The Joys of Binge Reading

Kate Gray wrote half a dozen uplifting feel-good novels and then her dark side took over. One night, she had a horrific nightmare and when she woke up shaking, she just knew she had to write it as her next story.

Hi there. I’m your host, Jenny Wheeler. And today on Binge Reading, Kate talks about the book that came out of that nightmare about a honeymoon gone bad, a psychological thriller called – you guessed right? The Honeymoon.

She considers questions like “What if you don’t really know the person you’ve just married?”

And tells us about her own experience of being left at the altar, which catapulted her into an adventure that changed her life.

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And remember, if you enjoy the show, leave us a review, So others will find us too. Word of mouth is the best way for others to discover the show and great books they will love to read.

Links to things mentioned in this episode:

Katy Colins: Kate’s second author name for uplifting women’s fiction: https://katycolins.com/

Lisa Jewell: None of This Is True, https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62334530

Hannah Richell: The Search Party

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Search-Party/Hannah-Richell/9781668036068#:

The Lonely Hearts Backpacker’s series: https://katycolins.com/the-lonely-hearts-travel-club-destination-thailand-by-katy-colins/

Where To Find Kate Gray online

Website: KateGrayauthor.com

Facebook: @Kategrayauthor

Instagram: @Kategrayauthor

Katy Colins travel blog https://www.instagram.com/notwedordead/

Introducing thriller author Kate Gray

Jenny Wheeler: But now here is Kate. Hello there, Kate, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us.

Kate Gray – psychological thriller author and The Honeymoon

Kate Gray: Hi, thanks so much for having me.

Jenny Wheeler: Kate, you’ve done half a dozen feel good, uplifting women’s fiction novels, and now this change to a dark psychological psychological thriller, The Honeymoon. Why the change of pace and genre?

Kate Gray: I really enjoyed writing my novels as Katy Colins, uplifting, feel good reads. But I just didn’t have another idea. And I guess it also happened to be the start of lockdown when I was out of contract. And it wasn’t very good for that kind of creativity. The muse wasn’t visiting. I have two very young children.

And my husband was working quite a lot as a journalist. So, no ideas were coming forward and one night I went to bed and I had this really horrific nightmare and I just knew I had to write it and the nightmare was so scary that this then led me into writing more psychological thrillers and actually I quite like embracing my darker side.

Jenny Wheeler: Interesting. This is the first psychological thriller that you’ve actually published, is it? But have you got others on the boil now?

Kate Gray: Yes, I signed a two-book deal. The Honeymoon came out this summer and the second one will be out next summer, which is really exciting. I’m currently editing that second one, which is completely different, they’re both standalone novels which is good in a way for my creativity, but difficult because I have a whole new cast of characters and problems to put them in.

A story that came out of a bad dream

Jenny Wheeler: That’s right. When we get to the feel good fiction a bit further on, we’ll talk about your four book series with a similar character and similar settings. So you did do a series there, but getting back to that nightmare. How much of the story was formed in the dream? Was it just the nub of an idea or did you have the whole thing largely roll out before you?

Kate Gray: I wish I’d had the whole thing. That would have been amazing, but no, it was the feeling that I had, I looked at my hands and it’s so vivid now. I can remember it so clearly. And this was like two years ago and I looked out of my hands and there was blood dripping from my fingers and the skull of a man caved in next to me on this beautiful beach.

And I knew that people would, the police wouldn’t be able to believe me, there’d be a translation problem. I would lose my children, my husband, my job, like I would lose everything. And I wouldn’t be able to get people to believe that I was innocent. And the fear that in a split second, everything could be taken away from you and not having anyone believe you.

It terrified me and I woke up dripping in sweat. My husband had to calm me down and remind me that it was Lockdown.

We hadn’t left England. I hadn’t been on some exotic beach murdering men. But it felt so real. I just thought, ‘Oh, what if, what if this happened on the last night of your honeymoon?

‘What if you didn’t really know that person that you just married? And what if then you had to trust them with a secret between the both of you?’

