Death at High Tide by Hannah Dennison

Jenn McKinlay: I am absolutely thrilled to have one of my very favorite wine drinking pals, um, writing mates visiting all the way from the gorgeous Devon countryside to celebrate her latest release DEATH AT HIGH TIDE. Hannah and I have been friends for many years and many series now, and I am always pleased to see her even if it’s mostly on Facetime these days when we do one of our marathon catchups. Hi, Hannah! Welcome to the blog!

Available Now!

Hannah Dennison: Thanks so much for inviting me to Jungle Red Writers today. I have been a guest on this amazing blog a few times now and I feel very honored to have been invited back!

Eighteen months ago my domestic situation changed in a way that I could never have imagined. After twenty-five years of living in California followed by a short stint in Oregon, I found myself moving back home with my two Hungarian Vizslas, for good.  

My daughter picked me up at Heathrow airport and drove the two hundred miles to a tiny hamlet in south Devon where my sister Lesley was waiting in what would become my new home—a beautiful barn conversion that she had found for me to rent—along with a bottle of celebratory champagne. 

Although we’d been super close growing up, Lesley and I had drifted apart as the years passed, especially after my move overseas. As the oldest, I used to be the bossy one but I discovered that it was Lesley now who ruled the proverbial roost. As my mother, (a feisty ninety-year-old), said, “Your sister holds the rolling pin.”  

Lesley is a force of nature and has to be one of the most optimistic people I know. As a single mother of three grown-up sons, her life hadn’t been easy. She’s been an Avon rep, Brown Owl for the local Brownie pack and was a Weightwatchers lecturer for two decades. These days she works as an estate manager for a country house that was the location for the recent remake of My Cousin Rachel that starred Rachel Weisz. 

A relationship with a sister is like no other. Who else can I belt out songs from Queen, Genesis and David Bowie with or drive our mother to distraction with our signature—and disgusting—Hot Snot Bogey Pie schoolyard rhyme?

Sisterhood can be both wonderful and challenging. I find that being labeled Eeyore to her Tigger is still extremely irritating. “That was fifty years ago,” I’d grumble, sounding very Eeyore-like. If I were any character in the Pooh stories it would have to be Kanga. 

That’s the thing about sisters. They have a knack of telling it like it is. They also have an amazing ability to recall embarrassing moments that we’d much rather forget. But it was Lesley who insisted that I’d always wanted to be a writer—something I hotly denied. 

But six weeks ago, whilst going through old photo albums and storage boxes my sister presented me with a few handwritten pages with the words First Draft scrawled in pencil. “You see,” she said triumphantly. “You always wanted to be a writer.”

This First Draft was a murder-mystery story about two sisters, “one scatterbrained and one practical” that find a dead gamekeeper in the forest. I must have been twelve when I wrote it and even though it was, literally, just a first draft I was surprised that I had actually plotted the whole story out with bullet points. I honestly couldn’t remember writing it. Of course after that first rush of excitement Lesley presented me with another envelope. “Oh, and here’s that rejection letter from Woman’s Own magazine.” And it was at that moment I knew why I’d buried my writing dream. 

It concerned a love story that my twelve-year old innocent self (who had never been kissed) had sent off to a woman’s magazine. The return of my short story with NO, written in big red letters across the generic buck slip promptly stopped me picking up my pen again for a very long time.

Hannah and Leslie in a helicopter on a research trip 

So it seems fitting that my new series is about those two sisters but Death at High Tide was already in production when we found First Draft in that storage box. It must have been percolating in my sub-conscious for decades. In Death at High Tide there is no gamekeeper in the forest but there is plenty of murder. But most of all it’s about sisterhood. 

There is a saying, “Sisters by blood, best friends by choice,” and to that I shout Amen!

What about you, Reds and Readers, any sister stories out there to share?  

What's being said: 
"Winning...Two murders and a high tide cutting off the police heighten the suspense. Intriguing characters and an intricate plot lift this twist on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Cozy fans will look forward to further skullduggery on Tregarrick." ―Publishers Weekly

"Thrilling....Vividly described setting, effective plot twists, and a strong portrayal of sisterly love distinguish this 'locked island' mystery." ―Booklist

DEATH AT HIGH TIDE released on Aug 18th! 

Death at High Tide is the delightful first installment in the Island Sisters series by Hannah Dennison, featuring two sisters who inherit an old hotel in the remote Isles of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall and find it full of intrigue, danger, and romance.

When Evie Mead’s husband, Robert, suddenly drops dead of a heart attack, a mysterious note is found among his possessions. It indicates that Evie may own the rights to an old hotel on Tregarrick Rock, one of the Isles of Scilly. 

Still grieving, Evie is inclined to leave the matter to the accountant to sort out. Her sister Margot, however, flown in from her glamorous career in LA, has other plans. Envisioning a luxurious weekend getaway, she goes right ahead and buys two tickets—one way—to Tregarrick.

Once at the hotel—used in its heyday to house detective novelists, and more fixer-upper than spa resort, after all—Evie and Margot attempt to get to the bottom of things. But the foul-tempered hotel owner claims he's never met the late Robert, even after Evie finds framed photos of them—alongside Robert's first wife—in his office. The rest of the island inhabitants, ranging from an ex-con receptionist to a vicar who communicates with cats, aren't any easier to read.

But when a murder occurs at the hotel, and then another soon follows, frustration turns to desperation. There’s no getting off the island at high tide. And Evie and Margot, the only current visitors to Tregarrick, are suspects one and two. It falls to them to unravel secrets spanning generations—and several of their own—if they want to make it back alive.