Blog Tour ~ Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent

Jaffareadstoo is excited to be hosting today's stop on the 

Lying in Wait Blog Tour

Hi Liz and welcome to Jaffareadstoo..

Thanks Jo for these great questions and for taking part in the blog tour. 

I thoroughly appreciate it!

Where did you get the first flash of inspiration for Lying in Wait?

A man once told me that he strongly suspected his father had murdered a prostitute in the 1960s. He had no evidence or no way of proving it. He never had the courage to challenge his father and went to his grave wondering. He told me this story about 25 years ago and he is long dead now. I always wondered what it would be like to grow up in a house where you suspect your father is a murderer.

Without giving too much away – what can you tell us about the story?

It begins in the immediate aftermath of a murder committed by a respected Judge and his neurotic wife. The story is told from the point of view of the neurotic wife, her mollycoddled son and the sister of the murder victim. It is about love, betrayal, obsession and getting away with murder.

Your writing is very atmospheric – how do you ‘set the scene’ in your novels and how much research did you need to do in order to bring the story to life?

I’ve never really thought about that! But most scenarios are drawn from real life. I spent time in a Chateau before I started to write Unravelling Oliver. I was a teenager in 1980s Dublin, so most of the background to Lying in Wait comes from memory. I do as little research as possible! I write the story first and then try to work out how I can make it all possible.

Whilst you are writing you must live with your characters. How do you feel about them when the book is finished? Are they the people you expected them to be?

Every character mutates as I develop them and sometimes it is hard to leave them behind. With Unravelling Oliver, I find myself still wondering how Barney and Eugene are getting on. With Lying in Wait, I am still desperately worried about Karen!

What do you hope readers will take away from your stories?

I don’t really think that way. I hope I was able to transport them for a few days or weeks and immerse them in an entirely unsettling experience, but not in a way that will freak them out. If they can take some lesson from the books, that’s great but I never intended to preach any particular agenda.

When do you find the time to write, and do you have a favourite place to do your writing?

I am now a full time writer so it is my job. My favourite place to write is in the armchair in my kitchen, but sometimes, when I really need to focus, I sneak away to an artist’s retreat called The Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Co Monaghan. It is a little piece of heaven, and it is haunted! http://www.tyroneguthrie.ie

Can you tell us if you have another novel planned?

Yes, I am currently in the early stages of plotting book number 3. It is partially set in the south of France so I am off to Monaco in September to do some research!

Huge thanks to Liz and her publishing team at Penguin for this invitation to be part of the

 Lying in Wait Blog Tour

The blog tour runs until the 26th of July - so do catch up with the rest of the stops.

You can find out more about Liz Nugent on her website

Visit her on Facebook 

Follow on Twitter @lizzienugent

Lying in Wait is available in ebook and paperback from all good book stores and Amazon UK

Penguin Ireland
14th July

A bit of blurb..

The last people who expect to be meeting with a drug-addicted prostitute are a respected judge and his reclusive wife. And they certainly don't plan to kill her and bury her in their exquisite suburban garden.

Yet Andrew and Lydia Fitzsimons find themselves in this unfortunate situation.

While Lydia does all she can to protect their innocent son Laurence and their social standing, her husband begins to falls apart.

But Laurence is not as naïve as Lydia thinks. And his obsession with the dead girl's family may be the undoing of his own

My thoughts...

Lying in Wait is a deliciously dark and disturbing story which opens in Dublin in 1980 with a murder. The fact that we know from the very start that the murderers are Andrew and Lydia Fitzsimons does not detract from what is, after all ,a very cleverly thought out psychological thriller.

I'm not going to say anything about the premise of the story, except to praise the opening line which had me hooked, “My husband did not mean to kill Annie Doyle, but the lying tramp deserved it", and thus starts this absolute roller coaster of a story which looks at the subject of culpability and shows just what happens when hidden family secrets become so ingrained in daily life, that it becomes virtually impossible to imagine a time when their lives were not suffused in deceit and lies.

Told in three distinct voices by narrators who each have massive personality problems, you can't help but be taken in by all of them. However, two are quite likeable, but one, in particular, is so evil it makes your blood boil, but I won't spoil anything by telling you anymore. What I will say, though, is that the author has excelled herself with this novel. It's incredibly dark and sinister in places, suffused with an obsessive and dangerous kind of love which torments and attacks at every opportunity, so that by the end of the novel you hope that there will be a respite from the misery, which, at times, seems never ending.

It's a sharp, clever and beautifully observed psychological drama which will have you on the edge of your seat. There is an underlying tension, which is so brooding in nature, that even now, days after finishing the novel, I am still reeling from the ending.

I am left in no doubt that Lying in Wait will be on my books of 2016 list.

Best read with...Pizza and a very large gin and tonic..

~***~