It can be difficult to discuss influences and inspirations for novels, because there’s always a risk of misrepresenting your own work. In the case of my supernaturally tinged murder mystery novel A Thorn in Winter, if I were to say Agatha Christie was an influence, you might go away expecting a Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple type story, which this isn’t, in all honesty. Yes, there is some Agatha Christie influence, but there are also many other literary works that informed the book, and there is much that comes entirely from yours truly.

Still, I find it can be interesting to know what rattled around in a novelist’s subconscious when writing. In the case of A Thorn in Winter, I wasn’t deliberately drawing from any of these texts, but having written the book, I can now see what informed parts of it. Therefore, here are three key novels that act as a “primer” for my story.

Sleeping Murder (Agatha Christie)

Let’s start with the aforementioned Agatha Christie. Sleeping Murder opens with a newly married woman who buys a house in southwest England, after living abroad for some time. She wants to make changes to the house but finds the changes in question had apparently been made by previous owners. Whether it’s the garden design, specific kinds of wallpaper, or a new door, she discovers her renovations were previously in place. Has she lived in this house before? The question of potential repressed memories may have triggered some ideas for my protagonist, Leila Wilmond, who experiences nightmares potentially related to past events. Or are they a premonition of the future?

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle)

Dartmoor is only mentioned in passing in A Thorn in Winter, yet there’s a particular atmosphere in southwest England that occasionally reflects what’s in The Hound of the Baskervilles. A sense of a dark past having tainted the landscape (as with Sir Henry Baskerville’s “profane and godless” ancestor), or in this case of my story, the fictional sleepy town of Modbridge having been disturbed by a horrific murder three decades previously.

Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier)

The famously nameless protagonist of Rebecca feels as though she’s living in the shadow of her new wealthy husband’s deceased wife. A similar thing happens with Leila in A Thorn in Winter, given the eerie parallels between her life and the life of the long-deceased Kelly Thorn. Beyond that, Daphne Du Maurier is an extremely atmospheric writer whose other works, including the occult chiller Don’t Look Now, also cast a shadow over my novel.

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.