Piemme

Lisa lives for her daughter Ava, her job, and her best friend Marilyn, but when a handsome client shows an interest in her, Lisa starts daydreaming about sharing her life with him too. Maybe she’s ready now. Maybe she can trust again. Maybe it’s time to let her terrifying secret past go. Then her daughter rescues a boy from drowning and their pictures are all over the news for everyone to see. Lisa's world explodes, and she finds everything she has built threatened. Not knowing whom she can trust, it's up to her to face her past to save what she holds dear.

"Of course my main agenda when starting Cross Her Heart was to write a page-turning dark thriller with some good twists and turns but as all writers do, there were also other themes I wanted to explore within the story. The plot itself - which I can’t say much about without giving away the twist - is based on a very famous case in the UK from the late 1960s and is a subject matter that has always fascinated me - how the things we do as children can influence everything in our futures, no matter how much we change. Also, this case was quite famous for trial by media, which is perhaps even more relevant today in this era of 'fake news' and clickbait headlines and trusting a tweet rather than researching a whole story. It’s very easy to demonise or celebrate people rather than exploring why they may have done what they did. I was also interested in writing a feminist book - not in the sense of a text with a feminist agenda but a thriller that also explored the dynamics of female relationships in different stages of our lives, and also looking at the power and the toxicity of women's friendships. In the book all the action, good, bad and crazy is all driven by women - there are male characters, yes, but they are all in supporting roles. No man saves the day here!"