Briefly tell us about your book.
Shiver begins as five former friends are invited to a reunion at a ski resort in the French Alps. Ten years ago, they were athletes training for a snowboard competition in the resort until tragedy struck. Now, it’s the off-season. The cable-car is running just for them. As they go up to the mountaintop reunion venue, there’s confusion over who invited them. When they reach the top, the ski lodge is dark and deserted. An icebreaker game has been laid out for them. The game reveals their darkest secrets but the cable-car is no longer running. If they want to get off the mountain alive, they must decide who they trust and figure out what really happened that winter ten years ago.
Shiver has a dual timeline. Chapters alternate between the present day, with the friends stranded at the reunion, and ten years ago when they were athletes. With themes of rivalry and competition, Shiver asks: how far might someone really go to win?
What inspired the idea behind the book?
Basically, a French glacier inspired this story! Twenty years ago, I was a freestyle snowboarder competing at halfpipe. I spent five winters in the high mountains of France, Switzerland, Austria and Canada. This icy white world, beautiful yet deadly, always seemed a perfect setting for a thriller.
In my first winter, I lived in the iconic French resort of Chamonix, with a view of Mont Blanc from my window. The steep and majestic mountains there are particularly dangerous. Years later, when I researched the area, I was shocked to learn that 160 people were currently missing, presumably after falling into crevasses or being buried by avalanches. Their bodies were believed to be trapped in the ice where they might remain for years.
As a thriller writer, it struck me that we wouldn’t know if such a disappearance was an accident – or something more sinister.
How did you think of the title of the book?
When I submitted this novel to agents, it was called The Icebreaker after the game the former friends play at the reunion. London agent Kate Burke offered to represent me, but she didn’t feel it was a strong enough title. We brainstormed alternative titles, and she eventually came up with Shiver at 3 AM one morning! I loved it.
Titles are so hard, yet they’re also so important. It’s apparently very common for agents and publishers to change the titles of books.
As I write my next book, I’m once again struggling for a title. My publishers weren’t keen on the title I suggested, but so far we haven’t found a better one. I’m hoping my agent will have another brainwave!
What’s your daily writing routine like?
As a single mum of two small boys, I constantly multi-task, juggling errands and childcare with the promotion of Shiver and the writing of book 2. I’m so behind with my deadline for book 2, partly as a result of the lockdown, so I’m writing every available hour at the moment. I can’t write when my boys are around, they’re just too noisy! I need silence to concentrate. I brew myself a large strong coffee every morning and as soon as they go to school, I sit at my desk and try to write. Social media is another big distraction but it’s also so important to writers these days as a means to promote their work.
If I have any energy left by bedtime, I read. A huge perk of my job is receiving advance copies of other writers’ novels to read and review. Writing is my dream job and I feel exceptionally lucky to be able to do it full-time.
Who are some of your favourite authors?
I read a lot of thrillers. Favourite authors include Jane Harper, Lee Child, Ruth Ware, CL Taylor and Karen Dionne. I love novels with interesting settings that take us to a new world – such as The Beach by Alex Garland, Erica Ferencik’s tense thriller Into the Jungle, set in the Bolivian Amazon, and Michelle Paver’s terrifying literary ghost story Thin Air, set on a 1930s Himalayan climbing expedition. I love the occasional rom-com, such as The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang, The Shelf by Helly Acton and The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary. As an ex-athlete, I also love reading about other athletes’ lives. I adored surfer Mick Fanning’s Surf For Your Life, and Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life by James Kerr.
I’m currently reading a lot of non-fiction on psychology and sports psychology, partly out of interest, and partly for research for my next book.
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