A Fascinating New World By Allie Reynolds
By Allie Reynolds
Robert McKee, in his iconic book Story writes: “We go to the movies to enter a new, fascinating world, to inhabit vicariously another human being who at first seems so unlike us and yet at heart is like us, to live in a fictional reality that illuminates our daily reality.”
It’s one of my favourite quotes on writing. Many of my favourite novels allow me to experience a fascinating new world in exactly this way. And with Covid-19 limiting our ability to travel for real (and maybe even preventing us from leaving our homes) escaping to a fictional world seems even more appealing.
Sometimes this world is a physical location. Erica Ferencik is a master of dangerous natural settings. The River at Night takes us to a Maine River, remote and relentless. Into the Jungle takes us to the Bolivian Amazon, where the wildlife and plants are as deadly as the human inhabitants.
Jane Harper is another master of such settings. The Dry paints a vivid and unforgettable picture of a drought-ridden farming community in the Australian Outback. Force of Nature drops us into dense Australian rainforest, lush yet menacing.
Lucy Foley’s smash hit The Hunting Party snows the reader into a hunting lodge in far north Scotland. Her follow up, The Guest List takes us to a windswept Irish isle, with caves and peat bog, cut off from the mainland by a storm. In Angela Clarke’s On My Life, we’re locked up in prison, experiencing the same terrible helplessness and constant sense of threat as the pregnant female main character.
Karen Dionne’s The Marsh King’s Daughter teaches us how to survive in harsh and remote Michigan marshland. Ruth Ware conjures up different landscapes and buildings in each of her novels, all as vivid and atmospheric as the last. In her debut we’re In a Dark, Dark Wood. We sail cold seas onboard a boutique cruise ship in The Woman in Cabin 10, tiptoe across a salt marsh to a mill in The Lying Game, and shiver in the cold, snowy climes of One by One.
Sometimes the world is a work environment. Megan Abbott’s Give Me Your Hand takes us to a science lab. Science was my most-hated subject at school but in Abbott’s hands, it becomes fascinating, thanks to two rival female scientists torn between friendship and ambition.
Karen Hamilton’s debut thriller The Perfect Girlfriend gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the airline industry, as told by a female member of the cabin crew. Harriet Tyce’s Blood Orange and Louise Doughty’s Apple Tree Yard, take us to the legal world and London’s lawcourts.
The Escape Room by Megan Goldin gives us two worlds for the price of one. We get a fascinating insight into Wall Street trading – a world of greed and ambition, risk-taking and corruption – and a unique physical setting, since half the scenes take place in the metal confines of an elevator escape room.
Sometimes the world is a sporting one. I’m not a fan of cycling – either doing it or watching it – but I was totally engrossed by the antics of two female cyclists vying for Olympic Gold in Chris Cleave’s novel Gold. In Jennifer Iacopelli’s YA novel, Break the Fall, we tumble through the highs and lows of Olympic gymnastics, experiencing the nail-biting pressure, pain and adrenalin.
One of my all-time favourite books, The Beach by Alex Garland, takes us to a whole new world full stop. His vivid imagery and eye for unique detail transports us to Thailand, from the chaos of Bangkok’s Kho Sang Road to a hidden beach where a secret community of backpackers have an apparently idyllic lifestyle.
The writers of these books immerse us in these worlds by providing vivid details of the physical scenery and weather, as well as details of the lifestyle, culture and rules in that world. We live in the shoes of the characters who inhabit them, experiencing their hopes and dreams, and soaking up the atmosphere and tension as though we’re actually there. Judging by the popularity of these books, I’m not alone in wanting to be transported to a fascinating new world.
In my debut thriller, Shiver, I aim to take the reader to such a world. Years ago, as a freestyle snowboarder, I spent five winters in the mountains of France and Switzerland, Austria and Canada. Day in, day out, I launched myself out of the icy curves of a halfpipe, fighting my fear and battling injuries, high on adrenalin all the while.
I hope my readers will enjoy being transported to the world of the high mountains, cold and white, beautiful yet deadly, and experiencing the thrills of competitive snowboarding – from the warmth and safety of their armchair.
Shiver will be published on 21st January 2021 by Headline books in the UK, Penguin Putnam in the US and in 16 other territories.
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British-born Allie Reynolds is a former freestyle snowboarder who spent five winters in the mountains of France, Switzerland, Austria, and Canada. Her short fiction has been published in women’s magazines in the UK, Australia, Sweden, and South Africa. She lives by the beach in Queensland, Australia. Shiver is her debut novel.
Find out more about her on her website: https://allie-reynolds.com/
SHIVER
They don’t know what I did. And I intend to keep it that way.
How far would you go to win? Hyper-competitive people, mind games and a dangerous natural environment combine to make the must-read thriller of the year. Fans of Lucy Foley and Lisa Jewell will be gripped by spectacular debut novel Shiver.
When Milla is invited to a reunion in the French Alps resort that saw the peak of her snowboarding career, she drops everything to go. While she would rather forget the events of that winter, the invitation comes from Curtis, the one person she can’t seem to let go.
The five friends haven’t seen each other for ten years, since the disappearance of the beautiful and enigmatic Saskia. But when an icebreaker game turns menacing, they realise they don’t know who has really gathered them there and how far they will go to find the truth.
In a deserted lodge high up a mountain, the secrets of the past are about to come to light.
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips
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