#redeyereadalong | Q&A with Simon Cheshire!

Welcome everyone to the third Q&A session for the #redeyereadalong that myself and Michelle from Tales of Yesterday are hosting over on Twitter! Feel free to join along with us. We’re currently reading Flesh and Blood by Simon Cheshire this week. If you check out our Goodreads group you’ll find all the information on upcoming events. Also, apologies for the late post – apparently, I forgot to schedule this…

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Q&A Time!

Today’s Q&A is with the fantastic Simon Cheshire, who I’m sure is revelling in all the Twitter/Goodreads comments about how terrified we all are right now, just a few days into the reading week!

1. Let’s start with something easy. What was your biggest fear growing up?

School. You know the terrible, empty feeling in the stomach you get when you hear bad news? I’d get that when I woke up every morning. The place absolutely terrified me. Of course, this was hundreds of years ago, back in the 1960s/’70s – schools today are so welcoming and up-beat, I love visiting them.

2. What inspired you to write Flesh and Blood?

I think it was a combination of things. Various horrible reports in the news sparked several ideas, but mostly it was a case of just letting a selection of my own inner demons run riot – my innate squeamishness at all things medical, for one!

3. What is the best thing about writing in the horror genre?

It’s wonderfully cathartic. Those inner demons get a damn good thump on the nose! Flesh and Blood is the first out-and-out horror story I’ve ever written, but now the genie is well and truly out of the bottle. I’m itching to write more! (I’ve got an reeeeally nasty idea about a 6th former going on work experience which is an absolute cracker… hee hee hee)

4. What is (in your opinion) the scariest book available (not including your own!)?

The scariest fiction of all time is still Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Not a horror story, of course, but if anyone claims they can read that without a crawling sense of dread eating them alive, they’re just plain lying! Having said that, the book that un-nerved me most is probably The Uninvited by Clive Harald, a non-fiction piece – now long out of print – about a family terrorised by UFO sightings. How much of it was true was anyone’s guess, but it certainly scared the living daylights out of me when I was about 12!

5. What is your favourite urban legend?

I like the one about the hook on the car door handle. I forget the details.

6. What is the creepiest/scariest line from your Red Eye book?

There’s a line near the end when someone says “Please! Please! Mum!” As I typed the words, I felt I was being horribly, unforgivably cruel to my characters. But then I thought, nahhh, it’s a horror story! Whaddya want, a happy ending?

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This is another one that I’ve already read and it was fantastic! It’s got such a great ending! I know you guys will love it.

Are you joining us for the #redeyereadalong? If so, what do you think of Flesh and Blood so far?