Today I’m taking part in the blog tour for No Such Thing As Goodbye. I’m sharing a guest post by the author with thanks to Rachel Gilbey at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me on the blog tour and to Karmen Spiljak for writing her guest post!

Blurb:

A spy with a criminal past. A dark family secret. Freedom at the cost of betrayal.

To escape her mobster family, Toni fakes her own death, but before she can start anew in Mexico City, she’s pulled into a world of spies and deadly secrets. Her new life crumbles when she discovers her boss is keeping secrets of his own.

When word gets around that Toni’s brother is on his way to Mexico, she fears the worst – he wants to hunt her down. Cornered and with nowhere to turn, Toni must decide: will she run once more, or will she risk her life for a chance of freedom?

Guest Post:

Karmen Spiljak has written a guest post entitled Female Spies.

Female spies

As a fan of crime fiction, I’ve always been fascinated by spies. I’ve often wondered where all the female spies were. Surely there were more than the one or two I’d learned about in history? They were even absent from crime fiction, so I promised to myself that if I were ever to write a spy novel,  it would feature a female spy. It wasn’t until one sunny afternoon, when Antonia Morretti knocked on my door, that I actually started to write it.

Antonia, Toni to friends, came carrying heavy luggage, which I’m still unpacking. I learned that she was on the run and was willing to go to great lengths to leave a life of crime and her two brothers behind. Every time Toni and I met on an empty page, another secret crawled out. The longer I spent working on Toni’s story, the clearer it became it wouldn’t fit in a single book. No, Toni’s story would have to be a series.

Over the next two years, Toni divulged many of her secrets and I got to follow her around as she tried to figure out her new life. She knew what she didn’t want, but not what she wanted, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to find that out. As Toni immersed herself into the world of spies, I dug deeper into the available resources about female spies. Sonia Purnell’s ‘A Woman of No Importance’ has given me a lot of insight into the life and work of Virginia Hall, one of the most clever female spies in history. I discovered podcasts like ‘Spy Sisters’ and ‘True Spies’, which offered many intricate details on the subject. I googled to find out more and took copious notes. In fact, I’m rather astonished that no one has knocked on my door yet demanding an explanation. My browsing history alone could make brows furrow. 

I kept following Toni on her adventures and dug deeper into her life like a nosy, annoying neighbour. It soon became clear that Toni wasn’t just any spy, but a spy who wants to find her own mission in life. As she’s trying to figure out what that is, the word gets around that her older brother is coming to Mexico City. Does she ever get a chance to break free and build a life for herself? If you’re curious to find out, I suggest you read ‘No Such Thing as Goodbye’and find out for yourself.

While I’m excited that the first book in the series has been published, my journey with Toni is far from finished. As the readers will uncover Toni’s secretive escapades in Mexico City, I’ve got my own mission to complete, namely to write the second book in the series. So what’s up for Toni and her crew? Without giving away any spoilers, I can say that her next adventure will take her to one of my favourite European cities, which is also known as the city of spies. Can you guess which one?

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No Such Thing As Goodbye is available from Amazon.

You can follow the rest of the blog tour here: