Double cross at heart of thriller
SHAWNA Coleing hedged her bets when deciding to become a published author.
She wrote under a pseudonym, VF Streets.
“When I first wrote the book, I thought if it’s terrible, I can just pretend it wasn’t me,” says the 41-year-old Cairns mother of three.
She needn’t have worried. Her debut novel, Sleight of Hand, was published by Amazon last month and is already selling well as an ebook and paperback.
A romantic thriller and the first in a vigilante series set in America, crime fixer Bristol Kelley manipulates crime scenes for rich folk, erasing evidence of their involvement in heinous acts.
It’s Bristol’s job to make sure the guilty go free.
But her conscience gets in the way. When she takes on a job to frame someone who may not deserve it, she has to decide if she will double cross her employer.
Ms Coleing, who is already working on the second book in the series, said she started writing 20 years ago.
“After I graduated from university, I started writing novels.
“In one sense I wanted to write something amazing, but that’s a lot of pressure.
“This book was more of an experience. I thought if I just write something whose sole purpose was to entertain, what would that look like.
“I came up with romantic suspense and it just went from there. I had been reading the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child and thought his calm, cool character was interesting. I started looking at what that would look like as a woman.
“The love interest character works well with her, but also raises a bit of conflict, so keeps things interesting.”
A part-time admin worker, Ms Coleing fits her writing around family commitments.
“When I’m really trying to get through something, I can spend 20 hours a week on it. Some weeks, I don’t get to it.”
American-born herself, Ms Coleing grew up near Niagara Falls and moved to Australia 17 years ago.
She has set Sleight of Hand in Los Angeles and opted for an American editor.
“I wanted an American to read it, so she could clean up my Australian – all those little figures of speech. Even though I’m originally American, she’d say ‘we don’t say that’.
“I might say the character needs to ring someone. She would say they need to ‘call’ them. She changed kitchen bench to kitchen counter, things like that.”
Ms Coleing designed the book cover herself and launched a free 10,000 word prequel to generate interest.
Sleight of Hand is available as an ebook at amazon.com.au. Paperbacks are available at contact@pgturners.com or www.pgturners.com online.