Ever since I was a small child, I have been a reader and a writer in equal measure (most of the time). Without even realising it for a long time, I would delve the depths of a book I enjoyed for whatever I felt was at its core: the reasons behind whatever was its central theme or moment. It has always been that I have wanted to get under the skin of a story, right to its very heart. The same has always applied to my writing. To make me interested, then obsessed by, a story enough to pursue it to its ending (however dark, tragic, twisty or heartfelt) there needs to be this same kind of heart, one which makes me love to be at my desk with the story, the characters, and the very words themselves. The elements of this beating heart are rarely the same for two stories running, yet they make up all the parts of writing my books that I absolutely adore. In this post, I’ll give you a run-down of several of my psychological suspense books, to show you what I mean when I say that each of my stories has a heart. And, for me at least, this heart often beats on well after typing the last sentence.
I’m going to begin with Show Me Dead, as it holds a very special place in my emotions. There was so much I fell in love with, the deeper I went into this novel. This was the first book in a brand new series linked by theme – and I had the opportunity to write as if no one was watching (which they weren’t)! I wanted a book full of Gothic-inspired atmosphere, which is why I set it almost exclusively in the catacombs of a dilapidated theatre. As I was writing, I had in mind a visual image of the entire book, scene by scene, almost as if I was watching an entire theatre performance myself (although, thankfully, I’ve never sat through performances that this one had to offer!). I imagined lights flickering, the dust in the air, the old and battered seats – and the terror on the stage. This book has been described as “claustrophobic”, and that’s exactly the atmosphere I was aiming for. Who wouldn’t want to escape from there – especially when the actors, themselves already captive, begin to go missing…?
I’ll refer to setting again later. But, as all readers know, characters are an endless source of fascination, and there are always some characters you love writing most as an author. As much as the tension and almost living dread in the walls of the setting of the catacombs of the theatre, I loved creating the characters. They felt very close, very special, to me, especially Angel, my main character, and the young girl, Pierette, who has also been held captive and terrified by the Puppet Master, for as long as she can remember. It was the vulnerability I found within them that made me care so much (and I genuinely, at times, cried for them; I can be a very emotional writer). And, ultimately, this drove me to dig deep and find what was at the heart of the strength they never knew they had. The journey from disempowerment to their own very particular kind of emancipation captivated me, and the characters of Show Me Dead continue to live on in my writer’s brain. I may even write more in their strange, terrifying world. If I do, then their emotions will play a huge part in finding the heart of the reason for the story, both theirs and mine.
Something similar happened with regard to character when I began writing That Killer Image, I knew almost instantly that I was going to love writing about Anthony, the completely obsessive photographer with only one objective: to capture what, to him, is the perfect image. Maybe, in a writerly way, I wanted to capture my own ‘perfect’ image of him as a dangerous man – more dangerous, as we discover, than anyone had realised before. But, as with all villains, he has his own motivations which, to him, make complete and logical sense, which is always what makes villains and antagonist characters so fascinating. His backstory is of immense importance here, as his present is haunted by his past, driven by the events which took place in his young life, and most importantly, how he felt and reacted emotionally and viscerally to them. There are times when he makes me feel incredibly emotional and sorry for him, yet these same incidents leave me completely terrified of this man. No surprise there – he’s a serial killer! And, the more I wrote his chapters, the more I realised he was an even darker character than even I expected him to be. That’s one of the challenges and the fun parts: the more you write about a character, the more you find out about them (even when you’re the one who invented them in the first place!).
Sometimes it is a theme combined with a sense of atmosphere which pulls me to a story, and it was the Gothic-inspired nature of everything about No Deadlier Time which held me captivated with this story from start to finish. At the heart of the book, it questions where reality ends and where fantasy born of a destructive mental state begins. It also questions something which is fundamental for me in my suspense literature: who or what is truly guilty and morally, as well as physically, culpable?
The book actually began life as a short horror story, which I weave into the book in monologue conversations my main character, Harry, has with his father. Harry blames his father for the dark past lurking in the house (and for something which happens there when he returns with his pregnant wife) which pull him into a terrible and deadly chain of events. I said I would return to setting, and in this book the house itself is at the very centre, and acts as a character in its own right, which I found fascinating. All the way through, I could picture the ancient, crumbling family home which sits on the edge of a cliff, isolated from the village full of deviants and criminals. Ravens live there and become integral to Harry’s declining mental state, infiltrating the landscape, his dreams – and the curse which the family, the house, and its grounds will not let die. There is a feeling of dark foreboding felt by the guilty and the innocent in this house – right to the terribly dark conclusion. I wonder who (or what) you would feel is the most guilty if you read this novel?
