Tell me about your latest book and why we should read it?
Three Little Lies is a psychological thriller about a young woman called Ellen whose best friend goes missing. The police won’t take it seriously, but a traumatic event in their shared past means that Ellen has good reason to be worried. As the story flips back and forth between their teenage years and the present day, the full truth of what happened that fateful night is slowly revealed. It’s a twisty coming-of-age thriller that Heat this week described as “a nail-biting triumph”!
If someone was to write your life story what would the title be?
I have spent far too much time trying to think of something witty, but I simply can’t. I haven’t even come up with the titles of either of my own novels. Let’s just say it’s really unlikely anyone will ever be writing such a book.
What’s the strangest fan question or request you’ve received?
Haven’t had any really strange ones yet, but I’ve had a few people (mainly, in fact exclusively, men) kindly get in touch to explain what is wrong with my books and how they could be improved. There’s a review on goodreads for Three Little Lies that says “I STILL believe my idea is far more interesting and plot-coherent to what we got” (capitalisation the reviewer’s own). Another (man) got in touch to point out (in specific detail) the “banal” similes in Friend Request and offer his services as an editor. Thanks guys!
If you could co-write with anyone in the world (alive or dead) who would it be?
Agatha Christie, mistress of the twisty plot.
Tell me something nobody else knows about you (yet!).
I’ve written 23,740 words of my third book.
Finally please recommend 3 books that you have recently read and tell me why you’ve chosen these.
Darling by Rachel Edwards is about the fraught relationship between a white teenage girl and her new black stepmother. We know from the start that someone has died, but I couldn’t predict what was going to happen at all in this beautifully-written and incredibly twisty book.
The Perfect Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton – a properly gripping thriller with a bonkers but utterly compelling protagonist in Juliette, a woman frighteningly obsessed with her ex-boyfriend. I know people think psychological thrillers can be a bit samey but this one really stands out.
The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley – it’s not out til January 2019 but put it on your lists. It’s a brilliant thriller about a group of old friends staying in a remote Scottish location. When one of them is killed, it can only be one of the others that did it, but who?
Who is Laura Marshall? Laura Marshall grew up in Wiltshire and studied English at the University of Sussex.
After almost twenty years working in conference production, in 2015 Laura decided it was time to fulfil a lifetime’s ambition to write a novel, and enrolled on the Curtis Brown Creative three month novel writing course.
In 2016, her first novel, Friend Request, was runner up in the Bath Novel Award and shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize. It was published by Little, Brown in the UK in July 2017, selling over 250,000 copies in the UK to date and becoming a Sunday Times top ten bestseller in paperback, and kindle number one bestseller. Friend Request has sold in a further seventeen territories around the world including the USA, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands.
Laura’s second novel, Three Little Lies, was released on 28th June 2018.
Laura lives in Kent with her husband and two children.