How long has the story behind Watch Me Watch You been on your mind? Was there a particular moment or spark that made you sit down and start writing it?
I have long been fascinated by the idea of apartment blocks being places of both intense claustrophobia and anonymity: people living so close together, yet who knows what’s going on the flat above yours…? I was inspired by films such as Hitchcock’s Rear Window, which captures that paradox, and Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, where an apartment becomes a hotbed of adultery when an insurance clerk lets his boss use his flat in hope of a promotion. These influences percolated and in the summer of 2023, I came up with the idea of a book about two women, one privileged, one poor, in a complex power relationship revolving around a flat in Kensington. Alice is from a working class background and she has inherited a flat in mysterious circumstances; her boss, Mina, works in publishing, is wealthy and married to an MP. When Mina asks to rent out her flat, Alice agrees and then watches her in secret, curious as to what her boss is up to – and hence a plot of deceit, sex, chaos, blackmail and murder unfolds.
Do you have a favourite character from the book—someone you particularly enjoyed writing or who surprised you as their story developed?
I loved both my main female protagonists, but Mina was constantly surprising. I wanted her to be a character you liked on one page and disliked on the next. Part of her character was sparked by my own experiences, for at the start of the book, Mina is hungry to explore her sexuality, whilst also feeling nervous and wary of transgression and adventure. In my early forties, like Mina, I suffered a midlife crisis, joined OKCupid, set up a profile, lied about my age and enjoyed some flings. However, Mina is also very different from me: she is wealthy and powerful and wields that advantage in order to manipulate others. She is both vulnerable and a villain at various points in the story, but as her backstory unfolds, I think we understand why she has become the woman she is.
The dynamic between Alice and Mina taps into themes of class, power, and moral compromise. Was that something you always wanted to explore in the book, or did it develop as the story unfolded?
The theme of class seems to emerge in all of my books because it comes from a heartfelt place: I grew up in a poor family and my parents had never been to university, but I ended up enjoying a huge leap in good fortune and studied at Oxford. However, I found it difficult to fit there as I came from a different background to many people there. So class – and how it might define you or how you might escape it or fake it – fascinates me as a theme.
The theme of moral compromise is an interesting one, especially since we are living in a society where we judge public figures so harshly for past mistakes. Whilst acknowledging that there are some public figures who do deserve to be cancelled for behaving abominably, I often ponder that everyone has got some dark secret in their past, or made a terrible mistake when they were young and naïve and didn’t understand the world. Everyone has done something wrong that they justified at the time with an argument that it was the right thing to do and it’s only when you look back years later that you cringe at your past self. So I feel sympathetic towards characters who make mistakes or mess up, as both of my female characters do. I don’t tend to see my characters are either heroes or villains, but occupying a liminal space of uncertain morality; I love Patricia Highsmith for that reason, because she explores the grey areas.
Are there any authors—new or established—who you’re especially excited about right now, or who had a particular influence on you while writing this book?
As mentioned above, I am a big fan of Patricia Highsmith, who is my favourite thriller writer.
As for contemporary writers – I really admire Ruth Ware for her brilliant, twisty thrillers, from In a Dark, Dark Wood to One Perfect Couple. She’s such an intelligent and sharp writer. She writes with beauty and control, and knows how to plot a fine twist.
A new writer who I have discovered recently is Tasha Coryell. Her debut, Love Letters to A Serial Killer, is daring, playful and blackly comic.
After The Switch and Watch Me Watch You, do you feel drawn to similar stories of psychological suspense—or is there a new direction you’re eager to explore?
I love psychological thrillers and exploring the darkness of human nature, so I’m keen to write more. Currently, I am writing a third thriller called The Business Trip (provisional title – it will probably change!) I’ve enjoyed creating a family – wife, husband, son – who seem very ordinary and conventionally middle class on the outside, yet are living a warped life full of secret and strangeness in private. I love creating characters and then finding that they surprise or even shock me as the book evolves. The son, I thought, was going to be an introvert, vulnerable, sweet… and he has gradually turned into a sociopath, a Ripley-style character. Now I am completely fascinated by him and wondering what he is going to do in the book’s finale.
