Q&A WITH JANE MCLOUGHLIN

Please give a brief introduction to yourself.

I’m an American who’s lived in the UK for over 30 years, although from the sound of my accent you’d think I got off the plane last week! I grew up in a small town in the state of Minnesota, before moving to California and, later, to England, where I’ve been ever since. I was a secondary school teacher for many years, I live in Brighton and I have two grown-up children. I’ve had several children’s books published, but The Perfect Couple is my first book for adult readers, so I’m very excited about this!

The book takes place in an English gothic mansion, did you collect images/create a moodboard to envision what this location would be like?

I found inspiration in the Sussex area. Malin House, the gothic mansion in the books, is only visible from the main road through a grove of trees and is very mysterious, lurking there on a hillside! I took the interior from my memories of sharing a student house with several others when I was still living in the US.

Was there anything you had to research during the writing process?

Nothing formal, although I had to re-visit a few of the settings, and look up some regional surnames. I also read many other thrillers and gothic novels. I think it’s important to mention that we often get inspiration from seeing how other writers bring their stories to life.

And finally, congratulations on writing your debut thriller! Did you use mind maps, lists or a combination of both to plan out the mystery and join all the plotlines?

Thank you. I’m not a huge planner. You won’t find too many post-it notes on my laptop! However, I will make some mind-maps along the way, as well as bullet-pointed lists of ‘what we know’, and ‘what we need to know’. Then I’ll re-trace my steps and make sure things hold together. I find a lot of the ‘answers’ to plot problems are revealed by the process of re-drafting, often through cutting sections, moving them around, etc. It’s like putting a puzzle together, or making a sculpture. The question is really knowing when it’s time to stop and let things go . . .