Let's kickstart this Murder Month of mine with having the super lovely Sue Wallman on for a quick Q&A.For those of you not in the loop, Sue is a YA thriller writer who's previous three novels, Lying About Last Summer, See How They Lie and Your Turn to Die have been making waves with YA thriller readers. Lying About Last Summer was selected as one of Zoella's Book Club picks with WHSmiths in autumn 2016 and each book has won awards and have received praise across the UK.
Her newest, Dead Popular, came out last month, but I have been saving myself to read it till this month as how perfect this book is to fit into this themed month of mine! Sue has written about what Dead Popular is in my quick Q&A of six questions - I didn't want to go too spoiler plus I wanted to know what her thoughts of the genre of crime and thriller.
Before I hand you over to the Q&A, I want to quickly thank Sue for answering these questions and thank Harriet at Scholastic for going "That sounds like fun" when I mentioned I was planning to do this month. If you want to say hi to Sue, you can check out her website at suewallman.co.uk or say hi to her on Twitter at @SueWallman.
ONTO THE MURDERY QUESTIONS!
What is your elevator pitch for Dead Popular?
Kate has finally got to where she wants to be: the most powerful girl in school. But someone knows her darkest secrets and things are about to turn nasty
How does Dead Popular compare to your previous thrillers, Lying about Last Summer, See How They Lie and Your Turn to Die?
It’s the first book in which I’ve used school as a setting. Making it a boarding school allowed me to achieve a similar sort of claustrophobic feel as my previous books. I work in a school that’s a world apart from my elitist fictional one, but I see the same struggles surrounding fitting in and standing out. The dynamics of popularity are endlessly fascinating – and heart-breaking. In Dead Popular, beautiful, accomplished Kate has been made House Prefect of her boarding house and she’s pretty pleased with herself. She’s not going to let anyone drag her down, particularly Clemmie who was powerful before Kate joined the school a couple of years previously. Add a seemingly innocent piece of artwork in the common room and watch as things unravel…
Why do you think crime and thriller stories are so popular, especially in recent years?
I think it’s the compulsive nature of thrillers. Not being able to put down a book is exhilarating, and we love trying to work out what happened and why. Experiencing something scary in a safe way is probably part of it too. I think in recent years we’ve particularly enjoyed retreating to fiction where there are satisfying endings to messy situations and horrible people usually get some sort of comeuppance unlike what we sometimes see in real life.
What do you think makes a good thriller?
Characters who feel real, a brisk pace, and enough reveals and twists. The ending has got to be rewarding otherwise everything else is negated.
How do you keep your readers on the edge of their seats?
By making sure my characters have something important to lose, and by swerving the plot in the right places.
Recommend the last good crime/thriller you read/watched/listened?
The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson. I particularly loved the format – the interview transcripts, spider diagram, photocopies of diary entries and so on.
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