Thanks to Marianne over at
'Books life and everything' for this interview (originally posted on her blog on the
Lost in the Lake, blog Tour)
M: Would
you like to start by telling us a little about yourself and how you started as
a writer?
AJ: I was in my forties and had no idea I was going to write
fiction. I’d had a varied career, having been a professional musician
(cellist), an administrator and a psychotherapist. After fifteen years in the
latter role, to be honest, I was burnt out and I was looking for something new.
I tried writing a short story and it ballooned into a novel. Encouraged by my
brother-in-law, I sent it out and got an agent and my life has completely
changed as a result! I’m now a full-time author. My experience just shows you that
anyone can give writing a go!
M: What
is it about the psychological thriller genre which attracts you?
AJ: As a former psychotherapist, it was a natural progression
for me to choose psychological thrillers as my genre. I’d worked with
ex-convicts from high security institutions, so I felt I had some insight into
the disturbed and criminal mind. But I love a good murder mystery too – so as a
result, my books tend to have both a sinister mystery on the surface and a
deeper psychological thriller lurking underneath, with that essential twist at
the end, of course!
M: What
are your writing routines and where do you do most of your writing?
AJ: I’m at my desk at around 8am and apart from a short break
for lunch, I carry on until around 5.30pm - just a normal working day. I take
notebooks with me everywhere I go and I’m always jotting down ideas, but I can
never focus in a park or coffee shop to do the real work. I wish I could! I can
only work at home in my study with nothing but silence around me. For some jobs
(eg social media, accounts), I can have music playing (Mozart’s Requiem is a
favourite), but not during the creative cycle itself, such as plotting,
drafting, editing.
M: How do
you go about researching detail and ensuring your books are realistic?
AJ: My books appeal to readers who are curious about the way
people tick, and I’m lucky to be able to use my real life experiences in
psychotherapy (being careful to preserve confidentiality, of course). For any
other research, however, I have to check the details. In
Lost in the Lake, I had to look into what happens when a car hits
the water and sinks. I needed to know how people get out of a vehicle, how much
air they have, how it feels and so on, so I read a lot of newspaper reports,
personal accounts and scientific reports, online.
M: Without spoiling the plot, could you let us know a little about the Lost in the Lake?
AJ: The story starts when a van leaves the road and plummets
into a lake, killing all but one of the passengers. Or so it seems. The sole
survivor, Rosie, knows in her bones that it wasn’t an accident, but has gaps in
her memory. That’s the tangled murder mystery on the surface. She turns to
psychologist, Samantha Willerby, to help recover her memories and that’s when
the psychological thriller begins to simmer. A chilling, altogether different
dynamic is going on underneath the main enigma. Rosie looks like she’s
searching for answers about the crash, but very soon it becomes clear that
she’s after something else…
M: If you
could choose to be a character from Lost in the Lake who would you be and why?
AJ: Golly, I think they all have a rough ride in the story! I
probably feel most connection to the lead character, Dr Samantha Willerby.
She’s a clinical psychologist (so slightly different from me), specialising in
trauma and memory loss. She’s partly the kind of person I’d love to be: a real
trooper, super-reliable and determined, but (like all of us) she sometimes
doesn’t trust her own judgement and makes mistakes. There’s also a darker side
to her past, which she is yet to resolve and she keeps falling for the wrong
kind of men (not my own problem, thankfully!). In
Lost in the Lake, she’s reacting to something that happened
recently, but she tries too hard and it leads to a situation that spirals out
of control.
M: What
can we expect next from you?
AJ: Next up will be the third in the Dr Sam series, Perfect Bones, set on a canal boat in
London. That will be published in 2018. I’m also writing the first draft of
another standalone thriller (my eighth). I’ve got lots of other ideas buzzing
around in my head for a while to come, I think!
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All books can be read in any order
(Lost in the Lake is also second in the series
featuring clinical psychologist, Dr Samantha Willerby)
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- Over 400,000 books sold worldwide
- Awarded Kindle KDP Top 10 'most-read Author' in UK 2016 & 2017
