Five Minutes With… Debut Author Sandie Jones
Sandie Jones had always thought about writing a book, but believed she could only do it from a beach hut, overlooking the swirling ocean, with a constant supply of black coffee and Gitanes cigarettes. But apart from the fact she doesn’t smoke or drink black coffee, last year she realised this romantic notion was only holding her back, and she finally got stuck in. Roll on 2018 and her debut novel, The Other Woman, is about to be released to much fanfare….
Tell us a bit about the plot of the book…
The Other Woman is a psychological thriller about a couple and the destructive relationship triangle they find themselves a part of. Emily loves Adam and Adam loves Emily, but standing between them is someone who is so much more dangerous than any bitter ex-wife or attractive work colleague could ever be, and that’s his mother Pammie. She sets about destroying both their relationship and Emily herself, stopping at nothing to get what she wants. Emily has to decide whether Adam is worth fighting for – or indeed dying for.
Pammie is the MIL we all hope we never get. So, the inevitable question – what is your relationship like with your MIL?!
Unfortunately my own MIL is no longer around, but she couldn’t have been further from Pammie if she tried. But I was lucky, many aren’t, and there is so often that chink in the armour of even the most supposedly perfect, happy family. Pammie is an exaggeration of all those MIL’s I’ve heard about from friends and acquaintances.
The book fits in to the categories of both women’s fiction, and psychological thriller. Is it a help or a hindrance to write a book that branches across genres?
As a debut author, I didn’t really set out to write any particular genre – I just wrote the story I wanted to write, which in the beginning would have sat comfortably under the umbrella of women’s fiction. But as my writing progressed, the storyline became a little darker, a little more sinister, and Pammie just kept turning it up a notch, which surprised even me! To be able to span two genres, both of which are extremely popular, is definitely helpful and very exciting.
What is your writing routine?
I can take a while to get going in the mornings, so I normally deal with social media or tackle research first thing. By 10, I’m ready to write and dependant on how it’s going, I’ll go through to the evening (bar, the children coming in from school and cooking tea!) I don’t plan or map out, I just write and see where it takes me. I set myself a target of 1,000 words a day, which will be my absolute minimum – I like to do closer to 2,000 in an ideal world, but that will depend on whether I’m fully invested in a scene or what’s going on. If I’m struggling for too long, I’ll abandon what I’m doing and change tack, which, for me, is always successful.
Music is my greatest inspiration and can change the way I feel in minutes, but unfortunately I have to have complete silence whilst I’m writing, otherwise I can’t hear the words or how they flow. I’m hoping that will change!
Could you share the process you went through to get your book deal?
I honestly never thought about getting The Other Woman published whilst I was writing it. I wrote it for me, just to prove I could do it and when I finished it, I thought it might be worthwhile sending it to five agents, all of whom I selected because they either represented authors I admired or specialised in the type of book I’d written. The most I was hoping for, if I was lucky, was some constructive criticism or feedback, so when all of them requested to see the full manuscript I was completely taken aback. I asked Google the question: ‘What does it mean when an agent requests the full manuscript?’ The answers erred on the side of caution, so I tried not to get my hopes up. But then three asked to meet me and Google said that this was very positive news indeed! I signed with the brilliant Tanera Simons at Darley Anderson and together we worked on getting the manuscript ready to send to publishers. Within a couple of weeks, we had offers in from the UK and US, and Brazil, Poland, Hungary and Serbia quickly followed! It’s truly the stuff dreams are made of!
Which writers inspire you?
I always enjoy Harlan Coben’s books and Clare MacIntosh is brilliant. I Let You Go is one of the best books I’ve ever read. The author who inspired me to write The Other Woman is BA Paris, who two years ago released her debut novel Behind Closed Doors. I was caught in the middle of a whirlwind as people read it, spoke about it and recommended it. I’d not been a part of a more powerful word-of-mouth campaign than that. It taught me that people still loved books and all the time I felt I had one in me, it seemed silly not to write it.
Traditionally male writers have had an easier time of it getting published. Do you think this is still the case, or is it now a level playing field?
I don’t know the stats, but it definitely feels as if women are getting as fair a shot at it as men. I’ve been to several showcases recently and the panels have been heavily weighted towards women (particularly with debuts). There is also a broad range of ages represented, which is always refreshing to see. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if a good book is written by a man or a woman, aged twenty-two or seventy-two – it’s a good book, and so will get published.
You have also worked as a journalist. Tell us a bit about that.
I’ve been a freelance journalist for over twenty years, interviewing celebrities for the national newspapers and women’s magazines. I love my job, but for some reason I began writing The Other Woman one January morning last year, in between interviews and write-ups. I never imagined that I would be able to, or want, to stop working, so it was important that I carried on as normal. Once the editing process started in August, I had to stop for a while, as it’s very intense, but I was back to it by October. I’m very lucky that as a freelancer I can pick up and carry on working around whatever else I’ve got going on.
What can we expect from any future books?
There is another book in the making, which will most probably straddle the women’s fiction/psychological thriller genres again. I enjoy writing about normal people, in extraordinary circumstances which, hopefully, readers will find relatable. It’s those family dynamics that so often catch us off guard that I’ll be exploring again.
- The Other Woman, by Sandie Jones, is out today, June 14th, Pan, £7.99 paperback. Follow Sandie on Twitter @realsandiejones and Instagram /sandiejones_author
