Special Guest Interview with Philippa East, Author of A Guilty Secret: A psychological thriller about friendship and lies

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

2003: Carrie and her friends spend their days studying at boarding school, and their nights sneaking out to the woods. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

2019: When Finn receives a shocking call from his estranged wife, Mhairi, informing him of their friend Kate’s death, neither is prepared for the secrets they will uncover. The trail leads them to the events at a boarding school many years before.

I'm pleased to welcome author Philippa East to The Writing Desk:

Tell us about your latest book

A Guilty Secret is my fourth psychological thriller with HQ/HarperCollins (released in January 2024). It's about a remote Scottish boarding school; a group of troubled teens getting up to no good in the woods; the untimely death of a beloved psychotherapist; and two estranged ex-spouses thrown together to investigate the connections between all these creepy goings-on… A Guilty Secret is available in e-book, paperback and audiobook now!

What is your preferred writing routine?

I generally write (or start writing) in the late morning, after checking messages and making a few posts on social media. Especially when I am writing (drafting a manuscript), I cannot work for long periods. I try to write 2,000 words a day, and I can manage that within about two hours. After that, I’m wiped and normally take a nap! 

When I'm editing, I can manage longer stints - perhaps up to five or six hours a day. I usually drink Redbush tea to keep me going and listen to concentration music to help me focus. Sometimes the ideas and words flow, and sometimes they just don’t. To be honest, I try to just sit down and put in the grunt work regardless of how inspired I feel.

What advice do you have for new writers?

If you know you want to write seriously, look to become "an expert in the field". Not the expert, of course, but try to learn as much as you can about the profession you aspire to. Firstly, read! Get to know what other contemporary authors are writing and publishing. Learn from them, be inspired by them, and get to know where your work fits alongside them. Secondly, study the writing craft. There are basic elements that make stories work for readers. 

These include: show vs tell, point-of-view, psychic distance and – so importantly – story structure (e.g. the “hero’s journey”; the “five commandments of storytelling”). It takes hard work, but getting to grips with these can be the quickest way to improve as a writer. Thirdly, seeking feedback and critique on your work is essential to make your work the best it can be. This can be from fellow writers in a writing group or on a writing forum, or from a professional editor. Finally, research carefully how to submit to agents. Getting this part right will hugely up your chances of securing representation and ultimately a publishing deal.

What have you found to be the best way to raise awareness of your books?

Probably the most effective way is the publicity and marketing my publishers do! But the way I most enjoy is doing in-person events with readers and writers. These can range from a panel slot at a major writing festival to an intimate event in my local library. It's such a privilege to meet the people who are reading and enjoying my work. I enjoy them all!

Tell us something unexpected you discovered during your research.

For my second novel, Safe and Sound, I had to research what to do as a landlord if tenant dies in your flat. Safe and Sound is about a charismatic, popular, pretty young woman whose death in a south London bed-sit goes unnoticed for ten whole months. The book was initially inspired by the real-life death of Joyce Vincent in 2003, and the heart-breaking docu-drama Dreams of Life, made about her by filmmaker Carol Morley. 

When I was writing Safe and Sound, lots of people said, "but that would never happen!" and I too thought that no-one would be isolated like that in this era of mobile phones, text messages and social media. Sadly since the book came out in 2021, there have been a number of other cases of people dying in this lonely way.

What was the hardest scene you remember writing?

There is a scene at the end of my debut, Little White Lies, involving a very intense interaction between my two main characters, teenagers Jess and Abigail. It takes place on a railway bridge and was such a difficult scene to write not just because I had to absolutely nail it in terms of the emotional climax and culmination of both character arcs - but also because it was very difficult to work out the logistics of the bridge structure! My editor and I were reworked that scene right up until the book went to print.

What are you planning to write next?

I'm currently working on my fifth psychological thriller, which I hope will be released next year. This one in set rather exotically in Fiji and centres on an elite women's-empowerment organisation that has a very sinister underbelly... In this book, I'm enjoying exploring my obsession with modern-day cults, which as a psychologist I find absolutely fascinating. In this book, I’m also playing around with including episodes of a (fictionalised) true-crime podcast, which has given me an excuse for all the true-crime documentaries I am also obsessed with!

 Philippa East

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About the Author

Philippa East grew up in Scotland and originally studied Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Oxford. After graduating, she moved to London to train as a Clinical Psychologist and worked in NHS mental health services for over ten years. Philippa now lives in the Lincolnshire countryside with her spouse and cat, and alongside her writing she continues to work as a psychologist and therapist. Her debut novel Little White Lies was shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger for best debut of 2020. She has since published three further psychological thrillers, Safe and Sound, I'll Never Tell, and A Guilty Secret. You can find Philippa on Facebook and Twitter: @philippa_east