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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.
Giveaway This Week – Historical Romance
Our Giveaway this week is a month of historical romance. If you’re searching for your next favorite story, look no further. These best-selling authors have teamed up to offer a delightful selection of new books, including my own Hope Redeemed, A Spanish Novella, Book #6 in the Of Gold & Blood historic mystery series. All are just available for a limited time.
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: 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.
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.
The ‘Backpacking Bridget Jones’ rebuilds trust
Jenny Wheeler: Did that experience partly spark in you personally, that feeling of how well did I know this person that this could happen?
Kate Gray: I think, you know what, I think you’ve hit something there. I think it made me feel like I knew what was happening and knew I could see my path. I could see everything. And then suddenly with this one decision that the rug had been pulled under my feet, literally.
And I did question. It took me a long time to rebuild my trust in dating and men in particular, but also it gave me the skills to really trust myself that going backpacking by myself and going around India as a solo female traveler, it gave me such courage and confidence to rely on my own instincts that I became so much stronger because of it.
So yeah, so it was. It was the best thing that ever happened. Now I can say that.
Jenny Wheeler: Gosh, yes, they billed you as the ‘Backpacking Bridget Jones’ at one stage, which is also a great little tagline.
So we do just have to ask, how did you build that courage up again? And where did you meet your husband?
Kate Gray: So this is a nice twist, this is a film -like twist in my story and my plot is that my husband is a journalist and I contacted him because when I got my book deal, it was an E book digital first deal and I messaged him and I said, ‘Oh, I wonder if you could write an article for my mum’s local newspaper?’
That was where I was hitting my sights and he said, ‘I think I could do a bit better than that. Send me some photos and some information about everything.’
And he managed to get it in a regional newspaper and then all the nationals picked it up from there. Then I was on television, I was on radio and it was just a whirlwind.
And we carried on talking throughout all of this. It went viral and he was the only one who I wanted to speak to and I think we instantly had this crazy connection.
The ‘secret’ of Kate Gray’s success
So yes, I married the man who broke my story with the world and now we have two wonderful children and again, like all wouldn’t have happened, those ‘sliding doors,’ all those little tiny decisions, all those moments in life.
And yes, it was a bit crazy.
Jenny Wheeler: Actually, I must admit that I picked it up online – the jilted story – in the Daily Mail, which is one of UK’s biggest metropolitans, so you really hit the headlines with it.
Kate Gray: Yes,
Jenny Wheeler: Turning away from the specific books to your wider career, was there a light bulb moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction? You did mention that you were in France. Had you had a long term ambition to be a novelist?
Kate Gray: Yes. I’ve always loved books, loved libraries, I’ve loved writing, always short stories, I think, as I trained as a journalist, I went into public relations, so I’ve always been writing in my daily life.
But I never knew if I could write a book, I think living in France and I was teaching English, but it was only part time and it was when I didn’t have children.
was single and I had so much free time and I thought ‘this is the time now, I’m never going to get this freedom in this, this amount hours in the day that I can literally just be selfish and do what I want.’
I’m going to learn and read all the craft books and go on courses and try and practice my art. I gave myself a deadline. I had to do it by the end of the year to try and get at least a very rough first draft done. And I did and I was able to sell it.
Jenny Wheeler: Fantastic. If there was one thing that you would see as quotes the secret of your success in the publishing industry, what would it be?
Kate Gray: I think to be resilient. I think you need a real thick skin in this industry. You need to be able to come up with ideas, but you also need to go through the day of writing and the words aren’t coming and you get writer’s block…. Perseverance is so important.
What Kate Gray is reading now
But it is a fantastic job. I do feel so lucky. I love connecting with readers. I love doing events. I love seeing the book when it’s all finished from that idea in my head, especially from that nightmare for The Honeymoon. It just still feels so magical.
Jenny Wheeler: We probably should mention that after the Backpackers Books, you did then continue to write several other stand alone women’s fiction stories.
