Book Blast! New action packed thriller Number Ten by author and playwright Robin Hawdon

As much as I love to read I have a full-time job in the city and a part-time freelance writing gig along with being a book blogger. This means there just isn’t time to get to all the books I’m offered from publishers and authors. I would hate for my readers to miss out on a good read due to my impossible workload, so now and again you’ll start to spot a Book Blast! in my feed.

A Book Blast! will be an author guest post or synopsis of a book that I wish I could pick up and read if my nightstand wasn’t a foot high with books already.

Enjoy my very first Book Blast! from author Robin Hawdon on their new fast-paced action thriller, Number Ten. Enjoy!

Guest Post by Robin Hawdon

My career has been largely tied up with the theatre. I have plays running all over the world. But every ten years or so I feel the urge to tackle the much longer challenge of writing a novel. Previous ones have attracted great reviews but have never made the best-seller lists. This time I decided to go for the blockbuster popular market and write a fast action thriller. And as I’m very interested in politics (we are casting a new play about Churchill and Chamberlain at the moment) I decided to put the UK government at the centre of the story. I’m also a fan of the Jason Bourne stories, so the idea of having a junior innocent member of Number Ten Downing Street’s staff falsely implicated in a plot to bring down the government appealed to me.

What has thrilled me since the recent launch is the quality of the Amazon reviews so far,  and this extract from distinguished reviewer Linda Hill sums up perfectly the sort of review I had hoped for. It also gives a better description of what the book is about than I could have done! How could one top this:-

Review of Number Ten

 “Wow!  Number Ten begins in explosive fashion and maintains a high-octane, fast pace until the very last word. Reading Number Ten felt akin to riding a rather breathtaking fairground ride and I hardly had time to catch my breath. Although this is fiction, so many similar events to those in the plot have happened recently here in the UK and abroad in countries like Sri Lanka, after Number Ten‘s publication, that any suspension of disbelief that might have been needed simply evaporated. The action in Number Ten felt real, vivid and only too scarily possible.

     It is obvious that Robin Hawdon writes with a director’s eye. He understands exactly what information is needed to hook the reader, to create setting and to drive the action, making reading the book an almost cinematic experience. Number Ten would translate into the most fabulous television series because the pace is perfect and there are surprises that shock in a scenario that is utterly believable. On occasion, the reader only receives information at the same time as the characters so that it feels as if you’re part of the action too. Indeed, I found the quality of the writing completely engaging. The present tense used for Rafik creates an immediacy and ongoing threat, and those passages involving the hero Paul are slick, sophisticated and superbly crafted. I think the natural quality of the direct speech adds to the sensation that Number Ten is something special.

    Themes of corruption, love, loyalty, betrayal, threat, politics in many forms, idealism, policing – I could go on – weave their way through this exciting story so naturally, making this book all the more captivating.

I so enjoyed Number Ten. If I say that I had to give up trying to sleep at three in the morning because I only had 40 pages or so left to read and I kept wondering what was happening in my absence, you’ll know how powerful a hold the narrative had on me. It is a glorious thriller that kept me enthralled throughout. I really recommend it.”   www.lindasbookbag.com

Author’s website – www.robinhawdon.com