From the author of The Girl in the Mirror, ROSE CARLYLE, comes a new cracking thriller, No One Will Know.

Good Reading caught up with Rose Carlyle on the eve of the release of the new book.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Eve Sylvester is young and broke and needs a job fast. After years of foster homes, backpacking and a sailing trip across the Pacific Ocean, she has lost contact with friends and family. She is alone, desperate – and pregnant.

Then she meets Julia and Christopher Hygate, a charming and glamorous couple, who seem to have the perfect life: loads of money and a breathtakingly beautiful mansion on a remote Tasmanian island. They make her a lucrative offer. Eve can move into their empty summerhouse and take up a very easy job.

Eve thinks she’s fallen on her feet – she has found a home, and her child will grow up in the aptly named Paradise Bay. But some things about the job don’t add up. Why must Eve stay out of sight? Why have the Hygates employed an ex-con to run their yacht-charter business? And what about the mysterious boats sailing in and out of the Hygates’ private marina? Has Eve made a deal with the devil? It’s too late to ask questions. Eve is already in far too deep.

Set against the stunning backdrop of a windswept island and its mysterious lighthouse, No One Will Know is a propulsive, seductive novel of suspense that reveals the terrible consequences of greed, staggering lies and fatal mistakes.

Q & A with ROSE CARLYLE

What sparked the idea for No One Will Know?

No One Will Know started with a single idea – a twist that I think is truly unguessable. When that twist comes to light, I hope the reader will feel truly floored!

I have no idea where the idea came from. I feel as though stories are just floating up in the sky all the time, and we writers have to figure out how to reach up and pluck them. As soon as the idea struck me, I knew it was a goodie. I was desperate to start writing it.

No One Will Know explores themes of motherhood inside a thriller story. What inspired you to deliver those themes as a thriller?

I’ve always loved a story with a few mysteries and thrills. I aim to write books that are fun, not a slog to get through – because who wants to read that? While my books tackle important, real-world issues, they’re also meant to entertain. I want readers to be swept up in the story, constantly wondering what’s going to happen next. Only later, after they’ve put the book down, might they start reflecting on the bigger questions. In The Girl in the Mirror, sibling rivalry is a key theme, while in No One Will Know, motherhood takes centre stage. I hope readers walk away with a fresh perspective on their own relationships. We often idealise motherhood, but the truth is it’s a challenging, gritty, and deeply complex part of a woman’s life.

What was your writing process like for this book?

Writing is not just about sitting at a laptop. Writing is everything I do. Sometimes, I’ll be out running on a windy day and suddenly find myself lost in the world of my book, completely unaware of what’s happening around me. Or I’ll be chatting with an old friend, and they’ll say something in a particular way, and I’ll think, That’s exactly what my character would say.

For a long time, I wasn’t sure about the ending of No One Will Know. Then, one sunny afternoon, I was swimming in the ocean a long way from shore when an idea came to me. I raced back to the beach, rushed home, deleted the existing ending and wrote a new epilogue in one sitting. The best thing was that this new ending contained an extra twist. I was so thrilled to finally have the perfect ending.

What was the most challenging part in crafting this book?

The book starts with Eve, who is naïve, vulnerable and broke. When she arrives at Paradise Bay, she feels intimidated by the stylish and confident Julia Hygate, who offers her a job. Initially, I hadn’t planned to write from Julia’s perspective, but as the story unfolded, I realised that her journey was equally compelling. Once I started writing from Julia’s point of view, everything clicked into place.

There are themes of elitism in your antagonists. Why did you choose elitism as a vehicle to portray the antagonistic qualities of these characters?

I’m not sure I really choose anything when I’m writing a book. I feel as though the story bubbles up from the depths of my soul. When I was 15, I won a scholarship to an elite private school. I was a Westie from West Auckland (while my heroine, Eve, is a Westie from western Sydney). It was a culture shock to be dropped into a world in which my classmates were given luxury cars for their birthdays. One girl would even fly to her family’s private island in her father’s helicopter on weekends. I suppose this is why I was drawn to the glamorous Julia and Christopher with their helicopter, island mansion, and fleet of yachts. I knew how Eve felt stepping into that world, and I understood how wealth can change people.

What was your process and inspiration for developing your main character, Eve?

One of my favourite parts of writing is getting to know my characters. When I started No One Will Know, I didn’t realise that I was channelling my grandmother, Eileen. As a child, Eileen was placed in state care. Though she was a bright, promising student, at thirteen, she was sent to live with a wealthy farming couple – not as their foster child, but as their maid, which was standard practice in 1920. She never had the chance to attend high school, yet she educated herself through books and became a wonderful, courageous mother. Eileen inspired the character of Eve, who faces similar hardships and draws strength from the power of maternal love.

The crimes of human trafficking and illegal adoption are explored in No One Will Know. Why did you want to write about these crimes specifically? What was the research process like?

Researching these crimes was quite a dark process. I uncovered some very sad stories. In Spain, between the 1930s and the 1990s, an estimated 50,000 babies were stolen from their mothers by doctors, nurses and priests. Mothers were told their children had died and in some cases, they were even shown the bodies of stillborn babies. One key activist for adoption law reform is an American man who, along with his wife, adopted two girls from India, only to later discover they had been stolen from their birth mothers.

It is surprising how little attention is paid to this topic. Trafficking babies for adoption doesn’t seem to be viewed as seriously as other forms of human trafficking, like forced prostitution or slavery. It is true that adopted children usually end up in loving homes, but immense harm has been done. Many parents have searched for their stolen children for decades without success. The discovery that the children were stolen must also be devastating for the adoptive parents and for the children themselves. I wanted to bring their stories to light.

Which authors do you admire?

I could easily name a hundred authors whom I adore, but I’ll try to pick out a few of the more unusual ones. I’ve recently been enjoying Japanese thrillers such as Malice by Keigo Higashino and Out by Natsuo Kirino. The Japanese style is refreshingly different. Both books are short and seemingly simple yet actually complex and brilliant. I’ve also been enjoying some Kiwi authors whose books focus on what happens When The Deep, Dark Bush Swallows You Whole – fittingly, that’s the title of an excellent upcoming debut by Melbourne-based writer Geoff Parkes. J P Pomare and Charity Norman have also written fantastic thrillers set in New Zealand’s mysterious, untamed wilderness, a setting I never tire of.

Do you have any future books planned?

Life is too short for all the books I want to write! Right now, I’m working on a thriller about a young woman who begins to question the official story behind her aunt’s murder, only to find herself in similar danger. Set in a remote rural valley in New Zealand, the story will hopefully deliver the same kind of twisty plot and action-packed climax as The Girl in the Mirror and No One Will Know.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rose Carlyle is a lawyer and keen adventurer. She has crewed on scientific yachting expeditions to subantarctic islands and has sailed with her family from Thailand to South Africa.

She is the author of the #1 international bestseller The Girl in the Mirror and lives in Auckland with her three children.