That’s how it started. It was a very much a visual image and then it carried on from there.

Newly weds in Bali – and a meeting that changes lives forever

Jenny Wheeler: And have you any idea what might have even sparked that? Had you been watching horror movies or something?

Kate Gray: I don’t know. People say that when you eat too much cheese, you have bad dreams. (Laughs) Maybe I’ve just been pigging out on the camembert. I don’t honestly don’t know. A part of me does think it was the pressure of lockdown and feeling like I need another idea, I need the idea. And maybe that was all subconsciously working away.

But sadly I haven’t had any more nightmares. Every night I would go to bed thinking, come on, one more nightmare. I might get another book out of it.

Jenny Wheeler: Look, that’s great. As you’ve alluded to, The Honeymoon, presents two newly married couples, in a resort.

They’ve got to know each other just a little bit over the honeymoon. And this weird event, a man dying on their last night in Bali. links them together, so when they get back to England and resume their normal jobs, there is a little bit of a link between them through that murder for various reasons.

It starts out being an unknown death, but we do know right at the beginning that some of the circumstances surrounding it and it very much moves around this area of how well do you know somebody that you’re intimate with and what kinds of secrets can people hold from even those dearest to them?

Is this something that’s always been an interest of yours?

The ‘it could happen to me’ fearful thrill

Kate Gray: I think I really enjoy reading psychological thrillers that ask those kind of questions of who do you know that are closest to you, how much you can trust them. And yeah, so I think marriage in particular is something that I’m interested in and that close relationship. I like those domestic settings.

The ‘It could happen to me’ type feel. And like you were saying about The Honeymoon, all those things, there’s not spoilers, all those things happen pretty early on in the novel.

And they have to come back and start this life. Life with the biggest secret ever. It’s the case of the most ultimate holiday blues, isn’t it?

Knowing something so horrific happened and then you come back and try and pretend everything’s normal and all these secrets and lies and truths come out. But I do find it fascinating trusting other people and that process and the people that we go to bed with, we wake up alongside in the morning, but you never really know anybody.

You only ever know yourselves. And yeah, I find that really interesting.

Jenny Wheeler: You have a tagline in the book blurb. ‘Many marriages can survive anything. But when it started on a lie. Is it really till death do us part?’

Kate Gray: Yeah, I think it asks the question, doesn’t it? How seriously people take those vows and who are these people that you’re marrying and the relationship that you’re going into, especially if it’s a new relationship and they don’t know each other for very long, people can hide a lot of secrets along the way.

And I find that really interesting.

Maintaining appearances and keeping up our best selves

Jenny Wheeler: And with these couples, it isn’t just what happens, the events of that night, because as we get to know them better, they’ve all entered their marriages with some secret that they haven’t told their partner. That’s true, isn’t it? Do you think a lot of us do that?

Kate Gray: We maybe portray the best versions of ourselves. We especially do if we’re dating somebody, you don’t want to open your cupboard full of skeletons on the first date might put them off. And maybe some of those secrets you do carry with you and there is never the right time to reveal a certain part of you.

Maybe it’s the part that you’re embarrassed about or ashamed of, and yes, I think the version that we portray, like on social media, is not always the truth.

And just because you’re married to somebody, or you’re best friends with somebody, or you work with somebody, it’s not the truth always.

And as an author, as a writer, I do find those relationships, the kind of domestic relationships, really interesting and fascinating to look into.

Jenny Wheeler: I was particularly intrigued by the character Sophie, who’s a journalist who got to a high level in Fleet Street and then had a failure and is back in the local media trying to climb her way back up and desperate to find the story that’s going to take her back to the top. I worked for years as a journalist, and I gradually became aware, even to myself, of the justifications journalists often use for going after stories like public interest and justice for the victim.

But with Sophie it’s so clear that there’s a very strong element of personal motivation for ambition and just to get ahead there, isn’t it? How far will she go to get the story? That also is a question that is of interest to you.