Do you plan to continue with a two stream career writing some of the uplifting fiction under Katy Colins?
Kate Gray: I’ve said she’s having a rest. She’s a bit tired. She’s not dead completely, but at the moment I am focusing on Kate Gray and the thriller world.
And again, it all depends. Maybe I’ll have a dream next time and that will spark the next Katy Colins. But at the moment I’m enjoying the crime world and I’m enjoying getting to know my darker side and yeah, we’ll see. Never say never.
Jenny Wheeler: Great. Wonderful. Let’s talk about Kate as reader. We always like to check in with our authors because this is a program where people love to binge read and are looking for their next favorite book.
Tell us about what you’re reading at the moment and if there’s anything you’d recommend to listeners.
Kate Gray: I’ve just finished the latest Lisa Jewell, None Of This Is True. she’s just the queen of the genre. It was amazing to read, but also quite depressing then to go back to my laptop and see this empty black page and think, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m never going to be as good as her.’
But I do read quite critically. So, I then go back and see how did she hide that red herring and how did she plot those clues and that sort of thing. I find it hard to really read for pleasure now because it’s part of the job.
Beating writers block
Another book I’ve read recently, which is a debut in a thriller genre is Hannah Rochelle called The Search Party that’s coming out next year, I think spring next year, which was really good.
I found again. Her characterization is good. She’s also done women’s fiction before, so she knows how to get her characters.
But I think maybe I need to have something light, a palate cleanser, because I have been reading a lot of crime recently. So if there’s anything you can recommend that’s I can get some lighter relief from, then I’d be definitely up for that.
Jenny Wheeler: Great. One of the authors that I interviewed recently was Loretta Chase. She’s an absolute doyen of Regency Romance, and she’s got a series at the moment going called The Disgraceful Dukes.
There’s these three dukes who are bad boy dukes, and they each one meet their nemesis in terms of a woman who tames them.
And they’re actually very funny. She’s good at witty dialogue, so that might be a nice palate cleanser for you.
Kate Gray: That sounds really good. I’ll look that up. Thank you.
Jenny Wheeler: She actually had an interesting story because she’s been writing since the nineties, and two of the three books about the Dukes are out. But the third one, she had a terrible episode of writer’s block when she’s been writing for so many years, and she actually wrote about it in a blog a few months back now because she has got over it.
She assures me that number three is going to be completed in first draft before the end of the year.
Looking back down the tunnel of time….
It hooked me in enough that I really want to see what happens with number three, because this is one where the boy is already married, but you get the feeling – you get more than the feeling – in the first two books that the marriage isn’t going that well, but there’s no real clue as to why.
And we agreed that might’ve been the difficulty because she had to go back and find a way to get so much backstory into a romance when they’re already married. That was probably part of the problem, but it’s got me hooked.
Kate Gray: Sounds good. It’s really hard writing a series and like I said, writer’s block can strike at any time. I do sympathize with her. And, I don’t think there really is a cure either.
The cure is to just keep going, plowing through and getting your bum in the chair and hoping that you can keep going with it.
But no, I do sympathize. It’s horrible.
Jenny Wheeler: That’s exactly what she did. And she said, she just knew every day she was writing absolute rubbish, but she kept writing rubbish.
Kate Gray: Yeah, yeah, that sounds about right.
Jenny Wheeler: Looking back down the tunnel of time. If there is one thing you’d change about your writing career, what would it be?
Kate Gray: That’s a good question. I don’t think there’s anything I’d change. I don’t really like looking back and having regrets.
I know there’s something I would change about myself as a writer, which would be my procrastination levels are… Like sky high.
At the moment I’ve got an edit and it’s sitting on my laptop and I then try not to even look at my laptop and I’ll clean my skirting boards and I’ll clean out the fridge and I’ll have to suddenly go all the clothes, the children’s wardrobes, and, these pointless tasks I don’t need to do.
What’s next for Kate Gray author?
