u/JEZTURNER

Hi everyone

It's been a while. Last time I posted about his, I hadn't even started the first draft and just wanted to test the waters for feasibility / appeal. I've now written and edited the first draft, looking for alpha readers, but in the meantime wanted to share where it has 'landed' so far, as it's changed a little since last query. It would be good to get thoughts on whether the genre feels right, or it's not horror at all but something else. I'm well aware the first comp isn't horror, and the second is more psychological horror - very, very open to hear of any better comps, please! Otherwise, thanks for any feedback.

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GWEN JUST WANTS TO MAKE BLANKETS is an 88,000 word domestic, cosy horror about meddling family relationships. Comparisons include An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed by Helene Tursten and We Spread by Iain Reid. GJWTMB is a tribute to the solace of crafting, and a curse on the people who won’t let us get on with it.

Ninety-year old Gwen Jones loves to crochet blankets in her conservatory, watching the squirrels in the garden. Following a long career in the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), and now that her husband Archie has died, she has earned that peace, and a nice cup of tea to wash it down. Her family have got other plans though, rallied together by her monstrous oaf of a son-in-law Barry. When they're not invading her home to check in on her, they drag Gwen to local craft groups and fairs, develop an online brand to sell her blankets, and secretly livestream her crocheting. Gwen's great niece Trudy even moves in, because obviously, Gwen must be so lonely now, right? Wrong. Gwen's two-year-old great grandson Kai is the only one of them to leave her be, an island of serenity amidst their chaos. 

Gwen does her best to resist, supported by her mischievous neighbour Edie, but the family don’t listen and misunderstand her protestations. When Trudy is hospitalised after an 'accident' at the local craft fair, she is merely replaced by her twin sister Trish - and of course, she's even worse. Gwen loses her free time and her space, overwhelmed with countless visitors, a whole sweatshop of crafters, boxes of yarn equipment, and marketing materials she never asked for. And then the unthinkable happens - Gwen's crochet starts to suffer, splitting yarn and dropping stitches.

When Gwen finally snaps at the family in an unprecedented rant, they once again misunderstand and take it as a cry for help. Their solution is to stage an intervention during a weekend break, presenting their plan to move Gwen into a care home. The idea of nurses constantly prodding and fussing around her is the final straw, but the isolated holiday cottage location might just provide the opportunity she's been looking for. Can Gwen draw once more on the skills and experience of her past career, to remove them once and for all? Maybe then she can finally live her final days out alone with her blankets?

I had been looking forward to reading this for a while, hoping it was a kind of locked room type mystery. And it was, and very well done, very satisfying. I guessed elements of it, but not in a way that blew the whole story. I gave it a v rare 5 stars. I read a lot of Christie, and lots of them recently have been getting just 3 or 4 at best, but this felt a bit sharper, more fun, with a genuine mystery of how and why and who the murder was done. It reminded me a bit of Cards on the Table, having this containment type formula, like that book.

I was just reading Death in the Clouds thinking about how specifically they were describing people's seat positions, checked the front matter of the book and there's a handy map and list of passengers in their seats. But when you start the book for the first time it starts you at chapter 1, so you miss it. Glad I found it now though.