Briefly tell us about The Girl in the Mirror
The Girl in the Mirror is a psychological thriller that poses a question: if you had the opportunity to switch places with someone who had a much better life than you, would you take it? What if you might never be able to switch back? The story follows beautiful identical twin sisters Iris and Summer. Iris’s life is falling apart when she receives a call for help from her sister Summer, a newlywed living aboard a luxury yacht, but answering that call leads to huge changes in both sisters’ lives.
What was your inspiration for this book?
I had always been fascinated by identical twins, but the catalyst for this book was a conversation with my sister. (We’re not twins.) We discovered we were both keen to write a novel about twins, but when we put our ideas together, something new and exciting emerged. It was as though we had half the story each, and the two halves fit together perfectly.
Further inspiration came from a yacht voyage across the Indian Ocean I had made a few years ago with my family, visiting beautiful locations including Thailand and the Seychelles. I wanted to capture my own love of the ocean in the story, and it was very satisfying to revisit that journey in my imagination.
The Girl in the Mirror is a twisted tale of sibling rivalry gone horribly wrong. Is your relationship with your own sister anything like Iris and Summer’s relationship?
I am very pleased to say that my relationship with my sister, Maddie, is the polar opposite of the relationship between Iris and Summer. My sister helped me write The Girl in the Mirror, brainstorming the story beforehand and editing it afterwards. I don’t think our close collaboration would be possible if we had even a hint of the rivalry and jealousy that besets Iris and Summer’s relationship. Writing is a sedentary activity, but Maddie’s and my stomach muscles certainly got a workout when we were collaborating on the novel together.
There’s rumour of a major film deal in the works for The Girl in the Mirror. Have you thought of who might be perfect to play Summer/Iris?
As well as being young, blonde and charismatic, whoever played Summer and Iris would need to be a versatile actress. When playing Summer, the actress needs to portray a young woman who is straightforward, kind and open-hearted, but the role of Iris requires a cynical edge. Ideally, the audience warms to both characters, and this can be a balancing act as the two sisters have been pitted against each other by their father’s will.
What piece of advice would you give to other writers?
My advice is learn your craft. The creativity is the easy part; it’s the technique that’s hard. The funny thing about writing is that until you try it, you don’t realise that you need to learn the craft. Nobody watches an Olympic figure-skater and assumes that they just glide out on the ice on the strength of inspiration. We know they spend years perfecting technique. Writing is no different.
What do you hope readers will take away from reading The Girl in the Mirror?
I didn’t write The Girl in the Mirror with a message in mind, because I don’t think readers enjoy being preached at. I wrote the story as it came to me, and I strongly believe it’s up to the reader to decide what message to take away. Readers have told me that they relate to Iris’s obsessive comparison of her own life with someone else’s. For some, the novel invited them to leave that rivalry behind and learn to be happy with who they are.
I also hoped that Iris’s love of the ocean would rub off on readers, but the overall response to that has been, heck no! I guess the sailing trip in the novel is a little too eventful!
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