Author Spotlight: Heidi Field Is Here with a New Thriller!
I’m so pleased to welcome fellow Tule Publishing author Heidi Field back to the spotlight. She creates amazing, twisty thrillers that keep you on the edge of your seat as you read. If you’re into thrillers, you don’t want to miss her novels!
Heidi Field was raised in the beautiful countryside of the South of England with her parents and her two sisters. In her twenties she was a freelance Sports Massage Therapist. She achieved a Degree in Zoology at the age of thirty and then went on to raise two boys and became the stepmother of three more young children. She still lives near her family home with her partner, their Great Dane and the children that have yet to fly the nest. In her early forties Heidi completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Winchester University. She entered the course hoping she would become a children’s fantasy writer and left with a burning desire to write contemporary mysteries and thrillers. Heidi wanted to put relatable people in extraordinary situations, challenge them, push them to their limits and watch them fight for their sanity. The Other Mother is the second novel in her Peasdale Woods Killers series and releases on November 19, 2025, but is currently available for pre-order.
Website | Facebook | Bluesky | Instagram
N: Hi, Heidi, so happy to have you with me today. So…did you plan on writing a series when you started writing The Other Boy or did your new novel, The Other Mother, grow organically from the first book?
A: Hi Nan. Thank you so much for having me today. I am so excited about the release of my second novel, The Other Mother, it seems to have come around so fast. I’m still on a high from having my debut novel published back in June.
I did not plan on writing a series when I wrote The Other Boy. The novel came from watching a documentary about Dean Corll, the Candyman serial killer, and I wrote the first third of the novel as the dissertation for my master’s degree in creative writing. Whilst The Other Boy was out on submission, I wrote another novel, a standalone, a book I will revisit when I have finished writing the Peasedale Woods Killers series.
While writing that second novel, I kept thinking about Suzannah, Mason’s mother in The Other Boy, a subsidiary character who was keeping a lot of secrets. A story with Suzannah as the central character began forming in my head and by the time I had finished that second novel I knew exactly where Suzannah’s story was going to take me.
The central premise for Suzannah’s story was her lies. So many that she becomes overwhelmed, one lie piling on top of the next, until she cannot see a way out, her desperation building as the story progresses, the conflicts between her and her fiancé deepening, the consequences of her hidden truths becoming more and more sinister.
Interestingly, after initial feedback from my beta reader, I realized that I needed to completely rewrite the second half of the novel and include an additional backstory to draw everything together. By letting go of that second half of the book, I discovered a side of Suzannah that I had not expected to find. A darker side, which I found thrilling to write, and hopefully you will find thrilling to read.
N: : How hard was it to create the suspension of disbelief that was necessary for Suzannah to keep so many secrets from her fiancé Alex? Did you worry readers might find Alec too gullible?
A: I like this question very much. The first person to read The Other Mother was my fiancé. He is not a regular reader, only picking up a book or two on his holidays. He reads widely across genres and will give anything I hand him a go. He is also not a fast reader, yet he devoured The Other Mother in two days. I couldn’t believe it. He even made us wait to go out to dinner so he could get a few more chapters read.
I was intrigued and excited to find out what it was that kept him reading so intently, and it was Alec and the lies that had him hooked. He loved Alec as a character and thought he was a warm and loving partner, totally invested in his relationship with Suzannah. What made him turn those pages so fast was the need to find out how Alec would react when he found out about Suzannah’s deceptions, but every time he thought a reveal was coming, there was a change of tack, a half-truth, or another lie to divert away from the truth he was about to discover.
The web of deceit in the book is constantly growing and merging and being twisted.
In terms of Alec being gullible, I have always tried to write the truth in my characters, show how ordinary people, you and me, characters the reader can relate to, would behave. Much like The Other Boy, sometimes the people closest to us have the darkest secrets and rarely can people see the worst in their loved ones.
I think we all wear rose tinted glasses when it comes to family and romantic partners.
N: Suzannah doled out truth to Alec and to the readers in doses, which truly kept the suspense of the story growing. I don’t want to give away any spoilers to folks who haven’t read the book, yet. Did you have to keep a timeline, a cheat sheet to keep track of Suzanne’s lies?
A: One of the joys of writing for me is the immersion in the characters I feel. I am an escapist to the core, frequently disappearing into a make-believe world in my head even when I’m not at my writing desk. The images and conversations and emotions are so vivid I go blind and deaf to the present, so much so that I can be watching a television show, football match, having a conversation, or be in the middle of a workout, without any connection to what I am physically doing, because my mind is so submerged in my imaginary world.
So, in terms of keeping score of Suzannah’s lies, no I didn’t need a record, I just went with it, embodying her as I wrote. I have a routine with my writing, trying to write a chapter whenever I sit at my desk, which is four or five times a week. I make sure I write a minimum of three chapters a week. This maintains the flow of the story and means that everything is fresh in my mind as I get that first draft down. In those couple of months, the book and the characters probably take up seventy percent of my thoughts. Suzannah’s lies were so much a part of me for a while, I knew exactly what she had said to whom.
Plus, it makes for a more genuine character if I plan less and let them lead the way. If I can’t remember what she said, maybe she can’t either. The messier the lying got, the more believable and relatable she became.
Losing track of the lying only put more pressure on her to dig her way out of a hole she dug herself into in the first place.
N: can you give us a little hint about what’s next for the Peasedale Woods Killer series?
A: I am having so much fun writing these books. I just didn’t ever imagine I’d write a series, and although I have a long list of ideas piling up for stories I want to write, The Other Boy seemed to set off a wave of inspiration.
I have recently handed book three to my editor, The Other Killer. It follows on from The Other Mother, but with Mason as the protagonist. It will show a different side to this character and reveal how he became involved with the serial killer, Gunner Piper. The story is not a prequel, however, and there remains a thriller element, dangerous conflict, and a very different kind of resolution to the previous two books in the series.
With each book, what you thought you knew about the characters will change, and where they go will be unexpected.
There will be a fourth and final book in this series. Gunner’s story. I will have written from the point of view of the parents of a victim, an accomplice, and a victim, in fact, some of my characters are a combination of these. The last story I have saved for the serial killer. A big finish, with a big twist (or indeed a few!).
Giveaway! Heidi is giving away an e-book of The Other Boy or send out a signed paperback of that first book in the series. Just comment below and tell her if you are a thriller reader and if so, what kind of thrillers do you enjoy reading?
The Other Mother
Suzannah is pregnant with her third child. The first is in prison. The second is dead. How far will she go to keep her unborn baby safe?
When Suzannah learns she is pregnant, she feels like safety and happiness are finally within reach. Her handsome, successful fiancé, Alec, is over the moon about the baby. He proposes and pampers her. He thinks this is Suzannah’s first marriage and first child, but she’s keeping a few secrets. Actually, a lot of secrets. And they are dangerous…putting Suzannah in a position where she must choose who and what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep her baby and her freedom.
Drowning in her lies, Suzannah is desperate to bury her past, but her ex-husband, who abandoned her years ago, returns, stalking her and demanding to know what really happened to their daughter. When the imprisoned serial killer who lured and groomed her son, threatens to sell his story to the press, Suzannah feels like the life she’d built and the precious one she’s growing, teeter on a precipice. Now the two children she’s hidden from Alec may be the least of her worries.