Danse Macabre
by Cristelle Comby
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*look for the exciting contest at the end of the post!*
A signed copy of Danse Macabre.
*look for the exciting contest at the end of the post!*
A signed copy of Danse Macabre.
Cristelle Comby was born and raised in the
French-speaking area of Switzerland, in Greater Geneva, where she still
resides.
Thanks to her insatiable thirst for American and
British action films and television dramas, her English is fluent.
She attributes to her origins her ever-peaceful
nature and her undying love for chocolate. She has a passion for art, which
also includes an interest in drawing and acting.
Danse Macabre is her third new-adult novel, and
she’s hard at work on the next titles in the Neve & Egan series.
How long have you
been a writer?
I feel like I’ve been writing all my life, but I took it up
seriously about five or six years ago. The first novel I did still sits in my
desk drawer. The second was Russian Dolls,
the first of the Neve & Egan books.
How much time did it
take from writing your first book to having it published?
About a year, if I remember correctly. Roughly four-five
months were spent writing it, and the rest of the year went into the editing
process. That was the biggest surprise of the project, the editing. I never
thought it would take more time than writing.
Are you a plotter or
a pantser?
Plotter, definitely. I firmly believe in the power of the
almighty outline. I can’t start writing without knowing where the story is
going, and how it’ll end.
What was the hardest
part of writing your book?
Keeping up the pace. If I’m not careful, I let emotional
scenes go-on too long.
Do you work on one
project at a time? Or do you multi-task?
My books are part of a series, and although each can be read
as a standalone, there’s a bigger story arc playing over the first four books.
From the get-go, I had an idea of what each story would be.
Also, I always have two books in the works at the same time.
The last stages of writing a book involve a lot of waiting around and doing
nothing (waiting on feedback to come in, waiting on the proofreader, …). It’s
at that point, that I actively start writing the next one.
When not writing, how
do you relax?
I watch a lot of TV, listen to music. In the summer, I love
going for walks in the sunny countryside.
Please share with us
your future projects and upcoming releases.
I’m working on the next book in the series: Blind Chess. It picks up right where Danse Macabre ends.
Links to find Cristelle Comby :
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/CristelleComby
Private investigators Alexandra Neve and Ashford
Egan are hired to succeed where the police have failed, to safely return home a
missing ballerina. With no lead to pursue and no idea who could be behind the
young woman’s kidnapping, they soon find themselves at a loss as to what to
do.
To make matters worse, the heart of England seems to be caught in the middle of a little Ice Age. With snow endlessly falling and Tube lines either too cramped up to use or out of service, it is a pain to do any legwork in the huge metropolis.
Oh, and because trouble never comes alone, there may also be a serial killer on the loose in the streets of East London...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt
Mrs Doughton called the agency this morning, with
urgency in her voice, and asked for a meeting that very afternoon. She
requested Egan and I come as soon as we could, for a job of the utmost
importance. She refused to divulge more information over the phone, but my
curiosity was piqued. I promised her we would honour the appointment — besides,
we didn’t have any other clients banging down our door.
We stop at the front door of a typical Victorian
terrace house and I press the doorbell. The door swings open, before I have a chance
to remove my finger from the button, revealing a slim woman in her forties with
short curly hair, high cheekbones and tired eyes. I note in passing she’s long
overdue for a root touch-up to hide the silver strands eating their way down
her brown hair.
She’s wearing a wrinkled blouse and a pair of
jeans. She beckons us in, with a quick, nervous gesture. ‘Ms Neve, Mr Egan,
please come in.’ She leads us to the living room of the small house and has to
remove papers from the settee to make room for my colleague and I to sit down.
My stomach clenches as I catch sight of the
documents: missing person posters. I only catch a glimpse of the documents, but
the word MISSING printed in bold and capitals is impossible to ignore and they
show a picture of a young girl with dark wavy hair.
Mrs Doughton drops the leaflets on a nearby table,
already filled to the brim, and turns back to face us. I nod at the notices she
just put away. ‘Your daughter, I presume.’
‘Yes,’ the woman says in a tired voice. She sits
down, looking both exhausted and distressed.
‘She disappeared last weekend. I… I have no idea
where she is.’
Egan frowns and asks, ‘Have you contacted the
police?’
‘Of course I have. It was the first thing I did,
Sunday morning, when I couldn’t reach her,’ she replies, her hands twisting in
her lap. ‘I called all of Isa’s friends, the other dancers, her teachers,
everyone in our family… everyone I could think of.’
She takes in a breath, bites at her lower lip. ‘No
one’s seen her, not since Friday afternoon. At first I assumed she’d spent the
night at a friend’s, but when I still couldn’t reach her on Sunday… She’s never
been gone so long, and she always calls me back.’
She shakes her head, and worries her lip again.
‘The detectives think she ran away. I tried to tell them she wouldn’t—’ she
clenches and unclenches her hands nervously, ‘—I tried and tried to tell them
my daughter isn’t like that. No matter how it looks, she wouldn’t leave me.
It’s been just the two of us since my husband died three years ago. Isa
wouldn’t leave. She just… she wouldn’t.’ Tears fill Mrs Doughton’s eyes and she
seems ready to fall to pieces.
Damn it, I hate jobs like this one. I force an
amiable smile, lean forward, and try to get the poor woman’s full attention, to
draw her away from the brink before she falls apart on us. ‘Tell us more about
your daughter. How old is she?’
In response, Mrs Doughton reaches for one of the
missing person posters and places it in my hand, while she dabs at her eyes
with a tissue.
I find my answer underneath the smiling face of a
young brunette with a cheery smile and her mother’s dark eyes. I read the words
aloud, for Egan’s benefit: ‘Isabella Doughton, age 24.’
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