When I set out to write Secrets, it was more than fifteen years since my first novel, Working the Cats, was published. I’d done plenty of things in between but none of them involved finishing another novel. So I started out feeling a mixture of apprehension and excitement.
I had a gut feeling about wanting to create a mystery. Since I was a kid, I’d liked the idea of mysterious old houses, places with hidden corners and concealed histories, and I’d been exploring the idea of house swaps. So that’s where the idea of the urban/country home exchange came about.
Then, as soon as my imagination took me into the house Amy’s Dad had arranged for them to stay in together, I came up with the absent paintings. Once that idea was in my head, I was on the way to building the story about where they had gone and, ultimately, what they represented, firstly as part of a scam, and secondly–and surprisingly, even for me–as a link to the bigger tale of Amy’s origins and connections.
The story of Amy’s long-dead Mum emerged as I worked on successive drafts. The link to the waterfall was there from the beginning, and was part of an association I have had with waterfalls as places of natural mystery, of warmth and of cool, of the sound of running water, and of something primeval and earthy.
Plucking Amy from her everyday world following a betrayal by her boyfriend, and putting her into a place where she felt intensely uncomfortable, was my way of following her as she protested, fought and eventually found a thread of friendship and resourcefulness that kept her going as her world became more threatening.
Her story drew me along as I created it, character by character, twist by twist, as I joined her in an effort to find a pathway through the multitude of secrets swirling around her.
In writing it, I hoped for nothing more than an engaging story that would keep the reader turning pages. Maybe it’s a modest hope but in these fractured times I hope it remains a decent and constructive one. So go well Amy, and thank you.
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