Quick Fire at the Slaughterhouse: Interview with Donna Collins

Donna Collins has written a compelling page turner with her debut novel. The Sacrifice merges mystery with horror in a skilled and stylish manner. She is also hot after the sequel. Donna met me at The Slaughterhouse, where we talked about her series and her literary influences.

Tell us about your debut novel.

It’s called The Sacrifice, is released on 5th January 2018, and is the first novel in the HUNTED series. It’s based on a pilot script my friend and I wrote and, after many trips and meetings in LA, I was asked to write it as a novel.

It is set in Cornwall and begins when nurse Eliza Hamilton is mugged on her way home from work late one evening and the mysterious Roman Holbrook appears out of the darkness and fights off her attacker. But is this man her hero or does he have a more sinister motive for wanting her kept alive?

It’s definitely a thriller, although while some say it’s an action thriller, others say it’s a thriller with supernatural elements (although I can promise you there isn’t one vampire in sight). I guess you’ll just have to read it yourself and make up your own mind.

Do you have any literary influences?

I have a few. As a kid I loved Enid Blyton’s The Children of Cherry Tree Farm – full of adventure and getting up to mischief. As a girl in her late teens and early twenties, I loved Paula Gosling’s novels. You cannot beat good crime. Their simple format is pretty much how I like to write now. That, and I am a massive fan of Elmore Leonard’s dialogue technique. Have you read Raylan or seen Justified? I get such a kick from reading his work.

What are you working on?

Now I’ve finished the trilogy, I can return to the original book before I was writing before the whole HUNTED thing started. A third of it had already been written but I’ve had a few ideas since then so I’m going back over the plotting and tweaking it a little here and there. It’s very much in its early stages again but will be set in London, have lot of action, an amnesic and feisty leading lady, and a forensic scientist hell-bent on revenge.

What else is on the cards for you this year?

A lot of promotion for the HUNTED series. Then, for the first half of this year, I’ll be concentrating on getting the first draft of my new novel written for my editor. By the end of the year, I would like to have the fourth book published and a first draft of my fifth novel down on paper. I may even pop across the pond to the ITW conference in the summer…for a break.

Thank you Donna for a great interview.

Links: Amazon – The Sacrifice, Resurrection, and The Undoing