Scoop follows the latest adventures of Vickie Hill, character is based on author Hannah Dennison’s own experiences as a young woman who’s a newspaper obituary reporter.

     “I was 19 years old and on this boring newspaper,” says Scoop! author Hannah Dennison. “There's this Satanic coven of witches on the moors. For something exciting I'm going to go undercover. I found myself in this horrible house in Exeter one night to be initiated into the clan. I was 19, pure as driven snow…a bit of a late bloomer. I ran away in a sheet, in the rain. And, they were saying we'll curse you forever. It was very dramatic. That was how Vickie began.”

     In the Vickie Hill book series, an optimistic obituary reporter wants to write front page news. Vickie smells a story when a champion hedge trimmer is found dead under strange circumstances. Who’d want to kill him?

     Dennison had moved to Los Angeles to be a screenwriter, not a novelist. “I had a few things optioned,” says Dennison. “Nothing ever got made. It was disillusioning. I was going to give up screenplays and try novels. I didn't have any expectations. It's a different medium completely.” Dennison took a class at UCLA Extension on novel writing.

     “In one of my classes I took we were told to write five introductory paragraphs for five stories,” says Dennison. “My instructor, Carrie Madden, is an absurdly accomplished writer. She said there's this little funny scene you've written about this newspaper reporter who has this rather nasty incident with some witches.”

     The publisher’s reaction to Dennison’s manuscript was mixed. “When I presented it to the publishing house Penguin Publishing, they said we like everything except we don't like that central storyline...which was the story because the whole book was built around that,” says Dennison. With no other publisher much interested, Dennison took on the task of rebuilding her book.

     In Scoop! you’ll smile at the scrapes Vicky gets into. That Vicky tries to be optimistic no matter what comes her way is one of the charming facets of this character. Vicky comes from a dysfunctional family, as many do, but how many have parents who are professional jewel thieves? The fact that Vicky had to reassess her theories throughout the book shows she’s is a novice at solving mysteries and gives the reader a chance to learn along with her. 

     Hannah Dennison was born in Hampshire, south England. She lives in Los Angeles. She’s currently working on her third novel in the Vickie Hill series.

Scoop! (A Vicki Hill Mystery) by Hannah Dennison

Paperback, 304 pages, Publisher: Berkley (March 3, 2009), Language: English, ISBN: 978-0425226438