QUICK & EASY INTERVIEW

VAL COLLINS

Q: WHEN DID YOU COME UP WITH THE IDEA FOR YOUR AOIFE WALSH SERIES?

I never planned to write a series. My plan was to write one book about an ordinary young woman who found herself in extraordinary circumstances. I decided to write it about eight years ago. I’d just been made redundant from my office job and the economy in Ireland was terrible at that time so I knew it would be ages before I got another job. I’d always planned to try writing a book at some stage, so I decided this was my chance. As I was new to writing, it felt safest to write about something I knew well. I’d spent my entire working life in an office, so that is the setting for my first book, Girl Targeted. My main character, Aoife, is pregnant with her first child when she accepts a job in an office in Dublin. On her second day, she finds her boss hanging from the ceiling.

As I had no idea what I was doing, I needed a lot of help to write Girl Targeted and the entire process took almost two years. I had no plans to write a second book but when I was doing a final read through of Girl Targeted, I came across a paragraph which mentioned that Aoife’s father-in-law, Danny, had walked out on his family when his kids were young. This gave me the idea for a second book. What if Danny hadn’t deserted his family? What if he had been murdered? That became the plot of Only Lies Remain. Danny’s body is discovered fifteen years after he disappeared and his wife, Maura, is the obvious suspect. Aoife doesn’t believe Maura is capable of murder and sets out to prove her innocence, but the more secrets Aoife uncovers, the guiltier Maura appears.

I was now working part-time so it took me about a year to complete Only Lies Remain. I had no plans for a third book. Then one day I was talking to a friend about a recent tragedy that had happened in Ireland. A man killed his wife and kids and then himself. There appeared to be no reason for the murder and mid discussing this, I wondered what if the father hadn’t killed his family? What if somebody else killed them and made it look like the father was the murderer? Of course, this isn’t what happened, but it gave me the plot for my third book, The Silent Speak.

Again, it took me about a year to get that book finished. At this stage I assumed I would write a fourth book, but I didn’t have any plot in mind. I figured something would occur to me eventually and that’s what happened. One day I was listening to the news when I heard about two young men who were walking on a cliff path. One of the young men fell to his death.

Because my mind now sees everything in terms of murder plots, I wondered why everyone was so sure it was an accident if there were no witnesses. That gave me the idea for Where Loyalties Lie. In Where Loyalties Lie, four young people are walking on the Cliffs of Moher when one falls to his death. His friends say it was an accident but a stranger who witnessed the incident swears that one of the young men pushed his friend off the edge.

A year later I was looking for inspiration for my fifth book when my sister mentioned a story my mother told her. Years ago someone my mother knew was on her honeymoon. She and her new husband were lying on a beach when the woman fell asleep. When she woke, her husband had disappeared and she never saw him again. I used that story as the plot for Dying To Tell. In Dying To Tell, Nicole and Matt are on their honeymoon. They’re lying on the beach when Nicole falls asleep. When she wakes, Matt has disappeared and is never seen again. In reality the man my mother spoke of disappeared without trace and it’s presumed he drowned, but obviously that’s not the fate of my character.

As I never had any plans for a series, all my books are standalone thrillers and can be read in any order. What makes them a series is Aoife’s personal life. In Girl Targeted, Aoife is happily married and pregnant with her first child. In Dying To Tell she has a five-year-old. At the end of each book, the murder is solved, and the next book starts with a new murder and a new cast of characters. The only characters carried from one book to the next are Aoife, her family and her friend, Orla.

Q: WHO ARE THE MAIN CHARACTERS IN YOUR LATEST RELEASE, DYING TO TELL?

In all my books, the main character is Aoife. But the murder in Dying To Tell centres around Nicole and Matt. Both are in their twenties. They are recently married and on their honeymoon when Matt disappears.

Q: WHAT ARE THE PERSONALITIES LIKE FOR PART-TIME JOURNALIST AOIFE AND HER BOYFRIEND, DETECTIVE CONOR MOLONEY?

In Dying To Tell, Aoife is in her late twenties. Conor is in his thirties.

