The Worst Lie by Shauna Bickley
Genre: Crime / murder mystery
Hello
and thanks for inviting me on your blog.
A
piece of advice that’s often given to writers is to write what you
know. In selecting locations for my books I’ve generally taken this
advice and set my novels in places around England that I know well
such as London, Bristol and Cornwall. I’ve also set several books
in locations around New Zealand where I now live.
Some
books can happen anywhere, while in others the location is so
important that it appears almost like another character. Think of how
Daphne du Maurier uses Cornwall and the moors in some of her books.
Her settings are vital to the mood and tempo of the story.
My
novel, Lives Interrupted, is set in London at the time of the
bombings and is about the impact of that event on the lives of the
characters, so it needs to be set there and at that time. Initially,
I was going to set my crime novel Lies of the Dead here in New
Zealand, but as the plot progressed I realised that Tom needed to
follow a set of clues regarding suspicious money transfers and that
would be a lot easier to do if the book was set in England and
Europe. To give some emphasis on the three siblings’ different
characters I had them living in different locations. Tom, the oldest
and most traditional of the three lives in the Cornish village where
they grew up. Andi lives in Bristol, while Liam the youngest lives in
London. He teases Andi that she’s moved away from the village but
wasn’t adventurous enough to make it to the capital. So for them
location is important to their character development and how they
think of themselves.
In
my latest crime novel, The Worst Lie, the main character Lexie
Wyatt used to live in London, but after losing her job she moves to a
small town with her family. At first she hates the move because of
everything it represents in her loss of self-esteem and confidence. I
created the town of Nettleford because I didn’t want to do the more
cliché thing of a small village, and there weren’t any ‘real’
places that fitted exactly what I wanted. I made up the name of the
town to sound a little unpleasant as in the first novel that’s how
Lexie views it. Ironically, it was only after I finished the first
draft of the book I realised that they’d moved from Primrose Hill
in London, which has a lovely sounding name in direct contrast to
Nettleford. I love the way our subconscious works with things like
this.
The
other important location in The Worst Lie is Little Stillford.
This is another place I fictionalised for my own purposes. It’s
loosely based on Avebury but I changed the geography entirely for
story reasons. I increased the height of the stones in the circles,
planted an entire wood around the two circles, and created a larger
village with shops and places to eat as well as a nearby ancient long
barrow. The larger village was required as the reunion takes place
over a weekend and I needed a small hotel for the group to stay,
several pubs, a restaurant and a library. The wood was also necessary
for parts of the plot and to create an eerie atmosphere. It’s a lot
easier to hide and overhear conversations when there are lots of
trees around!
|
|
|
|
Avebury is beautiful and so is Little Stillford, if it existed outside of my head I would love to visit it.
Many
thanks again and happy reading to you and your followers, Shauna xx
Friends, a successful film career, and a loving boyfriend.
Then she was dead.
When Lexie Wyatt’s close friend Helen is frightened by an unexpected visit from an ex-university flatmate, Lexie is determined to help. She contrives an invitation to a weekend reunion of the group at one of England’s ancient stone circles. While there one of them admits they believe their long-dead friend was murdered.
Digging into the flatmates’ secrets, Lexie discovers they have lied. Have they also committed murder?
There is another death at the stone circles, and Lexie uncovers information that may connect the two crimes… and implicate her good friend.
Is someone targeting the former students, or is the killer one of the group?
Shauna writes mysteries featuring characters who aren't afraid to go looking for murderers and generally get themselves in all sorts of danger. In real life, Shauna doesn't do any of those things.
When she can't come up with a murderous plot, she also likes to write about ordinary people pushed into extraordinary situations. Underneath all that criminal intrigue is a true romantic who likes to see the magic and mystery in everyday life.
When she isn't writing (or surfing the internet pretending she's researching), you can find her reading, running (or more likely walking), coming up with excuses not to attend Zumba, and trying to find new ways to use the excess fruit from the trees in the garden.
Shauna's latest release is a crime thriller, The Worst Lie, featuring Lexie Wyatt from the novel Still Death.
Currently she's working on a sequel to Writing the Stars, but if discovered staring out of the window she's probably contemplating new ways to kill people for a third Lexie Wyatt novel.
Shauna is always happy to hear from people, but only if they're friendly and don't ask hard questions. You can find her on Twitter, Pinterest and via her website or through good old-fashioned email.
No comments:
Post a Comment