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100%;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] [data-style="minimal"]{padding:40px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"]{margin-left:-5px;margin-right:-5px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-field,.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-submit{margin:0 5px 15px 5px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-field{-webkit-flex:100 1 auto;-ms-flex:100 1 auto;flex:100 1 auto;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-submit{-webkit-flex:1 1 auto;-ms-flex:1 1 auto;flex:1 1 auto;} Secrets can cost in a digital world

Kate Gray: Yes, I’m married to a journalist and I trained to be a journalist myself. And there is that line, isn’t it, that these stories do need to be told. We need to hold people accountable. In England, we’ve had quite recently some very high profile figures that have needed to be held accountable for recently.

But I do think there is also that line of how much is too much. and the levels, like you said, the depths people will go to, to find the story and to really get into somebody’s lives.

And this also links back to what we put of ourselves online, how easy it is for a complete stranger to do a bit of digging and to then suddenly fall down a rabbit hole of your life and discover things that people put up unwittingly thinking it’s for the good, but people are out there, journalists in particular, that’s how they do get find the kind of the meat of the story.

So yes, so be careful.

Jenny Wheeler: The rules have changed too, over the last 20 or so years. And things where before journalists would all keep secrets, like with the royal family secrets about the misdoings of the male members of the family, now it’s almost gone to the other extreme that things that, and I think that’s fair enough to show up that hypocrisy, but now it’s gone almost to the other extreme, hasn’t it?

Kate Gray: It’s really, I think it is a really interesting debate. I do think journalists have a really important role in society, like I said, holding people for account, showing, taking off the cover really and be like, this is going on, this is not okay. The media landscape has changed dramatically with social media with other people, members of the public, becoming journalists and taking on that role, becoming detectives, with true crime cases.

They get on TikTok and they’re suddenly saying things that journalists wouldn’t be able to say because they have the legal background and they have lawyers jumping on them that, you can’t name suspects, you can’t name things.

Kate Gray loves ‘sliding doors’ moments

But Joe Bloggs, a member of the public, is able to. And I think as a journalist, if you know a lot of the story and the background to a case, that must be so frustrating seeing it all being played out on Twitter X, whatever it’s called now, and knowing yourself that you have to follow a code of conduct.

Jenny Wheeler: The Honeymoon is very intricately plotted. And I wondered, this is the age old question, but how intensely did you understand where it was going as you were writing it? Did you have a spreadsheet with everything plotted ahead or did you allow a certain amount of fluidity about the things that unfolded?

Kate Gray: I didn’t have any spreadsheet. I didn’t have any plot, really. I just, like I said, I had that first image and the setting. And I’ve been to Bali myself. It’s beautiful. And I think it’s idyllic for honeymooners. But there was also as in most countries, an underbelly of kind of crime and corruption that can go on there.

The fact that there’s a death penalty still exists. And as I thought, it’s a perfect place to raise those stakes. I knew I wanted two couples. And on the outside, people’s marriages look perfect, but actually going in, you know what? They’re hiding. And I also like the element that these two women, Erin and Sophia, they just picked up a conversation because they chose sun beds next to each other.

Really innocent, just a matter of fact, innocent decision. This single choice that then would go on to change the course of their lives. I love those sort of ‘sliding doors’ moments of what you know, she’d have chosen a different bed or gone to a different resort than they never would have met.

So yeah, in terms of plotting, I just carried on telling the story that I wanted to read, I guess I think after having. written and read so many uplifting commercial women’s fiction novels.

It was nice to embrace that darker side and to try and write and emulate those psychological thrillers, which I adore a bit of mystery, a bit of yes, psychological…. Oh, like shadows and shivers that you get from nothing really happening, but that sense of unease. And I find that really interesting.

A craft honed on uplifting women’s fiction

But in terms of plotting, I didn’t plot really, I just told myself the story. I had a lot of editing to do because I didn’t really plot, but that’s another thing.

Jenny Wheeler: That’s right. We will turn in a moment to talking a little bit about your uplifting feel good fiction. But I wondered if your writing process had changed over this period, whether you had a slightly different way when you started and whether it’s evolved in any significant way as you’ve been writing.