Aoife lost both her parents when she was eighteen. The tragedy changed her from a confident, happy teenager to a young woman who was drowning in grief and terrified of being alone in the world. Her college friends were initially sympathetic but had no idea what she was going through and couldn’t understand why she was still grieving months later. Jason was the only one of her friends who seemed to understand. Aoife, whose relationship with Jason prior to her parents’ death was little more than friendship, found herself clinging to him and relying on him to handle situations she didn’t feel strong enough to cope with. They married young and when Girl Targeted begins, Aoife is pregnant with their daughter, Amy.

At this stage it’s five years since her parents’ death and Aoife has come to terms with her grief. She’s becoming more of her own person and begins to see the cracks in what she previously believed to be a blissfully happy marriage. As the series progresses, Aoife’s confidence increases and she becomes more independent. It takes her a long time to accept that she and Jason have no future, and even longer to let another man into her life, but by the time Dying To Tell begins, Aoife has committed to Conor. She was initially scared of trusting another man, but she has come to believe Conor will never hurt her.

Conor first met Aoife in Girl Targeted but he didn’t really notice her until Only Lies Remain. Their relationship gets off to a rocky start. Conor believes Aoife’s motherin-law, Maura, killed her husband and Aoife is convinced Maura is innocent. In time, Conor realises he has feelings for Aoife but the investigation isn’t the only thing keeping them apart. Aoife is still married to Jason and they have a young daughter. Conor has a low opinion of Jason and feels Aoife deserves better, but he doesn’t want to be responsible for breaking up a family so he keeps his feelings to himself.

Conor as a son, Blaine, the result of a teenage fling. Blaine was seven before Conor even learned of his existence. From then on Conor’s life revolved around Blaine who now lives in England with his mother. Conor has known Aoife’s daughter, Amy, since she was a toddler and has a good relationship with her.

Aoife had to grow up quickly when her parents died, and Conor’s period of sowing wild oats came to a screeching halt when he discovered he was a father. Their experiences developed their serious sides but they’re still young and see in each other the opportunity to capture some of the excitement and joy they missed out on earlier in their lives.

Q:  WHAT THEMES WILL READERS FIND IN YOUR NOVEL,  DYING TO TELL?

The main theme in Dying To Tell is do you ever really know another person.

Q: HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN WRITING HEART-PACING THRILLERS?

I love reading thrillers. I occasionally wander into other genres but I always return to thrillers so, not surprisingly, thrillers turned out to be the genre I most enjoy writing.

Q: DID YOU ALWAYS FORESEE A FUTURE AS A WRITER?

No, not at all. I wrote a lot when I was a kid but I stopped when I was about ten. At that stage I was old enough to realise fiction should include dialogue and my first attempts at dialogue didn’t impress me. I was a bit of a perfectionist back then and I decided if I couldn’t write perfectly, I wasn’t writing at all. I didn’t write another word until I was an adult, but I never forgot that I had enjoyed writing and at the back of my mind I thought that some day I would try my hand at writing again. If I hadn’t been made redundant, I doubt I would ever have found the time.

Q: WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO ASPIRING WRITERS IN THE SAME GENRE?

When I started writing, I was freaked out by people insisting I had to plan my story before I could begin writing it. They made the point that thrillers in particular had to be meticulously planned or you could never hope to tie up all the loose ends. My advice is to ignore other people’s advice. Everyone’s process is different. Do what works for you. I can’t plan but I don’t let that stop me. You know instinctively what is right for you. Listen to those instincts.

Q: WHERE CAN READERS FIND YOU AND YOUR BOOKS ONLINE?

My books are on Amazon and can be purchased from all major booksellers. You can find an excerpt from/ purchase links for each book on my website here: https:// valcollinsbooks.com/ books/

ABOUT VAL COLLINS

Val Collins is the author of the award-winning psychological thriller GIRL TARGETED and the international bestsellers ONLY LIES REMAIN , THE SILENT SPEAK and WHERE LOYALTIES LIE (March 2022). All four books feature heroine Aoife Walsh. They are all standalone thrillers and can be read in any order.

A native of Ireland, Val began reading at the age of three and still devours books at the rate of one per week. Her favourite authors range from Philippa Gregory and Sophie Kinsella to Lee Child and Linwood Barclay. Join Val online at valcollinsbooks.com, and on social media @valcollinsbooks.

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