1. I worked in television news for 20 years and once interviewed Dame Edna Everage. Turns out, Dame Edna had researched me and knew the name of my dog, my husband…and a lot more besides! I have never been so terrified. Interviewing prime ministers is a lot less daunting, believe me.
2. I’ve wanted to be a novelist since I was in primary school. I side-stepped into journalism for decades and didn’t find time to explore fiction until my forties. It then took ten years and four unpublished novels before I got a book deal in my fifties. My first two novels were family dramas and sold slowly at first (despite great reviews). I then changed genre to psychological thrillers and wrote I Am Watching You – out of contract and out of desperation! It became my unexpected ‘breakout book’ and has gone on to sell more than a million copies in English alone. I’m now forever telling writers….do not give up. You never know what is around the corner.
3. I lost my mother to cancer when I was a teenager and it has shaped my whole life. I used to be terribly afraid of dying young myself and leaving my two gorgeous boys motherless. Now they are super, six-foot strapping young men, I worry a lot less….and now plan to grow very old absolutely disgracefully.
4. I am very jealous of people who can raise one eyebrow.
5. I left TV news presenting more than fifteen years ago but still get occasional anxiety dreams in which the autocue is in Russian and the producer is saying (via my earpiece) – just translate it as you go along, Teresa! (No, dear readers, I do not speak Russian.) I cannot begin to describe the relief when I wake up…
6. A newspaper once sent me to interview the real Father Christmas in Lapland. He let me borrow his snowmobile.
7. My new book Tell Me Lies is based around a really beautiful cottage in Cornwall I stayed in twice with my family. There were owls hooting from the nearby woods and I adored it. But one day I read the guestbook which mentioned a ghost…and suddenly I was listening out for every creak of the floorboard at night. When I was looking for a new story, I remembered all this and liked the idea of sending a troubled character to my fictional ‘Owl Cottage’ – a stunning hideaway which suddenly turns very dark. I’m delighted with how the story turned out and hope readers will enjoy it. I fancied returning to the cottage to celebrate finishing the book but the place has been sold. I switched the layout and geography so I hope the new owners don’t realise I ‘borrowed’ their home for inspiration…and are very happy there. (NO ghosts.)
On the sad news of Barry Humphries
I worked in television news for 20 years and once interviewed Dame Edna Everage. Turns out, Dame Edna had researched me and knew the name of my dog, my husband…and a lot more besides! I have never been so terrified. Interviewing prime ministers is a lot less daunting, believe me. I was so sorry to hear of Barry Humphries’ death. Such a talent. Such a pro. I was lucky to meet him.
Teresa Driscoll’s sixth psychological thriller Tell Me Lies is published on April 18th as an e-book, paperback and in audio by Thomas & Mercer.
From bestselling author Teresa Driscoll comes a chilling thriller of past secrets and present terror. Deep in a rural hideaway, it’s only the owls watching them ... right?
After a betrayal that sent their marriage into freefall, Hannah and Sam are desperate for a fresh start with their eight-year-old daughter Lily—and where better than picture-perfect Owl Cottage in beautiful Cornwall. But something about the holiday home stirs dark memories for Hannah ...
When she finds dead creatures on the doorstep and hears mysterious knocks at the door, Hannah can’t help wondering whether someone is messing with her—or whether the past she’s been running from has finally claimed her sanity.
As the disturbing events at Owl Cottage seep out into the local community and the police become involved, Hannah turns to Sam for help. But he dismisses her worries, and she begins to wonder if she was wrong to ever trust him. Are the memories making her paranoid, or is this something more sinister than she dares imagine?
The Author
Teresa Driscoll is a former BBC TV news presenter whose psychological thrillers have sold nearly two million copies across the world. Her first thriller I Am Watching You hit Kindle Number 1 in the UK, USA and Australia and has sold more than a million copies in English alone.
Teresa writes women’s fiction as well as thrillers and her work has been optioned for film and sold for translation in more than 20 territories. For decades Teresa was a journalist working across newspapers, magazines and television. Covering crime for so long, she was deeply moved by the haunting impact on the relatives, the friends and the witnesses and it is those ripples she explores now in her darker fiction. Teresa lives in glorious Devon with her family and blogs regularly about her ‘writing life’ on her website, www.teresadriscoll.com.