Somewhere around your mid-forties, a small voice pipes up while you stand at the bathroom mirror, studying a man who appears to have borrowed your face and aged it without asking. The voice puts one simple question to you. Is this it? You ignore it and finish brushing your teeth. The voice waits. It owns nothing but time, and lately, so do you. We have a tidy little phrase for what happens next. The midlife crisis. We picture a fiftysomething in box-fresh leathers, astride a motorbike he can … continue reading
Random Thoughts
The posts that fit nowhere else. Keith A Pearson on the odds, ends and tangents of a writing life, plus the occasional digression.
What Would You Change About Your Life If You Could?
I write novels about ordinary people who reach back and change their lives, so this question trails me about like a faithful Labrador. People assume I keep an answer ready... a tidy anecdote about the one decision I'd undo given the chance. The truth lands closer to home and pleases nobody: I don't actually know, and the more I chew it over, the less certain I become. Everyone has a version of this question rattling around the loft space. Most of us answer it privately, usually around three … continue reading
What Life Cost in 1985 (When 77p Bought You a Pint)
I spend an unhealthy amount of my working life in the past. Not literally; my GP would have something to say about that. But a fair chunk of my fiction lives there, and you cannot drop a character into, say, 1985 without knowing what a packet of crisps might cost. Price a pint wrong, a reader in Mansfield will email you about it. So I've done the research. Quite a lot of it, frankly, most of it while pretending it counts as proper work. Here, then, is roughly what life cost in Britain in … continue reading
If You Could Go Back, What Age Would You Return To? (Think Carefully Before Answering)
I've spent the best part of a decade asking this question for a living. Every time travel novel I've written starts from the same itch: if someone handed you a return ticket to your own past, which stop would you choose? Ask it out loud at the barber's and watch what happens. People go quiet. They stare into the middle distance like a dog hearing a crisp packet opened two rooms away. Then they name an age with alarming speed, which tells you they worked it out years ago and have simply been … continue reading
The 10 Worst Things About Being an Author
2026 marks the tenth anniversary of my first novel, The '86 Fix, landing on Amazon's virtual shelves. Sitting here now, ten years on, I still find it hard to believe that I make up stories for a living. It’s a job that many people envy, and I know that because every other person I meet tells me how much they’d love to write a book. Spoiler: they rarely love the idea enough to actually sit down and write one. Anyway, for those who harbour ambitions to write books for a living, I thought I'd … continue reading
1990 UK Property Market: Cheap Houses, Brutal Interest, Hard Maths
I'm currently writing the third book in my Echo Lane series, set in an estate agency in 1990. That's led to a lot of research into the UK property market back then, and the numbers, frankly, threw me. We hear constantly that buying a house in 2026 has become impossible. There's truth in that. The deposits alone are enough to make a millennial weep into their oat milk. But the assumption underneath, that buying used to be a doddle, deserves a closer look. Spoiler: nobody had it easy. What … continue reading
An Explanation: Why You’ll Only Find My Books on Amazon (For Now)
This question lands in my inbox at least once a week. "Keith, are your books available on Kobo? Apple Books? Google Play? A small independent bookshop my dad runs in Devon?" The short answer is no. The long answer needs a couple of paragraphs and a chart. The less-short answer My books are sold exclusively through Amazon. Nowhere else. If you can't find them on a particular platform, the absence isn't a glitch or an oversight on my part. It's the deal I made when I signed up to Kindle … continue reading
The Office of ‘No’
When my son was born twenty-eight years ago, my mum imparted some advice. “As much as you love that little boy, say no to him more than you say yes.” It took me a while to understand what she meant. Saying yes is easy. Who wants to disappoint their child? But yes, used without limit, creates a kid who expects the world to bend to their will. No is a hard word but it’s the one that does the work. It prepares a child for the unforgiving realities of adulthood. My son and his wife now have a … continue reading
The Commodore 64 and the £9 Million Laptop
Ten years ago, I decided to write a novel. It's a long story, but for the purposes of this post, all you need to know is that the novel is called The '86 Fix, and it's set in 1986. The central character is Craig Pelling. Somewhere in the plot, he travels back to 1986 to undo a decision he made as a teenager. A decision that sent him on a path to a deeply unhappy life as a middle-aged man. The device that transported him back to 1986? A Commodore 64 computer, no less. 1986 happens to be the … continue reading
How to Blow £9.7 Million in Eight Years: Terms May Apply
A couple of years ago, I wrote a novel called Terms May Apply. It's about a bloke called Kyle Hammond who gets exactly what he wished for... a life-changing windfall... only to discover that getting what you want and actually wanting what you get are two very different things. His life unravels in spectacular fashion, and by the end, he's left wondering whether he'd have been better off before the universe decided to do him a favour. Kyle had a rough time of it. But compared to Michael … continue reading
How to Feel Better About Paying £1.50 a Litre For Petrol… Possibly
I filled up the car this morning. £1.50.9 a litre. The forecourt resembled a doctor's waiting room. Grim faces everywhere, everyone staring at the pump display with the expression you'd expect from a man watching a taxi meter in gridlocked traffic. A bloke in a high-vis sat in the passenger seat of the van at the next pump, sipping from a Starbucks cup. His colleague stood at the nozzle, shaking his head as the numbers ticked past fifty quid. He slotted it back and walked inside to pay, … continue reading
Books Like Life on Mars: What to Read if You Miss Sam Tyler
When Life on Mars first aired, it felt less like a TV show and more like a collective fever dream for middle-aged Brits. The premise — a copper from the 2000s wakes up in 1973 — shouldn't have worked. Yet somehow, amid the flares, the casual sexism, and the smoking indoors, it captured something we'd all been quietly missing: clarity. Gene Hunt wasn't subtle, but at least you knew where you stood. The world was messy, yes, but it was an honest kind of messy. No buzzwords, no HR departments, … continue reading