Author Sheila makes crime pay

Lifestyle – Ballinasloe author Sheila Bugler, who now lives in England, tried her hand at a variety of careers until her children were born. Then she had ‘a lightbulb moment’ and started to write thrillers. As she launches her seventh novel, she tells BERNIE NÍ FHLATHARTA that crime fiction was her chosen genre even before it became so popular.

There are eight survivors of a plane crash that kills 160 passengers. . .  and five years later one of them dies in mysterious circumstances. When a second survivor is killed, there are concerns that the group is being targeted.

This is the premise of the latest thriller written by Galway woman, Sheila Bugler which will hit the shelves in a few weeks. It promises to be a rollercoaster of a read, a modern ‘whodunnit’ – and it’s a genre that has gained popularity in the pandemic as readers sought escapism.

The Lucky Eight is Sheila’s seventh book since she started writing 15 years ago and such is her productivity that she has already started her next one.

A native of Ballinasloe and a graduate of the former-UCG, Sheila has been living abroad for years but retains strong connections with her home town. She lived and worked in London for years but now lives in Sussex, in the seaside resort of Eastbourne, with her husband, Sean, and their two teenage children.

An avid reader since she was a child, her favourite genre has always been thrillers and detective stories — yes, she loved Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boy books and later became a fan of another Galway writer of thrillers, Ken Bruen. She also likes the work of writers like Harlan Coben, a US bestseller whose books have been adapted for TV and the big screen. Sheila is very happy at the growing demand for the thriller genre and notes the success of other Irish writers she admires, people such as Liz Nugent and Tana French.

Crime novels are one of the most popular forms of literature at the minute and publishers are trying to keep up with readers’ demand for more. But it wasn’t always like that for a genre that wasn’t given the same respect as other types of fiction.

Sheila hasn’t jumped on the bandwagon and points out that she was writing thrillers long before it was as popular as it is now.

“I never thought of writing anything else. I now know it’s what I do best and what I love doing. . . and I can’t imagine writing anything else,” she says.

But she admits it was a long journey before she discovered her happy place — workwise — and she did a variety of jobs from bar work, to teaching English to running a language school for a while. She also did secretarial work and had a stint in human resources.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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