Welcome to the Dark & Stormy podcast, in which I speak – writer to writer – with authors of crime fiction, thrillers, and sci-fi.
My guest is Hanna Delaney, author of THE SPIDER, first in a budding series of spooky supernatural mysteries set in Liverpool, 1892, featuring her uncanny detective, Muldoon. Hanna is a Scouse whose love and fascination with her home city and its often dramatic history infuses her ghostly tales.
She speaks with Jamie Dibs about her work, inspiration, her new book (second in the Muldoon series), the writer’s life, and how she is growing an audience built around her Substack presence.
Timecodes:
0:00 – Hanna Delaney
2:30 – Why set THE SPIDER in the year 1892?
3:35 – Why “No. Five Percy Street”? Some Liverpool history, and visiting the city
8:40 – Why write this mystery as a ghost story, and Hanna’s take on the haunted house
12:13 – How to use the horror genre
13:13 – Inventing Inspector Muldoon; and exploring his Irish identity
18:41 – Other aspects of Liverpool history to explore in this series
21:05 – Addressing Liverpool’s role in the slave trade, and its multicultural nature
25:00 – How Hanna took on book 2 in the series; thinking about making a series
28:07 – Forging a writing career while juggling family life
30:36 – How she became a writer and how she’s using Substack and other venues to market her books
35:44 – What’s next for Hanna Delaney
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