I’ll leave my Darker Minds novels now, and move onto a couple of standalone psychological suspense/thrillers. It may not come as a surprise, given what you’ve read so far, that I’ve always loved books with twists, and particularly with characters who have emotional-driven, dark and deep-rooted motivations. When I began writing Hers or Mine and delved further into the characters of paranoid and desperate wife, Lucy, and the enigmatic Charlotte, owner of a creative retreat where Lucy decides to spend time, I realised this was the kind of book I was going to write. It was clear immediately that there was so much more to these two women than met the eye. And there really is! This psychological suspense is a slow-burn by necessity. We have to get to know these characters (or at least think we know them), because each twist revolves around the characters themselves – their pasts which won’t stay buried, their actions, and in particular the deep-rooted, agonising and obsessively dark emotions which live within them and drive them to do… ah, no spoilers here!
Hers or Mine is also very much about relationships. Broken ones, betrayed ones, and ones that grow from a love tied to loyalty, gratitude and something much deeper than we could expect. So love in its many forms features heavily in this book, although there’s nothing straightforward about that, either. At its most pure, it brought tears to my eyes as the writer; at its worst it’s love which destroys people from the inside. Everything that happens to the characters in this story stems from their individual personal experiences, circumstances and feelings for someone else. It makes it as much of a psychological drama as it does a psychological suspense novel, and I truly loved writing it.
Indeed, during the two decades since my very first short story was published, I’ve been exploring the theme of love in my novels and short stories. What interests me most is the way different types of love are formed, and changed based on experience. And how sometimes it doesn’t change but becomes deeper, even darker, more obsessive and – potentially – dangerous. This danger could be to the one who holds such love in their heart, or to the object of this love. So I find it intriguing to explore the grey areas between innocence and guilt, and between heartfelt love and something that morphs into the (self-) destructive kind. I took this to the limits in my psychological suspense thriller, You Know You Shouldn’t.
Love with the darkest heart pervades this entire book from start to finish. A passionate (and, unknown to my protagonist, Eva, at the time, manipulative) relationship from the past leaves a shared history with a dark secret between her and the villain which affects the entire story. Obsessive love plays its part, too: it’s this obsession which is lethal, and which dictates the villain’s behaviour, leading Eva down a path which she realises too late that is affecting everyone she loves. Her emotions drive her, consume her, and undermine her, until she has no choice but to make (or struggle to make) some impossible decisions to try and keep her loved ones alive. Different forms of love become entangled, from the romantic to the co-dependent, to the familial, to the need to love oneself. Only this can stop a love that has gone so bad, so dangerous, that no one is safe. Such an intense, unpredictable and terrifying love was quite an experience to write.
What I hope is evident, then, is that the very heart of my psychological suspense, even the darkest ones, have at the very core feelings. My characters are very much driven by their emotions, whether, for example, because of a romantic relationship gone bad, or obsessions, desperation to get out of a situation, or loyalty and pure love. Feelings are by their very human nature, complex, and this complexity is what creates the twists and turns in the plots, as the characters themselves drive various actions due to how they feel. In a similar way, a reader’s feelings are extremely powerful, and for their own feelings to run amok as they become invested in the characters’ emotions, and in the psychological and emotional pull of settings which breathe life and darkness into a story is everything I sincerely hope for in a reading experience of one of my books. Reading itself is a feeling: one of being transported to the world of someone else and experiencing the events with them at a deep level (even if, in the case of my books, these events can get pretty dark, dangerous, and deadly). This is what I love about reading. And it’s what I ultimately love about writing,
You can find all the books listed above, and the stores where they are available for purchase, using the links below:
If you’d like to discover what kind of dark heart lurks in my Darker Minds novella, Beneath the Flesh, then joining my Readers’ Club is the way to find out. When you sign up, you receive Beneath the Flesh as a welcome gift, which I wrote EXCLUSIVELY for my Readers’ Club.
