Lincolnshire Today spoke with Philippa East, the Lincolnshire-based author of psychological thrillers, ahead of the publication of her fourth gripping book, A Guilty Secret.
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey to becoming a published author?
I’m a clinical psychologist by background and I still work as a clinical psychologist part-time now, so I came to creative writing quite late, but I’ve always loved books. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I had another go at playing around with creative writing, having done a little bit in school like most people. I started working on a novel which turned out to be terrible, which is pretty much in the bin, but really enjoyed thinking about my characters, scenes and telling the story on the page. Off the back of that I started to join some writers’ groups. While I gave up on that novel, I started writing short stories, which was a really good way of practicing my writing, learning the sort of stories I wanted to tell, and gaining an opportunity to get some feedback on my work from fellow writers. After a little while I started submitting those short stories to journals, magazines, and competitions. A lot of them got rejected, but I got a few published or placed in competitions and that was key in making me think that maybe I was good enough to take this writing thing seriously.
In 2015 I left my full time NHS job as a clinical psychologist and went into part-time work in my own practice, which gave me more time to write, and I thought “maybe this is the time to have a go at this novel that’s been bouncing around in my head.” That book ultimately became my debut, Little White Lies.
As a clinical psychologist as well as an author, how do you balance your two roles?
I think there’s a lot of crossover. Training and practicing as a clinical psychologist and writing psychological thrillers scratch the same itch for me, they try to make sense of what it means to be a human and why we do the things that we do, how we overcome obstacles in our lives, and I’m constantly fascinated by those psychological, human experiences. Being a clinical psychologist and a fiction writer are two sides of the same coin for me.
On a practical level I’ve been lucky enough to now be able to do my psychology work about one and a half to two days a week and the rest of the time I have for writing, which is a huge luxury and privilege for me.
How does being a clinical psychologist influence your writing and the formation of your characters?
In a few ways. I like to think that I have a good basic grasp of characterisation because in my training as a clinical psychologist we learn how people operate psychologically. I hope that I can present characters that feel authentic and realistic on the page, and that their motivations, reactions, and behaviours make sense because there’s always a logic to people.
The other part of it is that in the psychological thriller genre, the genre I write in, often you’re exploring quite difficult or dark themes, and that’s something that I do in my psychology work as well and have been trained to do. I hope readers can feel they’re in a safe pair of hands going into some of those topics, and one of the things that is common for me across both my work as a psychologist and as a writer is that I always believe people can overcome those difficulties. Typically in my books my characters have an arc of redemption or resolution, and that’s a fundamental thing for me in my clinical practice as well; to believe that people can recover and find ways to navigate the things that might have happened to them. I hope that my training as a clinical psychologist has helped me know how to go to the dark places in a way that feels meaningful and not gratuitous, but also gives people a message of hope about recovery and resilience.
Your new book A Guilty Secret is publishing on 18 January, could you tell us about it and why you think people would enjoy reading it?
I had a lot of fun writing this book and I hope that readers will have a lot of fun reading it. A Guilty Secret is about a remote Scottish boarding school, a group of troubled teenagers getting up to no good in the woods at night, the death of a beloved psychotherapist that came out of the blue seemingly, and two estranged ex-spouses who have been thrown together to try and make sense of the connections between all of these creepy goings on, past and present.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about writing this book is that it’s set in Scotland, which is where I’m from originally. The boarding school in the book, St Michael’s, is based on the boarding school that my dad attended in Perthshire, which was basically in the middle of nowhere, and that was quite a fun setting to play around in. I also got to visit some of my old haunts by setting scenes in Edinburgh.
I hope this book will appeal to anyone who likes a good psychological thriller. There’s lots of twists and turns, and I’m always intrigued to see whether readers can figure out the plot twists and the answers to my mysteries; mostly they can’t, which is good, but you can set yourself a new challenge with this book!
What inspired you to write this novel?
One of the inspirations was my fascination with the risky and creepy games that we play as teenagers. For example, the teenagers from this boarding school play ‘light as a feather, stiff as a board’. I just really like this idea of a group of teenagers who are in quite an elite, isolated, exclusive setting, getting involved in these kinds of games which we all come across in some way. But then what if one of those games which you played went hideously wrong?
I think I was drawing on some of my own teenage experiences, although I didn’t have as guilty secrets as the characters in this book do – I promise!
What are your influences for your stories?
The book that I’m working on now is very much inspired by true crime and true crime podcasts, and one of the main types of true crime that I’ve become really fascinated by recently is the modern day cult, so I’m writing a book in that sphere. One of the fun things that I’m playing around with is actually having episodes of a true crime podcast interspersed throughout the book.
Now living in Lincolnshire, have you found it to influence your writing?
My first book, Little White Lies, is set in Lincolnshire. It is about a family whose missing child is found miraculously seven years after she’d been abducted and comes home. One of the key things that I wanted in that book was for this family to be a very ordinary family, a very relatable family. So setting it in Lincolnshire felt like a really good fit.
More generally, I love being in the countryside, I find nature very inspiring. If I’m trying to grapple with a plot idea, I’ll often take a big, long walk. It really helps me be in that happy, healthy, creative mode to live somewhere like Lincolnshire that’s so beautiful.
As part of local folk duo, The Miracle Cure, does music influence your writing at all?
I think for me music and my writing feel quite separate, if for no other reason that I feel that I’m much more capable as a writer than a musician! Music is my hobby, but saying that, my third book centres around a teenager who is an incredibly talented violinist. I play the violin as well, though not as well as Chrissie Goodlight in I’ll Never Tell, but it was really fun to use my knowledge and experience of playing the violin in that.
Do you have any advice for aspiring Lincolnshire authors?
One of the things I’ve found in Lincolnshire is it’s a little bit hard to find other writers. A good place to start is to join or see what’s going on with Writing East Midlands. There are also Lincolnshire writers on social media. A bunch of us have a little group on Twitter (X). If you search for Lincolnshire writers, you’ll stumble across us. I think it’s always good to connect with other writers when you’re trying to pursue your own writing journey.
I would advise writers to really take time and invest in your writing, put in the work to learn your craft and get feedback, not just think that you know it all or that your first draft is perfect, because it never is! Also do your research on the process of getting published. Take advantage of all the information on Google and find out what you should be doing and give your work the best chance. You’re always welcome to message me on social media and ask questions. I’m always happy to help aspiring writers!
Where can people find you and your new novel?
I’m on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I always encourage people to go to my main Amazon page. If they click the Follow button it will always let you know if I have a new book coming out.
You can buy my book in the fantastic independent bookshops we have here in Lincolnshire, specifically Lindum Books in Lincoln, The Rabbit Hole in Brigg, and Walkers Books in Stamford. My book will also be available through Waterstones and Amazon, but the other online site that I recommend for buying any book is bookshop.org, because any time you buy a book through them you support independent bookshops.
I also have a free event taking place at Sleaford Library on Thursday 15 February, 2.30-4.00pm. Come along to the author talk and you can ask questions and get a signed copy of A Guilty Secret! Spaces are limited so to book email
sleaford.library@gll.org, call 01522 782010, or pop in.
