Horsham author explores "scary things that happen to ordinary people"

Miranda, aged 55, said: “The central idea is about an inheritance and how greedy and entitled relatives may feel, even if they weren’t very close to the deceased.

“All my psychological thrillers are about scary things that happen to ordinary people, and in this book it’s about the lengths the characters go to lay their hands on what they think is rightfully theirs – even if it means committing murder!

“The idea came to me when sadly I was spending a lot of time in hospitals and a care home, visiting my beloved father. All the staff were amazing, but my heart bled for the elderly residents who had no visitors. Assuming they had any belongings or property to leave, I wondered who would inherit their estates.

“A couple of the key characters in The Second Wife are musicians and this is a world I know quite a bit about as my daughter is a professionally trained musician.

“Another dynamic in the book is the blended family, with two wives, adult children plus a housekeeper and her family who live next door. There are quite a few shady characters!

“All my books are set in West Sussex, predominantly near Horsham. I like setting my stories in places I know well. I hope that the fast pace and unexpected twists and turns in The Second Wife will appeal to my readers.

“This is my fourteenth psychological thriller. My publishers are extremely supportive and I work with my editor to plot out the book before writing. This process can be quite lengthy and I might write up to 10,000 words of the beat sheet (outline) before I’m given the OK to start writing the book. For me, as I type as quickly as I think, this means the writing process is very quick. Typically, I write three or four books a year.

“I’m very lucky that my books have been well received and several have hit the Amazon best-seller spots in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. We’ve sold over 350,000 books since I started writing three years ago.

“My readers tend to love fast-paced, easy to read, psychological thrillers or domestic suspense and they generally expect a twist at the end. I absolutely love writing and it’s a dream come true that I’m able to be a full-time writer.

“The Second Wife is a stand-alone psychological thriller and there won’t be any sequels. However, my next book, which is half-written, will be out probably in August 2022. I’ve written 14 psychological thrillers. They’re all about domestic situations or horrible things happening to ordinary people. I often take my greatest fears and build a story around that. It’s very cathartic! The Visitors is set in the holiday cottage we used to own and is about the guests from hell. The New Neighbour is set in leafy Sussex and about a hit and run and the new neighbour who arrives and creates havoc. The Arrangement is about a university age girl who becomes a sugar baby and The Influencer about a social media influencer and how she uses people.”