The Mark Edwards Community

Yes, my September Celebration of my backlist is still going, and today it’s the turn of THE HOLLOWS.

The Hollows was a hard book to write. Not because of the story itself, but because of the pandemic, and lockdown, and home-schooling. April/May 2020. That surreal, awful period when we were all stuck at home, and I was supposed to be writing my latest book while also supervising my children’s schoolwork and going crazy with stress. I was also distraught because I’d had to cancel my trip to Australia to visit my daughter and hadn’t seen her for over a year…

This book, about a dad and his daughter who lives in another country going on holiday together, was my way of spending time with her and escaping, in my imagination at least, the horrors of that first lockdown - although it’s interesting how parts of the pandemic crept into the story eg the creepy characters in the woods wearing masks. The biggest issue was finding the time and headspace to write it. In the end, I booked an AirBnB and spent a week working frantically, bashing out about 50,000 words, around half the book.

It’s a miracle The Hollows turned out as well as it did. This is my tribute to Stephen King, set on a creepy cabin resort in Maine. There’s even a cat called Cujo in it, and a pair of young villains who are among my most evil. It’s also about dark tourism and what happens when you upset the locals in a dangerous part of the world…

Have you read The Hollows? If not, it’s available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, paperback and audiobook. Just search Amazon for ‘the hollows edwards’.

We’re over halfway through my September Celebration of my backlist. Today, it’s another of my favourites: THE RETREAT.

This book is about the danger of believing in scary stories. Although it’s not a political book (well, unless everything is political) I wrote it shortly after Brexit and the election of Trump. It made me think about how politicians, and the media, use terrifying stories to change our beliefs and behaviour. These tales are often about the ’other’, and about threats to our safety and way of life. 

The characters in this book are driven by fear - although exactly what that fear has made them do isn’t revealed until the end.

The Retreat is also my first book about a writer: Lucas, author of Sweetmeat - which I later wrote as a novella, which is available now on Kindle. Sweetmeat, and its fictional Netflix adaptation, pops up in at least three of my other novels. I do love an Easter egg.

Have you read The Retreat? If not, it’s available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, paperback and audiobook. Just search Amazon for ‘the retreat edwards’.

Next up in my September Celebration of my backlist, it’s my favourite one (so far): HERE TO STAY

This is my novel about the in-laws from hell, Jeff and Lizzy Robinson, who come to stay with poor, unsuspecting Elliot shortly after his marriage to their daughter, Gemma. They’re only going to be there for a short while, he thinks…

But not only won’t Jeff and Lizzy - and Gemma’s weird little sister, Chloe - not leave, but Elliot begins to suspects they have a Very Dark Past.

I love this book because I think it contains my most deliciously awful ‘love to hate’ characters. It’s designed to make readers want to shout at the book. It also has my favourite of my fictional cats, Charlie, who - I assure you - survives until the end.

But will anyone else?

Have you read Here To Stay? If not, it’s available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, paperback and audiobook. Just search Amazon for ‘here to stay edwards’.

Number 4 in my September Celebration of my backlist is BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME.

When Andrew meets Charlie he falls hard. She’s beautiful, funny, sexy and mysterious: a potent combination.

But when strange things start to happen around him, and Charlie shows that she has a green-eyed monster inside her, he begins to wonder if she really is the woman of his dreams - or of his nightmares.

BSLM is my book about jealousy and obsession. I half-jokingly call it my book about the ‘girlfriend from hell’ and it was - like all my early books - inspired by a couple of things that really happened to me, including having detached retinas and undergoing horrible eye surgery back in 2012/13.

The best email I had about this novel was from a reader who told me that after reading it, she was able to recognise when her retina started to detach - and because it made her go to the hospital it helped save her eyesight.

It’s also my spiciest book, and I still really love the cover. The photo was taken by the same woman whose self-portrait appears on the front of The Magpies.

Have you read Because She Loves Me? If not, it’s available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, paperback and audiobook. Just search Amazon for ‘because she loves me’.

“Ooh, a Mark Edwards pen!”

How am I supposed to work with all this going on?!

Post 3 in my September Celebration of my backlist. Today, it’s the turn of THE LUCKY ONES.

‘The art of living and dying well are one.’ -Euripides

This was the first book to feature detective Imogen Evans, who returned this year in The Darkest Water (plus she makes cameos in the two Magpies sequels).

The Lucky Ones was inspired by a conversation overheard in a café. Two women were complaining about one of their colleagues and I imagined some psychopath eavesdropping and deciding to help them out by murdering the subject of their ire. A kind of twisted guardian angel… And the idea of a serial killer who makes his victims happy before killing them was born.

It’s the only one of my books set close to where I live. I spent some fun days driving around Shropshire looking for good body dump sites.

I’m a nice person really. Unlike the Shropshire Viper.

Have you read The Lucky Ones? If not, it’s available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, paperback and audiobook. Just search Amazon for ‘lucky ones edwards’.

Continuing my September celebration of my backlist, here’s post 2 - THE HOUSE GUEST.

British couple Adam and Ruth are housesitting in Brooklyn for a couple they met on a cruise, when a young woman called Eden turns up during a summer storm. Eden says the owners of the house promised her she could stay if she was ever in New York. Being nice people, Adam and Ruth let her in - and live to regret it…

The House Guest is the first in my ‘American trilogy’, which isn’t actually a trilogy, just three books set in America. It’s the second-shortest of my books and was one of the hardest to write. I had the first 30%, up to the first twist, but had no idea what would happen next. It took me a long time to figure it out, finally having that Eureka moment when I listened to a podcast about an organisation that subsequently became part of a big news story (I can’t say any more because: spoilers).

I loved writing a book set in Brooklyn. It was a refreshing change after years of setting books in England, and not just because it meant I got to spend a week in my favourite city doing research. We actually stayed in the house that’s in the book. It’s an AirBnB in Williamsburg, complete with a vintage AirBnB, and hanging out in hipster central in the sweltering summer of 2018 was one of the most memorable weeks of my life.

Have you read The House Guest? If not, it’s available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, paperback and audiobook. Just search Amazon for ‘house guest edwards’.

This month, as the kids go back to school and I edit The Wasp Trap (coming next summer), I’m going to highlight my backlist: the books that have sold - between them - five million copies. I’m not going to post them in chronological order, or in any particular order really. I just want to take the opportunity to look back and celebrate the fact that, after many years dreaming of being an author, I’ve written all these books and have been a full-time writer for a whole decade. I still have to pinch myself sometimes. I also want to thank all my readers (that’s you) for staying with me for so long. Whenever you buy one of my novels, or recommend them to your friends and followers, you’re helping to keep living this dream - the one in which I weave nightmares.

All of these images were created by my clever and talented daughter, Poppy.

First up, the book that has sold more copies than any other, and the novel that marked a breakthrough in ambition and scale: Follow You Home. A couple witness something terrifying after being kicked off a night train in Romania. They come home to London and their lives fall apart. But what did they see…and could the terror really have followed them home?

This is my scariest book, I think. The closest to horror. When my editor read the first draft she had to get off the train she was on because she was so disturbed. Fun fact: I’ve never been to Romania, but I did get gassed and robbed while Inter-railing in France and stranded with no money, passport or ticket. That experience was the spark behind this book. That, and the determination not to hold back; to put the darkest shadows from my imagination onto the page.

Have you read it? What did you think? If you haven’t, it’s on Kindle, including Kindle Unlimited, paperback and audiobook. Just search ‘follow you home edwards’ on Amazon.