Never Tell A Secret

Steyning-based psychological thriller writer Miranda Rijks has turned a creepy chatbot encounter into a chilling new novel.

Miranda’s new novel, Never Tell A Secret, is published by Inkubator Books.

It follows a troubled family who are offered the chance to test ClarityU, a revolutionary AI therapist created by their charming, widowed friend Marcel.

At first, the app seems to help. But ClarityU is dangerously addictive, and what they don’t realise is that Marcel can see everything the family shares with it.

The idea came to Miranda after she watched a television programme about people who rely on AI chatbots as therapists, friends and even partners.

“My next step was to download one of the existing apps onto my phone to see what they were all about,” she said. “And honestly, it completely freaked me out. My chatbot was called Anton. I found him immensely creepy, and the conversation was sycophantic in the extreme. But I have to thank Anton… he gave me so much inspiration.”

The novel is published at a time when concerns about AI and mental health grow. A survey published in JAMA Pediatrics found that almost one in five US 12- to 21-year-olds had used AI chatbots for mental-health advice. Illinois has banned AI from acting as a therapist.

Miranda, who previously wrote Just One Bite about deepfake videos, says she likes to write about “scary things that could happen to ordinary people.”

“The tech itself isn't the scary part. It's the person who can read what you've told it."”

In the book, Emma’s family is coming apart at the seams. Her marriage to Hayden is crumbling. Their 21-year-old daughter Willow is unravelling after a break-up. Their teenage son Fred is isolated and unhappy. So when they are offered the chance to test ClarityU—a revolutionary AI therapist built by Marcel, their widowed friend—it feels like a potential lifeline. And at first, it really does seem to help. But there’s a hidden catch. ClarityU is dangerously addictive and Marcel can see everything they share with it. Every confession. Every fear. Every secret. As their most private thoughts are weaponised against them, sending everyone Emma loves into a terrifying downward spiral, she realises something is horribly wrong. Suspecting Marcel is not the friend she thought, she begins to investigate. And the deeper she digs, the clearer it becomes: she is locked in a life-and-death battle with a man who understands exactly what she fears most. It leaves Emma with one terrifying question: how far will she go to save her family?

Miranda was brought up in Sussex, between Horsham and Billingshurst and moved away for university, worked in Eastern Europe and lived in the Peak District before moving back to Sussex.

Her writing career took off after she recovered from Ewing sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. She turned to writing fiction in 2019 following a year’s worth of chemo and the removal and replacement of her femur. What started as a deeply personal creative outlet has evolved into a prolific career, with twenty-nine psychological thrillers published and most hitting Amazon’s bestseller lists.

“I had to be treated in London. It was all quite dramatic. It was all pretty hard, to say the least.

“I had been writing for years. My first book was a non-fiction published by Bloomsbury in 1999 and then I wrote a biography and then I did a masters in writing. I was working alongside all of this and I had written a couple of fiction books but you have to be very brave to put fiction out there. At least with non-fiction you can pitch it a bit like a business plan but I didn't think I was brave enough to go for non-fiction. The constant rejections are hard.

“And then I was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma which was extremely rare in a 48-year-old woman. That was quite a shock. I'd had significant pain for three years beforehand. It is extremely difficult to treat because the treatment they give to the sarcoma has not changed for decades. They basically kill you with chemo and hope that you survive and I nearly didn't on many an occasion. The writing came back when I recovered from that.”