Kate Gray: I think I learned my craft with my women’s fiction novels. I’ve had six published, and a seventh written. I knew the bare bones of structure of plot of kind of characterization, that sort of thing. And because those novels were so character heavy, the characters came to life and we followed them.

Whereas in psychological thrillers in the crime world. It’s a lot more plot heavy and things happening every single page and cliffhangers and all that sort of thing. Yeah. But I really enjoy those books where the characters are still memorable and you really root for them, whether they’re good or bad.

I wanted to take what I’d learned from those really character heavy novels I’ve written and bring that into my psychological thriller ones. And I’ve been really, really lucky with the reviews I’ve had where my readers of my Katie Colins books have said, I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy a thriller.

Maybe it’s not my normal ‘go to’ genre. But actually, because they like my writing and they like how I’ve managed to create these characters that feel realistic, which is something I was really focused on, that, that they’ve enjoyed it and have left really good reviews, which is really good to hear.

I was relieved. I was worried about taking the leap to the new genre, but so far, it seems to have paid off.

From footloose backpacker to Midlands Mum

Jenny Wheeler: That’s great that your feel good readers have followed you across because often they don’t, do they?

Kate Gray: It’s a weird one because I think, not everybody reads just one genre, people do like a cross blend and I think if you like an author, then you would at least give it a go. You might not read another one if you didn’t fancy it, but I don’t know, there’s a bit of dark side in all of us.

There is a place for a thriller, especially this time of year we’re getting over here, we’re getting into autumn and Halloween, the nights are drawing in. So this is the perfect creepy weather for those sort of books.

Jenny Wheeler: You’re now writing from the UK Midlands as the mum of two young children, as you’ve mentioned, but when you started out, it was very much a different lifestyle you were living. And you had a series called the Lonely Hearts Travel Club, where there was a footloose and fancy free single girl who was traveling the world.

Tell us about Katy Colins with only one L, actually, which is slightly unusual for those people who might be looking for you. Tell us about Katie Colins and those books.

Kate Gray: Yeah, so Katy Colins is my other alter ego, my other pen name and Colins has only got one L because my dad’s name was Colin. So that was what I got for those. And they started really based on my kind of my own personal life experience.

It was, this is about 10 years ago now, I was, like you said, in very different circumstances to where I am now.

I was about to get married and had this big wedding planned and I was jilted and it just changed everything to the point where I was so heartbroken.

Not Wed or Dead changed her life

I’d never experienced anything like that, and everyone was saying, ‘Oh yeah, the world is your oyster. You can make something good of this. It doesn’t have to be this heartbreaking, heart wrenching experience.’ and I really took them at their word.

Literally. Left my job, sold my house, sold my car, sold all my belongings apart from what I could fit into a massive backpack, and I booked a one-way ticket to Thailand.

I’ve never solo traveled before, I’ve never even got an airplane by myself before, but I was so determined to make something good out of this horrible situation, and life, like I said, that before the ‘sliding doors’ moments, everything had spun on its head.

I started a blog, which was called Not Wed Or Dead. And that was purely to keep my family updated. They knew I was alive. This was back when blogging was really big.

And then I realized I had lots of readers messaging saying ‘I’m following your journey. I was also dumped or jilted or divorced.

I understand that heartbreak that you’re feeling, and you’re really encouraging me to carry on.’

I traveled around Southeast Asia and Australia. And then I ended up living in France for a bit. And whilst I was in France, I said this is the year I’m going to write a novel. I’m going to use these experiences and put them, put my ink onto paper.’

And that’s what became the first book in the Lonely Hearts travel series, which was Destination Thailand, which follows a jilted backpacker called Georgia, who goes to find herself.

And each book is a different country, a different destination that I’ve traveled to myself. And we follow her along this adventure with a whole cast of characters.

But yes, like you said, that is a very different world to where I am today. Now I’m married and I’ve got two young children, two cats, very happily settled. And yeah, it all feels like a dream.

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Kate Gray – Honeymoon Thriller