I'm happy to welcome A J Waines to Books, Life and Everything today to talk about her latest book, Lost in the Lake, and to tell us a little bit more about herself. Before I hand the blog over, let's read a little about her book:
She came at first for answers…now she’s back for you
Amateur viola player Rosie Chandler is the sole survivor of
a crash which sends members of a string quartet plunging into a lake. Convinced
the ‘accident’ was deliberate, but unable to recall what happened, she is
determined to recover her lost memories and seeks out clinical psychologist, Dr
Samantha Willerby.
But Rosie is hiding something…
Sam is immediately drawn to the tragic Rosie and as she
helps her piece the fragments together, the police find disturbing new evidence
which raises further questions. Why is Rosie so desperate to recover her
worthless viola? And what happened to the violin lost in the crash, worth over
£2m?
When Rosie insists they return to the lake to relive the
fatal incident, the truth about Rosie finally creeps up on Sam – but by now,
she’s seriously out of her depth…
The second book in the Dr Samantha Willerby series, Lost in
the Lake is a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat Psychological Thriller that will
leave you glancing over your shoulder.
©Waines
Welcome to Books, Life and Everything!
Would you like to start by telling us
a little about yourself and how you started as a writer?
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!
What
is it about the psychological thriller genre which attracts you?
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!
What
are your writing routines and where do you do most of your writing?
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.
How do
you go about researching detail and ensuring your books are realistic?
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.
Without spoiling the plot, could you let us know a little about Lost
in the Lake?
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…
If you
could choose to be a character from Lost in the Lake who would you be and why?
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.
What
can we expect next from you?
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!
Thanks so much for coming along and giving us an insight into your life as a writer. Perfect Bones sounds tempting- I can't wait!
My Thoughts
When I started the book, I thought I had the measure of it- therapist meets patient and life begins to unravel- but how wrong I was. There is so much more to find in this story and primarily I think this is because of the great characters we meet. I especially felt for Dr Samantha Willerby, the lead character, who comes across as a really decent person whose professional role puts her in the way of vulnerable and potentially manipulative people. I liked how the narrative viewpoint changes and alternates between Dr Sam and Rosie. Rosie's chapters in particular make the tension grow for me as you wonder what is coming next. You also draw comparisons between Dr Sam's family history and Rosie's and realise the pressures which are in the background for both women.
There is more than one mystery in Lost in the Lake and I became quite fearful as to how the story was going to pan out. There is a lot of background knowledge evident on how memory loss and trauma emerges and the plotting makes sense and seems true to the situation. Under pressure not to make errors of judgment, Dr Sam does make some faulty decisions, which allow Rosie to draw the wrong conclusions. Of the other characters, I would like to know more about Dr Sam's sister, Miranda. It could be that this was addressed in the first book, but I certainly hope the dynamic between the two sisters continues into Perfect Bones.
In short: a dark twisty tale with a chilling centre.
About the Author
AJ Waines has sold over 400,000 books worldwide and topped
the UK and Australian Kindle Charts
with her number one bestseller, Girl on a Train. Following fifteen years as a psychotherapist, she is now a full-time
novelist with publishing deals in France, Germany, Norway, Hungary and USA
(audiobooks).
Her fourth psychological thriller, No Longer Safe, sold over
30,000 copies in the first month, in thirteen countries. AJ Waines has been
featured in The Wall Street Journal and The Times and ranked a Top 10 UK author
on Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). She lives in Hampshire, UK, with her
husband.
Thanks to A J Waines for a copy of the book and a place on the Tour.
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