Mansfield-born thriller writer Lee Brailsford (37), never expected a career as a writer, but after a spontaneous decision in a Norwegian flat he has published three novels.

His third book, Stepping Out Of Midnight, was released this summer and it promises to excite.
Stepping Out Of Midnight is an epic thriller, based across two continents, two decades and following the path of Abigail Fuller, who saw her vile, unlikeable parents murdered when she was 10.

Set against the backdrop of 1990s London and 19 years later on a tropical island, the thriller sees Abigail stranded after a plane crash leaves her and other survivors terrified and slowly disappearing at the hands of an unknown killer.

Are these two horrific incidents in Abigail’s life linked? Can she find the culprit before she too becomes a victim? Does anyone know the plane crash victims are there?

Thriller writing has always seemed a natural style to Lee, who loves both the genre and the ability to create tension.

“I just like writing something and seeing people’s reactions. It’s great to write a storyboard and think how you can keep people guessing,” he said.

As a child, the novelist — he attended St Andrew’s Church of England Primary School, Sutton, and then went to Tibshelf Secondary School — always favoured English and enjoyed writing fiction, but he never thought about doing it in later life.

Writing a novel was much more a spur of the moment thing or, perhaps more precisely, a product of boredom.

After leaving college aged 19, Lee spent five years living and working in the Canary Islands, France and finally Scandinavia.

Whilst working in Oslo for six months, he was deprived of both English television and reading. It was in his Norwegian flat-share where his passion for writing was reignited.

The mostly unfurnished room contained a bookshelf with only one English book, a poorly written sci-fi novel which he was forced to read by default.

“It was terrible”, Lee remembered. “I thought I could do better than that so I just sat down and started writing.”
After returning home, he decided to carry on with the book, which in total took around a year to complete.

Trying to juggle time to write around other commitments, particularly work, was an aspect he found especially difficult.

“You can’t always schedule it, you have to be in the right frame of mind so I was writing it in bits and bobs,” said Lee.

“It’s tough because I have quite a high-pressure job that follows me home and I have to find the time to write around it.”

It took Lee around 14 months to finish the first draft and then a further couple of months were needed to re-draft the text.

The final book came after the ninth draft and Lee estimated it took up to 19 months to create the novel.

“You need a lot of patience and perseverance and have to have some sort of structure,” he said.

“You learn as you go, now I wouldn’t put pen to paper without a full storyboard.”

Starting with no experience, the last 13 years have been a learning curve for the writer.

Unfortunately for Lee, like many authors his initial experience with publishing was something of a nightmare.

Going through the agent system with his second novel turned out to be a terrible experience.
The book was released before Lee thought it was ready and the writer was left feeling out of control of the situation.

“It was horrendous. I do feel for authors,” he admitted.

“I recommend that you avoid the agency process. It’s painful and disheartening.”

Thankfully the publication of his latest novel with Lioness Publishing went far more smoothly and he was happy with the outcome.

After working hard to reach a recent deadline, Lee has decided to take a well-earned break before continuing with his sequel to Stepping Out Of Midnight.

Stepping Out Of Midnight retails from Lioness Publishing and Amazon at £9.98 for the paperback or £6.99 for the ebook version.