective of the title who's in the coma, came to life after he started speaking to me. Initially he was a bit character, but he became much more. So, I thought wouldn't it be interesting to see what would happen if this friend who is meant to be in a coma started to talk to my main character DI Duncan Waddell? That would make anybody question their sanity, wouldn't it?

Vile City tells two parallel stories -
Shelley Craig who's been taken and who will do anything to make it home and DI Duncan Waddell's attempts to find her.

Shelley is an amalgamation of every strong woman I know. She's not a victim. No, she's a survivor.




Anyway, I better go now. Some cakes with book cover toppers and my book launch are waiting. Maybe I will see you there.

Wish me well.

Useful info 
You can read the start of Vile City for free here

Vile City is available in paperback and in eBook -
Amazon UK
Amazon.com 
Amazon.ca   









Saturday 29 April 2017

13 Reasons Why 13 Reasons Why doesn't glamorize suicide

***Be warned, this article contains spoilers.***



Like so many people I've been engrossed in the show about a teenage girl called Hannah Baker who takes her own life and leaves 13 cassette tapes behind explaining why.

In some way it seems like the tapes are there to get revenge on everybody who's wronged Hannah and driven her to commit suicide.

There's also been accusations that it glamorises suicide. That is one accusation that I don't agree with.

Here's 13 reasons why 13 Reasons Why doesn't glamorise suicide in my opinion -


The loss of a young life isn't glamorous.

1- There's nothing glamorous about a bright, intelligent girl like Hannah with her whole future ahead of her killing herself because she can't take life any more.

2- The life of the teens depicted on 13 Reasons Why is terrible. The pressures on the students is immense and instead of supporting each other most of them tear each other apart. Bullying is seen as normal.

3- Anything you do or say can be twisted and around the school in seconds thanks to mobile phones and the Internet. Hannah has her first kiss, next she knows the seemingly nice guy turns out to be a jerk who claims she did more than just kiss him.


The obnoxious Bryce.

4- There's nothing glamorous about a girl being raped by her boyfriend's best friend whilst she's incapacitated by alcohol as her boyfriend who should be protecting her walks away. At a time when there's research showing that many young people have a difficult time knowing when rape is rape it highlights something very important.

5- The girls in the show can be real mean girls. One minute they're helping you get home safely, the next they're driving away from an accident that takes out a stop sign and very soon after causes an accident where someone dies.

6- It shows the effects of suicide on the ones left behind.
Watching the heartbreak Hannah's parents go through, especially her mother is gut wrenching. With Clay who loved Hannah, there's also a sense of great loss and of what might have been for him and Hannah.

7- The immaturity of the boys compared to the girls is frequently highlighted throughout the show. They rarely take responsibility for any of their actions or feel any guilt. There's always a sense that if you're good at sport and popular at school you can do whatever the hell you want to.

8- Girls face unbelievable pressure. Either they're frigid or easy. There seems to be no middle ground. And it's not just guys who are judging and rating them, it's the girls who should know better. So much for the sisterhood.

9- The students seem to live in a parallel universe to the teachers and parents and have no support system. They don't let their parents into their lives. Instead they bury all of their pain with drugs and alcohol and by being mean to their peers and oblivious to their pain.

10-  Teachers do try to help, but not near enough and they seem oblivious to what's going on right under their noses. The bullying, the peer pressure, the drugs and alcohol.


Even the seemingly nice guys screw Hannah over.

11- It shows the characters as they really are warts and all i.e not in the least bit glamorous or people we would want to be. Even the wonderful Clay, our main character isn't perfect. Throughout 13 Reasons Why there's a strong sense that if only he'd told Hannah how he felt she would still be alive.

12- We wouldn't want to be anyone in the show. They may be young but none of them seem particularly happy. Hannah killed herself, but it could have just as easily have been anyone else in the show.

13- You spend the whole time watching the show with a sense of deep sadness, a feeling that you want to grab all of the young cast by the scruff of the neck and tell them school doesn't last forever. You have the rest of your life.

Conclusion - Whatever anyone thinks, it has to be a good thing that teenage suicide is at least being discussed. Too many young people are taking their own lives. It's something we need to talk about and if shows like 13 Reasons Why make that happen it has got to be a good thing.

On a personal note, as someone who was bullied mercilessly at school and the place where I lived and who contemplated suicide, I found the show cathartic and grittily realistic. 

Friday 3 February 2017

I'm so excited - Vile City is NOW available on pre-order

Sorry, I haven't been updating you on my progress as regularly as I would like. 

I'd love to say that I'm really a superhero and have been whizzing around saving people and bringing down bad guys. 

Hey, we can all dream, can't we? 


Sadly, what I haven't been doing is being a superhero. 

What I've really been doing is working on Vigilante City, book 3 in my Detective in a Coma series featuring Inspector Duncan Waddell. A crime thriller where people who seem to have gotten away with murder are being targeted by a vigilante who kills them and shoves a newspaper cutting about the victim's alleged crime down their throats. 

Book 2, Cannibal City - where a killer goes around Glasgow kidnapping men, keeping them alive for weeks and then force-feeding them before killing them and eating their livers - is already written. 





Vile City Pre-order  
The good news though is that Vile City, the first ever book in the series is now available for your entertainment on pre-order in paperback. 

Here's the to Amazon link.

You can read an extract here




Vile City tells Shelley's story of how she tries to make it home.


What's it about then? 
Vile City tells two parallel stories - Detective Inspector Waddell who's trying to catch a killer dubbed as the Glasgow Grabber and two, Shelley Carig, one of his victims who'll do anything to stay alive. 

I also received my copies of Vile City today and I'm so excited. Not only is the cover amazing, its also the first book I've had published with my full name Jennifer Lee Thomson. 

All of my other books have been written as Jenny Thomson but will be changed to Jennifer Lee Thomson (my crime thriller trilogy featuring gutsy Nancy Kerr and her former special forces boyfriend, Tommy McIntyre) and Jennifer Thomson (my self-help books, including Living Cruelty Free: Live a more Compassionate Life and Bullying - A Parent's guide.

My first book coming out with my full name is very important to me as one of the last things my dad said to me before he died after a long, brave battle with cancer was "Why don't you use your middle name?"

So, Vile city and all the other books to come are for you, dad


My late dad in his Elvis wig.