Dead Letters by P.J. Murphy Book Tour. Guest Post & More! {Ends 2/16/24}

Book Details:

 Dead Letters by P.J. Murphy
Category: Adult Fiction (18+), 349 pages
Genre: Mystery, Literary Fiction
Publisher: P.J. Murphy
Release date: May 2023
Tour dates: Jan 22 to Feb 9
Content Rating: PG-13 +M. The book is not violent, and swearing is infrequent. There are a number of references to ghosts, but the atmosphere is more gothic than scary (with one exception). However, it is a book aimed squarely at adults, with references to depression and mental illness.

Book Description:

Bestselling author Richard Debden is missing. The only clue: a copy of his unpublished final novel delivered to his ex-girlfriend, Amy. When those closest to Richard reunite for his memorial, Amy turns to Chris, his former best friend, to help unravel the mystery. Could Richard still be alive and in need of their help?

Richard’s manuscript tells of two abandoned children in wartime Britain, instructed by a shadowy Postmaster to deliver letters to ghosts and release them from their torment. As Chris and Amy delve into the text, they identify parallels between fiction and reality; clues to a trail that leads across the country and – they hope – to Richard.

But they are not the only interested party. A mysterious society is following them, their motives unclear. Can Chris and Amy unlock the secrets of Dead Letters, or will more sinister forces get there first?

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Other Books in the Series:

Is learning by doing a good idea when it comes to writing novels?

Everyone learns differently. I definitely like to learn by doing. I’ve self-taught myself to play
the guitar (badly), and I don’t waste time reading instruction manuals – much to my wife’s distress.

When it comes to writing, this is a blessing and a curse. I don’t think you can learn to write
just by reading articles or attending writing courses: you have to do it. But writing as a learning experience requires a big investment of time. I’ve written four novels and a novella
before that. The novella and the first were massive learning experiences – that is to say, they will remain locked away for eternity, never again to be seen by anyone. The writing is
stilted, the plot is confused, and the characters are two-dimensional. But I had to do it
wrong before I could get it right.

These days, I view writing as giving the reader what they want. This doesn’t mean I can’t
surprise them with plot twists, but it does mean providing them with what they have signed up to read. So, plots that don’t make sense or characters that change name or appearance can all break readers out of the spell. As a writer, you can sometimes be oblivious to it, as your mind is on ‘higher’ things, but it’s the details that trip people up.

I’m not going to surprise anyone when I say that it’s important to get reader feedback.
Readers will spot many of these issues. The key to using reader feedback is to know what to take from it. Not everyone will like what you’ve written: it may not be to their taste, or it may resonate poorly with them. Equally, it’s a mistake to dismiss feedback offhand. If some readers feel a certain way about your writing, it’s possible that it would put off broader swathes of your potential readership.

Even with a novel-and-a-half of that learning, finishing my second novel, Dead Letters, took
me fifteen years. I had planned it out thoroughly and employed learning from previous efforts, but that couldn’t stop me from disliking the ending when I came to write it. The issue was that my life had changed while writing this novel. I wanted different things from it in the end; I was more conscious of the reader’s experience and that having an ending that makes you hate all the main characters is probably not the best way to go. But changing that required a substantial rewrite, and when you’ve already been working on something for a couple of years, that’s difficult to tackle.

I’m still not sure that Dead Letters is the book I would write if I were starting it fresh now. I
don’t know whether that’s for better or worse, but it’s certainly true that writing, like most
art, is an expression of the creator at the time. I hope that it resonates with where my readers are when reading.