But it’s to avoid doing the hard work. And I wish I wasn’t like that. I wish I was a bit more measured and organized and, and like I said, maybe more of a plotter that might help me feel a bit more like bite sized chunks maybe.
But at the moment it’s every day that passes my deadlines getting closer and I’m in pure denial.
Jenny Wheeler: Oh, that’s gorgeous. What is next for Kate as author? What have you got on your desk over the next 12 months? Apart from obviously that edit. Yeah.
Kate Gray: I’m gonna have to face the edit whether I like it or not. This is the second my second thriller, which I can’t really say much about apart from it’s quite different to the first.
As it happens, it’s more of a locked room kind of mystery. It all happens in this really cool location over the course of just one night with a really small cast of characters, but the headache has been, which is why I’m really not wanting to do this edit. It’s because as soon as these characters start to die, be killed, the cast of characters get smaller so then it’s harder to hide who’s doing it.
It has been like this game in my head of seeing the rooms and moving them around and what can they hear what can they see and so it’s been.
It’s been quite meaty and chunky and I halfway wish I had just maybe written a sequel to The Honeymoon because I could imagine it would be a lot more smoother than this, but another part of me knows that actually it’s really good to challenge yourself as an author, keep it fresh and hope, to please the readers that they get something a little bit different.
I’m not going to keep writing the same sort of books exactly to the kind of letter, but no, I just hope that people will enjoy it if they’ve enjoyed The Honeymoon as well.
Where to find Kae Gray author online
Jenny Wheeler: Yeah. Great. Do you enjoy interacting with your readers and where can they find you online?
Kate Gray: I love meeting readers, I love hearing from readers, I love being tagged in photos on all my socials. I’m on Kate Gray Author on most of my sites and Kate Gray Author website as well, which is going to go for a big refresh. I’m going to try and give it a bit of love, it’s been a bit neglected recently.
That’s the problem when you’ve got books to write, everything else apart from my children’s wardrobe that I’ve suddenly cleared out, everything else gets neglected.
Jenny Wheeler: That’s lovely. So you do Facebook, Instagram. Do you do any TikTok?
Kate Gray: I’ve done a couple, but again, it’s finding the time and that I could easily fill a whole day with trying to film a silly dance video with my book. And then I know that in the evening, I’ll be full of guilt. I didn’t actually use the time when the children were at school. So yeah, I try and stay off it if I can.
But maybe when I’ve handed this edit in, I can have some free and some fun. That would be good.
Jenny Wheeler: Oh, have you got an idea for the next book?
Kate Gray: Vague-ish, there’s nothing concrete yet. I’m leaving my mind open. I’m praying for another nightmare.
I’ve got my pen and paper by my bedside, just in case it strikes again. I might start eating a lot of cheese. But no, as yet, it’s a couple of ideas are floating around, but nothing’s set in stone.
Jenny Wheeler: Kate, thank you so much for your time today. It’s been a real pleasure to talk.
Kate Gray: It’s been so lovely. Thank you so much for having me.
Jenny Wheeler: You’re very welcome. Thank you so much.
If you enjoyed Kate Gray you might also enjoy Fiona Barton’s hot thrillers
Fiona Barton’s first crime thriller The Widow was a best seller on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and she hasn’t dropped her pace in the few years since. Her third novel – The Suspect –newly released in the US – continues to show her a crime thriller breakout star – with a tale of two teens who go to Thailand for Gap year partying and find themselves in all sorts of trouble.
Next Week on Binge Reading
Next week on Binge Reading. A complete change of pace. Theodore Braun and a saga of dark ages in Europe, A Savage Moon, #4 in his Wanderer Chronicles.
It’s Byzantium 718, AD, and an epic. spellbinding binding fantasy of blood and battle, weaving together history, fantasy, and ancient myth. Perfect for fans of The North Man and Game of Thrones. That’s next week on Binge Reading.
And just a reminder before I go. If you enjoy the show, leave us a review. so others will find us too.
That’s it for today. See you next time. And until then, happy reading.