My new supernaturally tinged mystery thriller novel, A Thorn in Winter, is out now. I’m thrilled to share this story with you at last. Here’s an introduction to its narrative, themes, and ideas (avoiding ruinous spoilers).

My protagonist, council worker Leila Wilmond, is bored and restless. She recently married freelance graphic designer Patrick, but she’s not particularly happy. Her ill-advised, impulsive affair with local TV news presenter Oliver Robinson indicates as much, though Leila is somewhat in denial. With the affair in her rear-view mirror, she is determined to move on and make a proper go of the marriage. Unfortunately, Joel Odell, her husband’s best friend, has been blackmailing her over the affair. Or he was, until Joel’s sudden death that Leila hears about on page one of the novel.

Naturally, Patrick is dismayed about the death of his best friend. But he doesn’t know about Joel’s blackmail schemes. Leila hopes that with Joel now deceased, Patrick need never know. However, matters are complicated on three fronts. Firstly, Leila is experiencing vivid and violent recurring nightmares that she struggles to dismiss as mere dreams. Are they premonitions? Is she seeing a past event? If so, why is she seeing it?

Secondly, Leila discovers an uncanny link between the blackmail and an unsolved murder case three decades earlier. The fact that the victim looked disturbingly like Leila merely adds to her unease. Thirdly, a tarot card reading a witch performs for Leila proves both accurate and alarming to the point that she is forced to put scepticism aside and consider whether there might just be something to it. This leads to an investigative rabbit hole down which Leila disappears, with perilous, potentially lethal consequences.

Given that I’ve written horror novels, some people have asked how scary this one is. The answer is, not particularly. The difference between horror suspense and thriller suspense is that one is primarily interested in frightening the reader, whereas the other is more interested in keeping them on the edge of their seat, turning the pages to find out what happens next. A Thorn in Winter belongs firmly to the latter tradition, though there are, admittedly, a couple of horror-ish moments later in the book.

This novel also follows quite a bit of the “Simon Dillon bingo” formula that could be applied to my horror and thriller novels. Tenacious but imperilled (and deeply flawed) heroine? Check. Significant trauma in her past? Check. Huge central mystery? Check. Possible supernatural shenanigans? Check. Romantic subplot? Check. Characters with an imperial ton of secrets? Check. A vein of dark humour? Check. Creepy labyrinthine settings? Check. Big twist ending? Check.

To be clear: There’s a significant difference between “predictable” and “formulaic”. Within the genre parameters I set for myself, there are many, many potential variations. The key is to be ahead of the reader and give them what they want, but not the way they expect. I believe I have succeeded in keeping A Thorn in Winter unpredictable, based on early reactions.

As for the themes covered in the novel, before mentioning these, I should reiterate that I don’t believe in self-consciously inserting any “message” into a novel. I believe it is far better simply to write an entertaining story with no conscious agenda. Indeed, I have a pathological need to entertain. There is no better feeling than knowing someone was so absorbed in your novel that they lost a night’s sleep over it or (as I was once told) that they missed their railway station stop because they were so intensely gripped.

All that said, what I’ve found is that if I don’t consciously insert any “message” but only try to entertain, what is important to me ends up inherent in the text in any case, often to much more compelling dramatic effect rather than sounding preachy. For instance, A Thorn in Winter raises subjects such as the potential consequences of being a bully, and the seismic ripple effect of adultery. The reader will have their own beliefs on both subjects. However, if my thoughts on these matters also linger around the margins, the reader can take or leave them as they please, without feeling as though I’m wagging a sanctimonious finger.

Paperbacks and ebooks of A Thorn in Winter are now available. You can order from Amazon here, directly from my publisher, Ring of Culture, here, from Waterstones here, from Blackwells here, and from various other outlets.