It’s time for another Friday Reads post and this week my featured book is the totally absorbing psychological thriller The Bad Wife by Sarah Edghill. Let’s find out a bit more about the book and get chatting to Sarah.
THE BAD WIFE is published on 29th June by Bloodhound Books.
A married woman’s lust for a stranger compels her to risk everything, in this new suspense by the bestselling author of His Other Woman.
It’s just a small picture in the local paper—Katie can’t explain why it sets her heart racing. But hiding the photo of local GP Joe Harvey in her bag sets in motion a chain of events that will dramatically alter her life forever.
Driven by an unhealthy desire for a man she hardly knows, the mother of two begins to worm her way into Joe’s life, knowing it’s reckless but still unable to control herself. As her obsession intensifies, Katie’s world becomes increasingly stressful and she’s forced to cover her tracks by lying to everyone around her. Katie’s dancing with danger, and there will be consequences. And while she can’t live without him, Joe barely knows she exists . . . yet.
To preorder The Bad Wife as an e-book or paperback visit loom.ly/g0p0SUU
Welcome to my blog, Sarah. Your books sounds a great read. Can you tell us how you go about your research?
I’m always slightly embarrassed when readers ask how I research my novels. I feel I ought to be able to tell them I spend hours ploughing through dusty books in libraries, or clicking through endless Internet searches; or maybe that I fill dozens of notebooks with hand-written scrawl and have maps, history books and encyclopaedias stacked high on my desk.
But, for many authors, research doesn’t work like that.
My first three novels are domestic dramas. Although the plots are very different, the central character in each of is a woman who comes up against something traumatic enough to cause substantial upheaval in her life, which inevitably affects everyone around her.
To write about people facing these sorts of situations, I don’t need to do extensive research, look up facts or check dates. To create believable characters, we just need to watch and listen to the people who pass through our lives – friends, family, even strangers. It’s by studying people that we learn what makes them tick and which characteristics we can use in our stories.
So, I look at people’s body language and notice how they react when things go wrong. I study the way they walk, the way they stand, the way they laugh, how they react to others. I take in the range of emotions that flit across their faces before they have a chance to hide them: how their voices change as they pretend they’re not hurt, humiliated or resentful. I’ve never based a character on one single living person, but all my protagonists have traits I may have picked up from studying groups of teenagers in cafés, or earwigging as couples argue on public transport and watching parents interact with their children – and each other – outside the school gates. The everyday life that carries on around us is fantastic writing fodder and we pick up on these human characteristics almost by osmosis.
All that ‘research’ is then filed away in the back of my mind, until I happen to be writing a particular scene in a book – months or even years later – and then, often without realising it, I will start to draw on that subconscious information as I write.
My books touch on many different situations – the latest, The Bad Wife, is about a married mother of two who becomes obsessed by a stranger, with devastating consequences for both of them. But what unites my novels is that they always involve families and how they interact with each other, whether siblings are warring about an inheritance, lovers are suspecting each other of infidelity or parents are warning an adolescent child about making a huge mistake.
It’s probably good that I don’t need to do much formal research – every now and then I hop onto Google to make sure I’ve got spellings or dates correct, or check a song lyric or a location. But I’m someone who goes to look up a recipe for spaghetti carbonara and ends up down a rabbit hole, three hours later, having ordered a pair of shoes that may not fit me, read reviews for the latest Netflix blockbuster, done a pointless quiz and checked the weather forecast for Italy, even though I’m not going there for two months…
I’m exactly the same – as I’m sure are many more authors. Real life situations, overheard conversations, they ignite story ideas. Thanks so much for dropping by to talk to us today, Sarah. I hope your book soars!
Meet Sarah
Author bio
Sarah Edghill worked as a journalist for many years, before turning to fiction. She has been short-listed in several short story and novel competitions and lives in Gloucestershire with her husband, three (mostly grown-up) children and far too many animals. Her debut novel, A Thousand Tiny Disappointments, was published in September 2021 and her second novel, His Other Woman, followed in May 2022 and was a Kindle Best Seller.
Author contact links
I @sarah.edghill
T @Edghillsarah
Karen King – Writing about the light and dark of relationships.
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Karen-King/e/B0034P6W7I
Website: https://karenkingauthor.com/