Meet North East writer LJ Ross who knocked The Girl on the Train off the bestseller top spot; At 31, the former lawyer from Ponteland has found a successful new career as a writer of crime fiction set in her native North East.
Byline: David Whetstone
There's no spot in the North East so beautiful that you can't make it a murder scene. That would appear to be the thinking of LJ Ross, an author who has burst like a comet onto the literary scene.
Her first book was called Holy Island, her second was Sycamore Gap and her third was Heavenfield. The new one is Angel (the striking cover shows Anthony Gormley's sculpture) and High Force is on the way.
None of these is a tourist guide to a regional beauty spot. No, LJ Ross writes racy crime thrillers and these locations are where her DCI Ryan exercises his murder detective's skills.
He's one lucky dude, you might be thinking. No sleazy basements or back lanes for him.
Perhaps that's why he doesn't fall over all the other fictional crime-busters out there -- people like DCI Kate Daniels (Mari Hannah) and DCI Vera Stanhope (Ann Cleeves).
Louise Ross -- the 'J' is for husband James who has helped her a lot -- is a former lawyer and something of a literary phenomenon.
In less than two years she has sold more than 500,000 ebooks meaning she has earned more from writing than she would have done in her job as a regulatory lawyer.
She's not crowing about that, though.
"I've only been in it for two years and I never count my chickens. But it (the career change) was never about the income. It was a decision taken from a more holistic perspective."
North East author tops the bestsellers lists again - but this time for audiobooks
But to begin at the beginning...
Louise grew up in Ponteland and went to Darras Hall First School, Dame Allan's and Central Newcastle High before going to London to study law.
Before settling into steady employment she also managed to fit in periods of study in Florence and at the Sorbonne in Paris.
"I tried to put in the hours to give myself a well-rounded education," she explains.
Did she ever harbour childhood ambitions of being a writer?
"I hadn't thought so but my mum has this enormous chest of old things and it seems that I used to make books, stapling them together and illustrating them. I'd forgotten I'd done that.
"But I always loved reading. I don't know... I suppose I always perceived writing to be such a competitive industry. But then, every industry is competitive nowadays."
So Louise got on with being a lawyer and, it seems, a pretty good one -- although her confession that she used to email short stories to friends "to brighten up their day" suggests a writer was struggling to get out.
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