Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing journey?
Thank you for hosting me, Sharon, and yes, I’d be happy to. I’m an ex journalist, so have always been writing, one way or another, since leaving university – though I have to say handling something the size of a novel takes a very different set of skills to producing a 1,500 word article. It took me a long time to pluck up the courage to try my hand at fiction and to decide what kind of novels I’d like to write; in the end I plumped for thrillers, because there’s nothing I love more than a terrific story that keeps you wondering what’s going to happen next and where it’s all going to end.
Your debut novel Untouchable featured a high-class escort and your latest novel Exposure revolves around the porn industry, what inspired you to write these sexier style of crime thrillers?
Several reasons. I was curious about the impact of Fifty Shades on the marketplace, which came out around the same time as Gone Girl, and I thought it might be interesting to try combining the two. And while there’s plenty of ‘vice’ girls in crime thrillers – usually turning up as dead bodies - I’d not seen much written from their perspective. I felt strongly that call girls and porn girls are essentially ordinary women – they’re not born intending to earn money from sex – and I wanted to explore what might tip someone into that kind of industry, and how the world would look from their perspective.
Kitty Sweet isn’t like anyone you’ve ever met before.She’s an infamous porn star, imprisoned for double murder. As damaged as she is charismatic, as dangerous as she is charming.
But once no different from you or I.
Kitty’s past is full of heartbreak and desperation, of adulation and glamour. Of ruin. She’s descended to an underworld most people can only imagine, and lived to tell the tale . . .
This is her story.
Oh, it’s pretty boring really. I just read around as much as I can. For Exposure I read half a dozen porn star memoirs, and anything I could get my hands on about the industry behind the scenes. I also read one or two books about life in a British prison, though in-depth accounts are surprisingly hard to come by. I’d have liked to have done exciting things like go along to a porn shoot or visit a prison, but those are pretty difficult to arrange!
If you had to describe Exposure in one sentence, what would it be?
Kitty Sweet, a notorious young porn star, relates her side of the story that led her to be jailed for double murder.
