Smitten with a Cover: The Angel by Katerina Diamond @TheVenomousPen @HarperCollinsUK @Sabah_K #GuestPost

Today is the day I get to use and look forever at one of my favorite covers! I’d like to thank Harper Collins for including me in their blog tour for The Angel and for providing me with a guest post and a copy of the book! (the review is up later this month!!!!)

THE TRUTH WON’T STAY LOCKED UP FOREVER

When a burned body is found in a disused signal box, suspicion falls on lonely teenager Gabriel Webb. There’s no doubt he was at the scene of the crime, but does he deserve what awaits him in prison?

DS Imogen Grey is certain there’s more to the case than meets the eye. But while she struggles to convince those around her of the truth, her partner DS Adrian Miles is distracted by his own demons.

When a brutal double murder is reported, their investigation is stopped in its tracks. Is the body in the box even who they thought it was? The duo realise Gabriel might have been locked up for a crime he didn’t commit. But with enemies watching Gabriel’s every move, they may be too late.

Miles and Grey are back in the thrilling new novel from bestselling author Katerina Diamond, perfect for fans of Karin Slaughter and M.J. Arlidge, Orange Is The New Black and Locked Up.

My recent experience with Internet bullying.

With social media being such a huge part of our lives now, is internet bullying on the rise? I love social media, I was on myspace, and a place called Faceparty before that. I used to frequent chatrooms in the nineties and I still have friends online that I made in chatrooms over fifteen years ago, close friends, close friends I have never met. With the introduction of Facebook, social media suddenly became a lot more mainstream. Now we have the added issue of whether to add family members – with friend requests from both people we know and don’t know, it can be hard to navigate and quite noisy at times.

In the past I have had several Facebook accounts but now I am just down to the one and I find it difficult, while I like interacting with new people and people I haven’t met, it can get a bit messy when you find out Joe Bloggs that you friended last week and has over fifty common friends is in fact a closet Nazi sympathiser or something (it happens).
Twitter is another minefield altogether that I don’t completely understand. It seems to be a very shouty place, a place to project opinions rather than engage in conversation. Maybe I am doing it wrong (I am definitely doing it wrong). Some of the people I follow on twitter do nothing put post book jackets or promotions, that’s fine, you can use it however you want however I don’t necessarily want to see that. When I first started twitter I got an angry message from someone for not following them back, they called me rude and then blocked me. I thought that was very strange behaviour but thought little of it. I don’t really pay any attention to who follows me and who doesn’t, I probably don’t tweet as much as I should, but don’t worry, I update people on Facebook every fifteen minutes as to what I am doing, I know they love this.

I recently responded to a person on twitter about their anger at not being followed back in general by crime writers, along the same lines as what I have just said, sometimes you just don’t want to see the things someone has in their feed. I immediately got called a bully and was then blocked. Several other people had responded to her at the same time and I think she thought it was a coordinated attack. It was not. This woman, who I wont name, is another published author. For 3 days after our little interaction she posted statements about how upset she was at being bullied, how she couldn’t work anymore because she was crying all the time , how she felt violated and intimidated. As soon as anyone asked her what was wrong, her response was that she would inbox them. No doubt telling them that I, and a few other authors had attacked her. I’m still pretty annoyed at being labelled as a bully when all I did was respond to a statement on twitter – which I thought was the point. I will just have to wait for the furor to die down and things to get back to normal even though there have since been about how the crime community have an agenda to keep this person in her place, or something. The whole incident made me think about internet bullying.

What happened was a minor disagreement, and nothing personal was said (unless you count what was said to me). I found the lady in question to be rude, aggressive and defensive and yet I am the one (among other crime writers) who was labelled a bully. Is that what an internet bully is these days? Someone who disagrees with you? I received a personal message from someone else who told me exactly the same thing had happened to them, an altercation with this same woman of a very similar nature. She received a torrent of hate in private messages from the person in question and spoke to the police about it. The woman was still upset about the encounter two years later after being labelled something she wasn’t. Being called a bully isn’t nice. Hopefully when people look through the interactions they see that nothing of the sort happened. Do two sentences that mildly disagree with a person’s point of view make you a bully? Answers on a postcard please….

---

As a former victim of Internet bullying, this post talks to me so much it’s scary! I used to be very shy on social media until I started blogging and met fabulous people, discovered I could get in touch with my favorite publishers and writers. Then it became more personal, like a picture diary through Facebook to help me remember the good and bad days of anxiety and share my experience to help others. But there is a dark side to social media, one word can be taken the wrong way and a storm is never far. It is sometimes hard to balance what to say, who to trust. You only have what’s on your screen to trust, and you sometimes get involved with people you’d rather not. That’s why I enjoy playing on this ground, but I keep a distance most of the time. I’m myself, but I protect what’s mine. I have fun, I don’t judge, but I avoid drama. And I hope those great places can stay nice and quiet and a lovely place to share.

Thank you so much for this amazing piece, Katerina!

Katerina Diamond lives on the east Kent Coast with her son and daughter. Born in Weston-super-Mare, she has lived in various places since including Greece, Cyprus, Derby, East London and Exeter. Her first novel reached number six in the Sunday Times Bestseller chart.

Find her on Twitter @TheVenomousPen

 

 

Take a look at the stops!!!

 

 

 

 

Advertisement