Author Spotlight: Welcome Back Thriller Author Heidi Field!
What fun to have fellow Tule author and fab thriller writer back with me this week!
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. Writing contemporary thrillers, she likes to put relatable people in extraordinary situations, challenge them, push them to their limits and watch them fight for their sanity.
The Peasedale Woods Killers is Heidi’s first series, interweaving the relationships between mothers, sons, and serial killers, questioning where blame ends and responsibility begins.
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Building A Character That Leaves You Conflicted
I am a huge Walking Dead fan. In the series, there is a character called Negan, an odious, violent, cruel human being who we despise when we meet him. That dislike continues for a season or two. Then something changes, we learn about his past, his motivations, and our feelings of hate and rage begin to thaw. An understanding emerges. Then, oh my goodness, he begins to show another facet of his personality, a side we did not expect, altruism, kindness. What a journey. Negan became my favourite character in the Walking Dead series.
A similar thing happened with T-bag in the Prison Break series. He is an utterly unlikeable character, a murderous paedophile only out for himself, conniving and selfish, but as the series progresses he shows other sides of himself, vulnerability, resilience, compassion. T-bag became my favourite character in that series.
I love this about writing characters in my own stories, the idea that I can change how the reader responds to the people I create, that I can show someone to be bad, morally reprehensible, unkind and unpleasant, then win over the readers affections as the layers are peeled back, as the character is faced with more and more challenges, giving them the opportunity to show their other qualities.
My recent release, book three in the Peasedale Woods Killers series, The Other Killer, follows Mason’s story. As a teenager Mason became the accomplice to the serial killer, Gunner Piper. He lured boys to the killers table, buried their bodies, and kept the identity of the killer a secret. When Gunner Piper is finally caught, Mason also pays for his crimes, with a long jail sentence.
The Other Killer begins when Mason’s sentence is spent and he is let out of prison to begin a new life on the outside. His story shows you the man he has become, how his teenage past has moulded the adult that is now free, and how his choices on the outside threaten everything he holds dear and all that he is working towards.
Recently, I went to a book club meeting where the group had just finished reading The Other Boy, the first book in my series. Part of the discussion focused on Mason, how the group felt bad for him, conflicted, a mixture of empathy and dislike for the surly teenager that they are presented with in the first book. The Other Killer will alter the reader’s perception of Mason, it shows his relationships with his mother, Suzannah, with Gunner, with his best friend, Jamie, and with the woman he loves, Shiv.
Like all of us, Mason is capable of so much, if the choices he makes take him in the right direction.
GIVEAWAY! Heidi is giving away a free e-book of The Other Killer to one lucky commenter. Just let her know a time when you’ve not liked a character in a book at first, but later in the story, discovered they were more likeable than you first thought.
Excerpt
It didn’t take me long to realise that secondary school wasn’t for me. My little sister, Lily, had been dead two years and her dad, Breck, mum’s ex, had gone back to Ireland. It had been a better two years at home than the six before, when Breck was living with us. He was a prize arsehole, angry, drunk and he hit me. Hated me being around Lily. Now they’re both gone life is easier, kind of.
Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I thunder down the stairs making sure mum can hear me. She shuts herself away in her office most of the time, working, and we don’t talk a lot, not since Lily. She doesn’t want to talk about what happened and she doesn’t want me having any counselling, I guess because she is worried I’ll slip up and tell them what really happened. Wasn’t her fault, not exactly, Lily wouldn’t come down from the tree and mum tried to grab her to stop her climbing higher. She was only five and I was supposed to have been looking after her. I wasn’t going up that tree, no way. Maybe burying her in that log pile and then lying to the police wasn’t such a good idea, after all. Mum’s been funny with me ever since.
‘BYE, MUM.’
She doesn’t respond, so I jump off the last step and open the door to her little office at the front of the house. She doesn’t move from her desk, clicking away on the keyboard.
‘I’m going to school.’
She turns on her swivel chair. ‘OK, Mason, have a good day.’
‘Yeah.’ I force a smile.
I like being in the house, safe and comfortable, Mum leaving me alone most of the time to play my games and watch stupid clips on YouTube. She makes me dinner most nights, and sometimes we watch a movie together. She runs a lot, does yoga. Not sure if she’s got any friends, no one ever comes over. She had a boyfriend last year, but he was awful, weedy and quiet, and always sucked his teeth when he looked at me.
Outside feels unsettling, like there’s a monster about to pounce or a cyclone about to suck me into it. Might have something to do with Hendrix and his meathead mates who hang around on the corner waiting for me. I try to leave late to avoid them. It’s raining today, so I pull up the hood on my camo puffer coat and fix the popper so it doesn’t blow off. I take a breath and gear myself up for the fifteen-minute hell walk to the building of doom. Here I go!
The Other Killer
You can change your name. Change your life. But someone knows exactly who you are.
Twenty years ago, Mason Tucker was tried and convicted as the teenager who helped lure young boys to the serial killer known as the Pied Piper of Peasedale. After serving his twenty-year sentence, Mason is freed and hopes to remain invisible while he rebuilds his life as an adult, hoping to become a man he can be proud of. A new town, a new flat, a new job and a new purpose.
But living with secrets is challenging, and protecting his anonymity, the woman who stood beside him, and her child becomes impossible when the past pushes back. Hard. Within days of his release, Mason suspects he’s being stalked. He’s threatened and twice attacked. He never imagined being outside would be more dangerous than being in prison. The police aren’t an option. One headline will destroy him.
Someone wants him punished, not redeemed, and as danger closes in, you will never suspect where the next threat comes from.
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