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WHERE THE IDEA OF PRETTY EVIL CAME FROM...

I started writing Pretty Evil in 2018. At the time, I was a romantic comedy author with four rom coms published by a Big Five publisher and two more which I’d self-published. I was doing well in the genre, but I’d had started to feel personally dissatisfied with what I was writing. I was in my early thirties and was dating at the time, and while I was writing about happily-ever-after romances featuring wholesome, lovely men, what I was encountering in my real life was a completely different story.

The London dating scene was awash with toxicity — predatory characters, manipulative behaviour, and downright dangerous dating situations. I started feeling dishonest as a writer; there I was, writing modern romance novels which bore absolutely no resemblance to the real-life dating scene I was encountering. They felt like fairytales. I realised I wanted to write about the real, gritty, creepy, frankly distressing dating scene that I, and many of my friends, were navigating, but I knew if I were to write a novel on the topic, it would be dark and disturbing, and certainly not a rom com.

Eventually, an idea came to me. I was visiting New York to research one of my rom coms and I was re-reading American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis while I was there. It happened to be Fashion Week during my visit, and the city was full of glamourous fashionable people. Suddenly I had an idea to write about a character who was like a female Patrick Bateman, incredibly fashionable but totally psychopathic, a bit like Miranda Priestly gone rogue. The idea completely took hold, and yet I realised I wanted my character to somewhat relatable, a bit like my rom com heroines, so I wouldn’t be able to write about a straight-up blood bath. The character would have to have a quality that made people connect with her. Then I had the idea of giving her a Dexter-like moral code. I was a huge Dexter fan at the time, so making my character someone who only kills people who deserve it felt like a good way of making her appealing to readers. The MeToo movement was in full swing at the time, so I thought she could target bad men: rapists, paedophiles, creeps, etc. This way I could write about all the creepy men I’d encountered on the London dating scene and give them their just desserts on the page. The idea felt very current, very strong, and it really meant something to me. So I got writing.

The book I wrote was worlds away from my rom coms. It had a chatty rom com-like tone and some wry humour, but it was incredibly dark and violent, and also contained graphic sex. Due to its intense nature, it was difficult to find an agent and publisher who was quite willing to take it on. In the end, it was published by indie press, Bloodhound Books, in October 2020. Since then, I gained my rights back and currently publish Pretty Evil under my own imprint. Books about female vigilantes of bad guys are now very common, and Pretty Evil was the first in the now hugely popular MeToo serial killer trope.

THE IMPACT OF WRITING PRETTY EVIL AFTER ROM COMS...

When I wrote Pretty Evil, I had a lot to say and a lot of energy I needed to get out, but once the book was written, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do next. I ended up writing quite a mainstream commercial thriller, Someone’s Watching Me, which I’m proud of, but that style of thriller didn’t feel quite right for me. I’ve since realised that I love writing dark fiction, but I don’t like being too constrained by mainstream genre conventions, as I just get bored. I like to be a bit edgy, weird, bold and different.

I’m really glad horror is so popular now. Back in 2019, when I was querying Pretty Evil, a lot of people told me it was too violent, but now lots of books by women are violent and ‘femgore’ is a huge. Things are changing — female characters can be extreme and unhinged, and readers love it. I read a lot of horror, and I really love the punk energy of the horror scene. The stories are interesting, unique, unconstrained and indie publishing is huge in horror. After Pretty Evil, I realised I wanted to do my own thing for a bit and I gravitated towards this scene. I released novellas Courier and All Expenses Paid and both are very, very dark. While I intend to go back to traditional publishing at some point, self-publishing has allowed me to truly find my voice as a writer, and the reception from readers has given me confidence to be me and trust my creative instincts. My voice now is naturally dark, and I describe it as ‘sort of thriller, sort of horror, sort of literary’.

HOW DID I COME UP WITH THE CHARACTER OF CAMILLA?

When I wrote Pretty Evil, I’d been going through some hard stuff personally as a result of an assault on a Tinder date, which I spoke about in the press. Like many trauma survivors, I was struggling with self-esteem and had lost my spark. Camilla arrived in my imagination and she was everything I was not at the time. She was tough, strong, confident, polished, cool, and had a powerful energy. She was also clever, shrewd, accomplished, sexually confident, and an all-round badass. I wasn’t ready to be those things, but in writing Camilla, I was able to get closer to the person I wanted to be (minus the killing part!). Camilla’s voice came to me and it was very strong. Pretty Evil is written in first person and it felt like Camilla was speaking through me at times. I’d light candles when I wrote the book and it felt as though I were channeling something (as weird as that sounds!) My favourite writing experiences are like that. I’ve only had it twice - with Pretty Evil and Courier.

WILL THERE BE A SECOND PRETTY EVIL BOOK?

I’m not sure. I wrote some scenes for a second book, but ultimately couldn’t quite capture the spark I had for the first book. Pretty Evil was very of the moment when it first came out. It captured a certain MeToo female rage, which has definitely not quite passed, but personally, I have moved on. Now that the vigilante of bad guys trope is so popular, the idea feels a bit played out, and I don’t feel that drawn to writing another book in the series right now. It might be interesting to re-visit the idea at some point though. Camilla was 30 in Pretty Evil. Aside from being filthy rich, she had a lot of issues, beyond just killing. She was very traumatized from her troubled past and struggled to connect with people. It might be interesting to re-visit her story when she’s 40 and see where she’s at.