BLOOD, WINE & chocolate
by Julie Thomas
Blood, Wine & Chocolate marks Waikato writer Julie Thomas’ first foray into the seedy world of crime. This darkly comic murder mystery is a lethal blend of expensive wine and handmade chilli chocolates set amidst some of New Zealand’s beautiful coastal landscapes.
Hidden away in a witness protection programme on an idyllic island vineyard in New Zealand, Vinnie Whitney-Ross could be forgiven for thinking he has escaped the clutches of the childhood friend— a ruthless London mobster — he helped convict for a gruesome double murder.
But old grudges die hard, cops are bent, and the finest wines and chocolates find new and unexpected uses when Vinnie's present runs headlong into his secret past.
But, why resort to crime? ‘I love crime, I love reading it, I love writing it,’ says Julie. ‘And, I had a story which had to be told. Several years ago in London over a very large bottle of excellent New Zealand wine, some friends and I began to plot a story.
What would happen if a man went into witness protection and made wine, but the wine was so good that the world came calling, including the people he was hiding from? Blood, Wine & Chocolate evolved from those tentative beginnings.’
Julie Thomas made a name for herself when her first novel, The Keeper of Secrets, attracted the attention of international publisher HarperCollins in the US after selling more than 40,000 in self-published ebook format. It is a beguiling tale which follows the mysterious story of a priceless violin across five decades, from WWII to Stalinist Russia to the international concert halls of today
About the author:
Julie worked in the media in New Zealand and the UK for over twenty years. She 'semi-retired' to Cambridge in 2011 to write fulltime and has just recently moved to Putaruru to an idyllic country home with beautiful rural views and no sound except bird song and the wind in tall trees. The perfect environment for writing, she says.
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