Pip Fitz-Amobi is not a detective anymore.
With the help of Ravi Singh, she released a true-crime podcast about the murder case they solved together last year. The podcast has gone viral, yet Pip insists her investigating days are behind her. But she willhave to break that promise when someone she knows goes missing.
Jamie Reynolds has disappeared but the police won’t do anything about it. And if they won’t look for Jamie then Pip will, uncovering more of her town’s dark secrets along the way… and this time EVERYONE is listening. But will she find him before it’s too late?
Published by Electric Monkey
£7.99 paperback • On Sale 30 April 2020
Why did you want to write Good Girl, Bad Blood?
(Was the inspiration different from the first book?)
I didn’t know that I was going to write Good Girl, Bad Blood until summer 2019, so I couldn’t really wait around for inspiration as I only had a few months to actually write the book! For my research, as with AGGGTM, I turned to the world of true crime podcasts, which is what inspired my love for this genre in the first place. And as for why I wrote it – after the amazing reception to book 1, I was very excited to see where I could take Pip’s story next and what other mysteries she might uncover in her town.
Which character do you feel is closest to you?
I think there are probably little bits of me in every character that I write, to varying degrees. With Pip, I think she allows me a certain amount of wish-fulfilment to explore my wannabe-detective self, but I am a lot lazier and less motivated, if we were to make a direct comparison.
How do you create a mystery?
For me, I start at the very end. I work out exactly what the solution to the mystery is: the who, the what, the how and why. And then the trickier part is actually working out how the detective character would work out this mystery bit-by-bit, without revealing too much at any one time. Plus making sure to mislead the reader whenever possible.
Best and worst part of writing?
Best: planning / research / plotting
Worst: actually drafting it. Until you get to the words THE END, then that is the best part of the entire thing.
Tea or coffee?
Coffee 100% I tend to only have one coffee a day, but I NEED it. I can go weeks without having a cup of tea.
What brightens your day?
This is such a sad answer, but BREAKFAST haha. Quite often for breakfast I make a milkshake using frozen bananas, milk and peanut butter and it is SO DAMN TASTY. There are literally times where I can’t fall asleep because I’m so excited about being able to have my breakfast milkshake soon. I think I need help.
Tell us something about yourself that not many people know:
I occasionally play Fortnite. Uh oh – don’t tell anyone.
I’m giving you a free platform to talk about anything – GO:
Oh fun! So the hill I would like to die on is that protagonists are allowed to be ‘un-likable’ and make morally dubious decisions. In fact, I think this makes books far more entertaining and enjoyable, and it is certainly something I want to explore in my books. Yet there seem to be certain factions of people who think that a protagonist must always act in the entirely appropriate and moral way and if they don’t then that is somehow a flaw in the book??? (And don’t even get me started about how this argument about ‘un-likeability’ often seems to be directed at characters who are women and girls. Apparently, men and boys are allowed to be unlikeable without it affecting the quality of the book). I think this is such a strange way to look at books and would frankly result in a lot of very boring stories being told, particularly in crime thrillers. Books aren’t supposed to be instructions for leading a moral life, books are supposed to tell the best story possible. Rant over, haha.
Finally, what is the question you wish people would ask and never do?
Ah excellent. I wish people would ask me the names of my house plants, as I take particular pride in those. As a sneak peek, we have: Mistress Courgetti, Vera, ‘The Floppy One’, and a cactus called Prick.
Holly Jackson is the bestselling author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – the critically acclaimed no.1 debut of 2019. Good Girl, Bad Blood is the thrilling sequel.
She lives in London and aside from reading and writing, she enjoys playing video games and watching true crime documentaries so she can pretend to be a detective. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was has been shortlisted for the North East Teen Book Awards 2020, Trinity School Book Awards, and Hounslow Teen Reads.@HoJay92
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