By Leslie Lindsay
Stunning Psychological Debut from Roz Nay about first loves, mother-daughter relationships, a disturbing twist and so much more in OUR LITTLE SECRET; oh and her TV obsessions, literary influences, those delicious almonds, and so much more.
Stunning voice-driven psychological thriller explores first love and the dark recesses of a twenty-something’s mind.
High School. Oh, how we loathe to love. Or love to loath. It’s often a time complicated with first love, self-discovery, and parental angst. That’s where OUR LITTLE SECRET starts–with Angela Petitjean, a girl living with her high-achieving academic parents and feeling like she’s not really fitting in. Plus, her mother is a little overbearing and a little too enmeshed in her daughter’s life.
But back up a bit and the story actually begins in a starl interview room at a police station. The officer hounds Angela about a missing woman, whom she claims to have no knowledge of. What she ‘forgets’ to tell us is that missing woman is the wife of her first love, HP.
Angela promises the officer she will tell him everything she knows if she is able to ‘go back to the beginning.’ He agrees, somewhat reluctantly, to hear her story. OUR LITTLE SECRET is one of those books where the backstory *becomes* the narrative; it’s a bit like a frame story in which the beginning and the end are tied together by a character looking back.
I was completely intrigued with the mental games and present relationship between Angela and her mother. Keep a close eye on who you trust, on who you think the ‘our’ is in the title.
That said, there’s much to love about OUR LITTLE SECRET. It’s twisty, it’s dark, it’s winding and just plain evil at times. I found a handful of really fabulous lines and astute, poetic observations and psychological foreplay that left me a bit bewildered.
I promise, OUR LITTLE SECRET is a dark, psychological thriller that will have you guessing till the very end. It’s not to be missed.
Please join me in welcoming Roz Nay to the blog couch:
Leslie Lindsay: Roz, congratulations on such a gripping debut. I’m always, always intrigued by what was haunting writers when they start out on a particular title. What was it for you?
Roz Nay: Thanks for hosting me! OUR LITTLE SECRET actually began as a homework assignment in a writing class my husband signed me up for because he wanted me to have a hobby. That’s quite funny now. Once the class was done, I couldn’t let go of Angela’s voice so I wrote the book in amongst the chaos of raising two children under five. It came at me in the snippets of time I could grab. I’d given up teaching high school in order to parent, and I missed the kids I used to teach and that sense of potential that hums around teenagers. I wanted to write a lonely story in the voice of woman who feels wronged, and who’s ended up not meeting any of her potential. In terms of being haunted by that, I think it’s ongoing: I’m always interested in the tragedies people bury, the losses they carry, or the lies they tell themselves and others. These might be themes that creep into every book I write because to me they just feel human and relatable.
L.L.: There’s a lot of psychological tension throughout OUR LITTLE SECRET—and that’s a good thing! Did this come easy for you, or did you have to dig deep to bring that to the forefront? Did you do any research, for example, about first loves or mother-daughter relationships, or police interview techniques?
Roz Nay: First loves and mother-daughter relationships came ready-stocked for me! I actually wrote the book while my own daughter was four, so she’s very close to the character of Olive. My relationship with my mum is utterly different from the one in the book – I’m really close with my mum and had to do some fast talking when she read it! But the world as I see it is always full of tension – all of it psychological, not all of it negative – and I think writers steal moments every day from their own lives or other people’s. I’m always watching for dynamics when I sit anywhere in public, and I’ve heard some of the best lines of dialogue ever in coffee shops and bars. There’s nothing more interesting to me than what real people say in their lives, what they annotate. In fact, if you ever notice me sitting next to you in a coffee shop or a bar, you should probably whisper. Or move.
“In her debut novel, Roz Nay lures readers down a dark and tangled path that explores the aftereffects of lost first loves. Our Little Secret is a gripping addition to the psych thriller world.”
— Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl
L.L.: So why do you think we cherish those first loves so dearly?
Roz Nay: I think it’s because they happen at a time when everything’s exploding into colour and sound. And there’s so much at stake in those years because it’s all so formative. When I think of myself at sixteen, I see how curious and trusting and new I was; and while I might have held on to some of those things, newness is by definition a one-time offer. That’s what makes first loves so tender, I think: we’ve never been anywhere like this before.
L.L.: I’m curious about your writing process—the structure, in particular—was it your intention all along to delve into the past, or did it grow organically as you wrote?
