I’m delighted to welcome Linda Huber to the blog today as she prepares to take a new direction and release some new feel-good novellas under the pen name of Melinda Huber! I love Linda’s writing and really enjoyed her psychological thrillers, so can’t wait to try these new books, the first of which, A Lake in Switzerland, is out now. Here she is to tell us a little more about the backdrop for her new stories.
Who wouldn’t jump at the chance of a week in lovely Switzerland? Stacy certainly didn’t. She’s the main character my latest project, a series of feel-good novellas set right here where I live in N.E. Switzerland, and written under my feel-good pen name, Melinda Huber. In A Lake in Switzerland, Stacy arrives for her holiday, and the adventure continues in A Spa in Switzerland. The series is based in the fictional Lakeside Hotel, a traditional old building with geraniums dripping from window boxes, and I really enjoyed taking Stacy and her friend Emily to some of the places I’ve visited in my adopted homeland over the years.
The Lakeside Hotel sits on the banks of Lake Constance, and Stacy and Emily fell in love with the place at first sight. Again, who wouldn’t? Lake Constance is a huge expanse of blue water, with Austria at the eastern end and Germany and Switzerland on opposite banks. White passenger ferries that could have come straight from The Chalet School books are tootling around all summer, not to mention sailing boats, cruisers, canoes – it’s the perfect place to set a book (or two or three…).
In A Spa in Switzerland the girls take a fateful weekend trip to the Ticino region in the south, where they have the chance to try out their Italian, and compare Lake Constance to Lake Lugano. Lugano is beautiful too, but I prefer Constance. But then, I may be biased!
What I do love about Lake Lugano is the way the wooded hills climb right up from the lake banks. It’s amazingly picturesque. On that same trip, Stacy and Emily drive up the San Bernardino route in the east of Switzerland. The hills that were so deceptively green on the way south looked very different on the return journey – but no spoilers here!
The novellas aren’t only about sightseeing, of course. Stacy has a problem, and that initial week in Switzerland only brings her the beginnings of an answer. Like most of us as young adults, she’s searching for home. But will home be England, fiancé David, and her work as a nurse – or something completely different?
For the moment, I have three novellas planned for Stacy & co. Trouble in Switzerland will follow later this year, and as the title suggests, it’s still not all plain sailing for my characters. But I’m sure they’ll have time for more sightseeing!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Melinda Huber is the feel-good pen name of psychological suspense writer Linda Huber – she’s hiding in plain sight!
Linda grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, but went to work in Switzerland for a year aged twenty-two, and has lived there ever since. Her day jobs have included working as a physiotherapist in hospitals and schools for handicapped children, and teaching English in a medieval castle.
Her writing career began in the nineties, when she wrote for magazines, and since then she’s had seven psychological suspense novels published, as well as a collection of feel-good short stories.
Her latest project is the Lakeside Hotel novellas, set on the banks of Lake Constance, just minutes from her home in north-east Switzerland. She really appreciates having the views enjoyed by her characters right on her own doorstep!
A Lake in Switzerland
Stacy can’t believe her luck when her best friend Emily invites her on a holiday to Switzerland.
She arrives at the Lakeside Hotel with high hopes, but the problems begin straightaway. Emily’s recent injury doesn’t let her do much, and something is wrong at the hotel. Where are all the guests? Why is the owner’s son so bad-tempered? And then there’s the odd behaviour of Stacy’s fiancé, back home. It’s hard to enjoy the scenery with all this going on…
By the last day of the holiday, Stacy knows her life will never be the same again – but the end of the week is just the beginning of the Lakeside adventure.
Thanks so much for joining us, Linda. I want to go to Switzerland now!
You can purchase A Lake in Switzerland here and here
Learn more about Linda Huber here