A Moment With… Gina Cheyne

I am very excited to be welcoming Gina Cheyne to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, Twenty-Six Years Living a Lie.

Twenty-Six Years Living a Lie

In 1997, high in the alpine resort of Tignes, Cecily celebrates her third wedding anniversary with a night of passion. But in the morning her  happiness turns to misery and shock when she find her husband Nick dead in the bed beside her, the victim of a sudden heart attack.

Six weeks later, Cecily learns she is pregnant.

Twenty-six years later, her son Charlie takes a DNA test alongside his uncle Adam, Nick’s identical twin. The results shatter everything he thought he knew: Charlie is not related to Adam. If Nick wasn’t his father, then who was?

Cecily insists she was faithful, and the timing points only to that single night in Tignes. Desperate for answers, she turns to the SeeMs Detective Agency. Could someone have entered her room that night without her knowing? And if so—who? And why?

As the detectives dig deeper, they uncover a web of conflicting memories, buried secrets, and dangerous lies. Slowly they discover other people are in danger and if they don’t find out very soon what really happened in that wonderful night in Tignes two, or maybe more, lives will be lost.

To talk about the themes of Twenty-Six Years Living a Lie, it’s over to you, Gina. 

This book is first of all a whodunnit, although it is who fathered Charlie, rather than who killed his father, (father died of a heart attack) but it has other themes in its writing.

Sometimes when you are writing a novel these themes jump out at you when you aren’t expecting them. I was planning to write a straight whodunnit inspired by a dark night in the ski resort of Tignes in the French Alps. So dark was the night that I thought someone could climb over the balcony, and enter my bed. We could share a night of passion, and I would never know it was not my husband! However, other things wanted to be heard in the story.

Firstly, the theme of knowing yourself. We think we know other people and ourselves very well, but do we? Cecily has idolised her dead first husband and thinks of her second husband as merely security and the father of her other children. But, as the story progresses it is obvious that he is much more than that. He has a depth of kindness and insight she did not understand until everything goes wrong.

Jason and Cedric, two of the possible seducers, are men who believe in the image of wealth and excitement they have created around themselves and imagine that others do too, while the reality is different. Jason, who is constantly penniless and borrowing money, sees himself as a huge talent, always on the edge of breaking through, of acing that final deal that will make him the envy of his peers.

Cedric of the Turkey Teeth and advertising beauty thinks of himself as a lothario, a smooth lady killer and someone everyone wants to be, conveniently ignoring his four ex-wives to whom he pays alimony.

Both these men would have loved to have seduced Cecily in 1997 but would they have been brave enough? The seduction involved jumping off and on balconies in the pitch dark, stealing into rooms where the occupants were not expecting them so quietly they were not perceived and moving through all this cold darkness without any clothes on. And, to be candid, would they even have thought about it since most of their thinking revolves around themselves.

And then there is Anne, Cecily’s sister. She appears to be hard and arrogant, only too willing to put Cecily down and treat her like the silly younger sister, but as we find out more about why she behaves as she does we slowly grow in sympathy for her fate. And, as the interaction between Anne and Cecily develops, we  see aspects of Cecily which we did not know existed.

Another theme that came up when I was writing is how much people really are or are not capable of changing, and how much we default to our original thinking when times get tough. Adam, for example, is a bad boy, possibly led astray by his brother but certainly willing to do things which he must know are wrong. Then, thanks to an upheaval in his life, he sees how awful he has been and becomes a nicer, kinder more thoughtful man, only to suddenly revert to his original personality after the death of his brother. Is this how we all are? Susceptible to shocks in our external environment and changing to cope with them, or are we larger than that, are we able to ride all the problems of life and still come out as kinder, more thoughtful people. We certainly hope we can, but can we.

Perhaps these questions are too big for what is ultimately a quick read crime book, but writers like everybody else are in thrall to their own personalities and upbring. I always set out to write a light hearted crime book but I often find myself discussing deeper issues within the story even if in a slightly ironic way. Perhaps writers, like their characters, ultimately cannot help but reveal their true selves in what they put on the page.

About Gina Cheyne –

This is Gina Cheyne’s seventh novel in the SeeMs Detective series (the agency that looks behind what seems to be true). Gina’s family are keen and dedicated skiers and this book was inspired by a holiday in Tignes in France.

Gina has worked as a physiotherapist, a pilot, freelance writer and a dog breeder.

As a child, Gina’s parents hated travelling and never went further than Jersey. As a result she became travel-addicted and spent the year after university bumming around SE Asia, China and Australia, where she worked in a racing stables in Pinjarra, South of Perth. After getting stuck in black sand in the Ute one time too many (and getting a tractor and trailer caught in a tree) she was relegated to horse-riding work only. After her horse bolted down the sand, straining a fetlock and falling in the sea, she was further relegated to swimming the horses only in the pool. It was with some relief the race horse stables posted her off to Thailand… after all what could go wrong there?

In the north of Thailand, she took a boat into the Golden Triangle and got shot at by bandits. Her group escaped into the undergrowth and hid in a hill tribe whisky still where they shared the ‘bathroom’ with a group of pigs. Getting a lift on a motorbike they hurried back to Chiang Rai, where life seemed calmer.

After nearly being drowned in a fiesta in Ko Pha Ngan, and cursed by a witch in Malaysia, she decided to go to Singapore and then to China where she only had to battle with the language and regulations.

Since marrying life has been calmer. She became a writer because her first love was always telling a good yarn!

Say hello to Gina via Instagram and Substack. 

Twenty-Six Years Living a Lie is book 7 in the SeeMS Detective Agency and was released by Fly Fizzi Ltd in April 2026. Click to buy on Amazon UK, Amazon US, Barnes & Noble and Waterstones.

by

Laura

I'm Laura. I started Novel Kicks back in 2009 as I wanted a place to discuss books and writing - two loves of my life. As someone who has anxiety, these two things give me, and I am sure countless others, a much needed escape.
There is a monthly book club, writing exercises, prompts, reviews, author interviews, competitions and guest posts. I cover many genres and I hope there is something for everyone.
I grew up by the sea in Dorset and currently live in Poole with my husband, Chris and three cats. I love writing and have a BA (Hons) in Creative Writing from Falmouth University. I am writing my first book. If only I could stop pressing delete. Chris has threatened to stop it from working. Haha.
I have always loved creative writing since I was in first school and would very much like to meet my teacher, Miss Sayers, to say thank you for all the encouragement she gave me then.
When not writing, I love reading, cats, Disney, singing (I can't sing but this doesn't stop me,) and falling into a good TV show or film. If I could step into any fictional world, it would be amongst the characters in ABC's Once Upon a Time.
I love reading many genres and discovering new authors.