Roz Nay: I definitely knew that Angela would want to tell a story different to the one that Novak needs. And I knew that I wanted to put the two characters into a confined space, and that this disconnect between the stories they tell/need would create most of the tension for them. My sense has always been that love stories very much enjoy the company of crime stories, and so the love triangle was also always with me from the start. There were a lot of pieces of the story that evolved as I wrote, and my editors helped me find my way through it all; but Angela arrived for me pretty fully-formed, and so in a sense I always knew what the end scene would be.
L.L.: Did you ever get to the point in the early writing process where you wrote yourself into a corner, or felt you were spinning your wheels? What propelled you to move forward, when sometimes it’s so easy to throw in the towel?
Roz Nay: The interesting thing about this book is that it was signed with a different crime and a different victim. That’s quite a serious swerve. It was only in edits that I realized I’d forgotten to ask myself the number-one-most-important question of my main character: what does she want? Yep, forgot that one. So there was a day mid-edits, where suddenly 40,000 words of the book had to be cut and on that day I thought to myself, right, Rozzy, sink or swim. I freaked out for about three hours, and then I sat down and started the rebuild. Because what else was I going to do? I couldn’t leave Angela in the lurch like that! All the way from the very beginning, hers was a story I wanted to tell and when you feel like that, it’s really just about sitting down each day and keeping going.
“A clever and addictive read that had me enthralled from the first chapter all the way to the shocking twist that left me breathless. I stayed in bed one lazy afternoon and polished it off, then stared up at my ceiling, stunned that it was over and still half in love with the characters. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a debut this good. Roz Nay is going to be a name we hear a lot of in the future.”
— Chevy Stevens, bestselling author of Still Missing
L.L.: What—or who—are your writing influences?
Roz Nay: I grew up on Enid Blyton mysteries and all the Nancy Drews. I had a well-developed crush on both of the Hardy boys. At 15, I read John Fowles’ THE COLLECTOR which has always stayed with me in terms of ultimate creepiness done really subtly, and for beautiful sentences I always go to Ian McEwan or Donna Tartt. I read a lot of psychological thrillers now and devour anything Jessica Knoll and Harriet Lane come up with. I also really like Andrew Pyper’s style but I can only read his books in the morning sunshine or I get nightmares. For real.
L.L.: Angela is obsessed with HP. What’s obsessing you these days? It doesn’t have to be literary.
Roz Nay: The book I cannot stop talking about this year is Thomas Christopher Greene’s THE HEADMASTER’S WIFE. [See Leslie’s interview with Thomas Christopher Greene here]. In my opinion it’s perfect and everyone I know is hearing that opinion often and relentlessly. I’m also obsessed with the TV show PEAKY BLINDERS although it’s not a new obsession. SHETLAND is also high on my list. My daughter has just started karate so my brain is shouting instructions in Japanese at me at night which is rather unsettling. And I’ve just discovered tamari almonds at the co-op so I’m buying those in bulk to stave off book 2 writing fatigue…
L.L.: Roz, it’s been a pleasure. Is there anything I should have asked, but may have forgotten? Like, your weekend plans, what you’re binge-watching (or eating!—Crème Brule almonds, anyone?), if you’re writing another book…
Roz Nay: Almonds are getting a lot of good press here! This weekend I plan to not attend a minor hockey event, which feels celebratory because I’ve been in attendance every weekend since October with both kids. In terms of books I’m working on, I’ve written another psychological thriller and it’s with my editors , and I’ve just had my pitch for book 3 approved, so that one’s starting to fizz in my brain, too. But this weekend I’ll be walking the dog, listening to Coldplay, and hanging out with my husband and kids. I love spring – it’s all about renewal! I might even clean the fridge so I’ll really feel like I have my life together.
For more information, to connect with Roz via social media, or to purchase a copy of OUR LITTLE SECRET, please visit:
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Roz Nay grew up in England and studied at Oxford University. She has been published in The Antigonish Review and the anthology Refuge. Roz has worked as an underwater fish counter in Africa, a snowboard videographer in Vermont, and a high school teacher in both the UK and Australia. She now lives in British Columbia, Canada, with her husband and two children.Our Little Secret is her first novel. Follow her on Twitter@roznay1 and on Facebook.com/roznay1.
You can connect with me, Leslie Lindsay, via these websites (please do!):
- GoodReads
- Facebook: LeslieLindsayWriter
- Twitter: @LeslieLindsay1
- Email: leslie_lindsay@hotmail.com
- Amazon
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[Cover and author image courtesy of St. Martin’s Press and used with permission. Image of woman in interrogation room retrieved from, ‘the end’ from, image of Enid Blyton books from; all retrieved on 4.4.18].
Leslie A. Lindsay| Writer & Creative 