Five books set on an island
What is it about a book set on an island? There’s something inexpressibly romantic about it – and a little terrifying too.
Perhaps it’s the isolation – the feeling that you can’t be disturbed…
Mirror Mirror
Why do we love Reality TV so much? It’s a question I’ve asked myself often, as I watched my friends get sucked into different shows over the years.
Why I Love Locked Room Mysteries
Of all the well-worn tropes of detective fiction, the one that I have the greatest weakness for, both as a reader and a writer, is the locked room mystery…
On the run and under surveillance
When I started writing Zero Days, I had very little of the plot mapped out – I just knew that I wanted to write about a pen tester who was accused of the murder of her husband, and chose to go on the run rather than gamble on the police believing her story.
Sisters, Sisters
If there’s one thing I’m an absolute sucker for, it’s books and films about sister, and the unique relationship they share. From Little Women to Goblin Market, from Meet Me in St Louis to White Christmas, I love tales of sisters putting aside their differences and stepping up to the mark to protect and defend each other.
So What’s a Pen Tester
That’s a question I’ve got used to answering a lot over the last year, while writing Zero Days, and I’m guessing it’s a question that’s going to come up a fair bit more over the next few weeks and months as I do events and interviews about the book.
How I Write
…or rather, how I wrote The It Girl
One of the questions I get asked most at events and talks is how I write – how I plot, how I come up with ideas, what an average writing day looks like.
Writing a World You Don’t Know
You’ve probably heard the writing advice “Write what you know.” It’s one of the first maxims handed out to would-be novelists. And there’s a seductive logic to it – if you’re writing a world you know intimately, you can immediately put aside concerns about research and authenticity and just get on with crafting the story.
Dark Academia
A closed community. Passionate friendships. The pressure-cooker stress of academic success… or failure. It’s no wonder that boarding schools and universities make some of the best settings for murder – in fact it’s surprising to me that there aren’t more whodunnits centred on colleges….
The Hell of Corporate Retreats
On paper it sounds great, doesn’t it? An all-expenses-paid trip somewhere nice, with a swanky hotel thrown in. Like a holiday really. A lovely, free holiday. The only catch is that it’s not technically a holiday…
The Pull of the Mountains
I am not a sporty person and I don’t like anything physically competitive. Anything that ends up with you hot, sweaty, and at risk of physical injury is a hard no in my book. With one, inexplicable exception: skiing.
Location, location, location
‘The Turn of the Key’ represents a kind of full circle for me – because originally I wanted to set ‘In a Dark, Dark Wood’ in Scotland…
Smart home nightmares
The main character in ‘The Turn of the Key’ has a nightmarish smart house, and an all-pervasive home management app called Happy (slogan: Home is where the Happy is!) to contend with…
Five of my favourite haunted houses
One of the things I loved most about writing ‘The Turn of the Key’ was creating Heatherbrae House – a seemingly perfect house, with something seriously sinister lying just beneath the surface…
Extra Material – In a Dark, Dark Wood
Spoiler Alert! Don’t read this until you’ve read the book!
The Setting for The Lying Game
‘The Lying Game’ is the only one of my novels where the place came before the plot or the characters…
Inspired by Christie…
I can’t remember when I read my first Agatha Christie but I was not much older than twelve or thirteen, maybe even younger. I was immediately hooked…
Extra Scene from The Woman in Cabin 10
I don’t typically have much material that ends up on the cutting room floor but ‘The Woman in Cabin 10’ is an exception…
Hen Nights
In a world where romance is always put above platonic love, a hen night is actually a lovely celebration to have…
Ships & the Sea
One of my earliest memories – I’m still not completely certain if it’s a real memory, or a sort of composite of truth and nightmare – is of ships and the sea…
Hal’s Cornwall
‘The Death of Mrs Westaway’ opens in Brighton, but the action quickly moves along the south coast to an imaginary village called St Piran, in Cornwall.
Hal’s Brighton
‘The Death of Mrs Westaway’ is partly set in Brighton, near where I grew up. Here is my guide to Hal’s Brighton.
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When Lana and her three colleagues sign up for the "dark, complex and immersive" escape room game, The Masked Ball, they are expecting a fun day out of the office, full of team-building and camaraderie. But someone has other ideas, and as the group struggles to complete the room, it becomes apparent that there is a very twisted mind behind the puzzles and clues.
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