Author Interview & Review: Copycat by Alex Lake

Author Interview & Review: Copycat by Alex Lake

CopyCatCopycat is the latest novel from author, Alex Lake and I am pleased to be welcoming her blog tour to Novel Kicks today. 

Imitation is the most terrifying form of flattery…

Which Sarah Havenant is you?

When an old friend gets in touch, Sarah Havenant discovers that there are two Facebook profiles in her name. One is hers. The other, she has never seen.

But everything in it is accurate. Photos of her friends, her husband, her kids. Photos from the day before. Photos of her new kitchen. Photos taken inside her house.

And this is just the beginning. Because whoever has set up the second profile has been waiting for Sarah to find it. And now that she has, her life will no longer be her own…

 

Thank you for joining me today, Alex. Your book is called Copycat. Can you tell me a little about it and the inspiration behind it?

It’s about a woman, a doctor with three young kids, who discovers that there’s a Facebook account in her name. When she looks at it, she’s shocked – the most recent post is a photo , from the day before, of her kids on the beach. And there are others: photos of her out with her friends, of her on a date night with her husband, of her kids’ school plays. It is an entirely accurate representation of her life.

But she had nothing to do with it, and, as she will soon discover, it is just the beginning of her problems.

The inspiration came from some conversations I’d with friends about the way we treat our digital lives. Social media is very public, and yet we seem happy to put all kinds of information out there which would once have been considered private – birthdays, middle names, current location – that leaves us vulnerable to hackers and the like. But what if someone didn’t want to just steal your money or your identity – what if they wanted to destroy your entire life, and the information you left online was just the means they used to do it?

 

What’s your writing day like and do you have any writing rituals?

I write early in the morning, before my three young kids are up and about. When I sit down I know what I’m going to write – what the scene is and how it fits into the rest of the book, and so I can really use the time. I normally plan it the evening before (in the bath, or on a walk).

I only write for about an hour and a half each day, which is normally around 1500 words – after that I start to lose the flow and it becomes a struggle. Then for the rest of the day I do all the other things I have to get done.

 

What’s the best and most challenging thing about being a writer?

The best is getting the first copy of your book. Each book starts as a vague idea in your head, then gets turned into notes, then conversations with friends over a drink, then a draft, another draft and then one day a parcel comes and it’s your book. It’s just thrilling.

I think the most challenging thing is the constant worry that whatever you’re working on isn’t good enough. I always have that feeling – I’ll be halfway through a first draft, and I find myself thinking that what I’m working on is no good, that the characters are flat and boring, that the plot is full of holes,  that I need to scrap it and come up with a better idea. And there’s no one you can talk to  – the book’s not done, so they can’t read it – so all you can do it carry on, convinced you’re going to end up with a disaster on your hands….

 

What elements, in your opinion, make a good thriller?

I think there are three broad areas: characters, plot and The Villain.

The characters need certain characteristics – they need to feel real, so readers can identify with them and care about them, they need to be in genuine peril, and the solution needs to be in their grasp. They can’t just be waiting for the end to resolve itself. They need to be fighting and struggling and helping themselves.

As for the plot – the thrillers I enjoy the most are the ones I could imagine happening to me. It’s that sense that the structure of our lives is just one step away from falling apart, that, hidden behind the closed curtains of a nearby house unspeakable things are going on, and they might spill over into all of our lives…

And then there’s the villain. What makes a good villain would need an entire blog post of its own, but the villain too needs to be real.

And the more real they are, the more terrifying they become…

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