Spotlight On: Vanessa Savage
Today is the UK publication day for The Night They Vanished, the “taut, tense and brilliantly gripping”new psychological thriller from the brilliant Vanessa Savage. We took this opportunity to speak to Vanessa about the new book, the importance of patience as a writer, and where following your creative instincts can lead you.
You can pre-order Vanessa’s new thriller, The Night They Vanished, from Waterstones, Amazon, or your local bookshop. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, and at her website.
Could you introduce yourself and The Night They Vanished?
I write psychological thrillers and The Night They Vanished is my third book. It tells the story of Hanna who, at thirty, is estranged from the family who hold her responsible for the incident that ruined their lives fourteen years ago. But then, whilst browsing a true crime website, she sees her family home listed as the site of a brutal murder. Number of victims: three. Date of crime: today. When the police investigate, they find no bodies, but the house is abandoned. Hanna's family have disappeared. To find them, Hanna will have to confront what happened all those years ago. And the person determined to make her pay for it…
When I’m not writing, I’m a director at Savage & Gray, a design and animation company, and I live by the sea in South Wales with my family, dog, cat and guinea pigs! The beautiful coastline inspires the setting for my books… but the sinister seaside towns I write about are fictional and a lot creepier than the reality.
The Night They Vanished follows Hanna, a woman who is forced to confront her past when her estranged family disappears without a trace. What drew you to write psychological thrillers, and what does the writing process look like for you?
I started out writing women’s and character-driven fiction that was all about the lead up to the happy-ever-after. But the more I wrote, the more I became fascinated by the darker side of my characters. Relationships – whether romantic or familial – are at the heart of my writing and for me, a psychological thriller is the flip side of a romance or women’s fiction novel; it’s what happens after the happy-ever-after moment, how a relationship breaks down, how a friendship can spiral into paranoia and obsession… that’s what fascinates me as a writer. In real life, I’d much prefer the happy-ever-after!
I usually start developing ideas for a new book when editing the previous one – the creative ideas then get time to brew as I’m working on something else. This is the notebook stage when I get to indulge my love of stationery and buy several notebooks for planning. Then I’ll write a bare bones first draft that I’ll then flesh out with the fun stuff of character development and establishing the setting before it’s ready to share.
What have you learned from your journey as an author so far, and what advice would you give your past self?
One of the hardest things to learn has been patience! I never realised how long things take in publishing – the publishing team have to consider the best time to bring out a book, so it has the best chance of visibility and success in a crowded market, as well as juggling a publication timetable within their own publishing house. I signed my first deal in the summer of 2017, went through a few rounds of structural edits, followed by line edits, copy edits and final checks of page proofs, before the book was published in 2019.
What was your journey to gaining representation like, and what advice would you give to writers who are submitting to literary agents?
I was fortunate to find representation with my first novel… although that did not end up being my first published book! My first novel was women’s fiction and I sent out my first three chapters to my top choice of agencies. I got two full manuscript requests, one of which was from an agent’s assistant at a big agency, named Juliet Mushens! All of the queries ended in rejection at that stage (completely understandable – this was very early in my writing journey!) and I put that book aside after a few more rejections to think about starting something new. Around six months later, and completely out of the blue, I had an email from Juliet, to say she was now a full agent and was wondering if I’d found representation yet as my book was still on her mind.
Something Juliet still doesn’t know is that I risked death on our first meeting (okay, maybe a slight exaggeration…). I’m Coeliac, but when I nervously turned up to the agency office, Juliet had bought some lovely cakes, and despite being on a lifelong gluten-free diet, I was far too desperate to impress so I ate the cake! Happily, I survived and even more happily – Juliet offered me representation at that meeting.
We worked together on that book, but unfortunately, it failed to find a home on submission. A lot of the lovely feedback I received said the problem was the book fell into a gap – too dark to be women’s fiction, but too light to be a psychological thriller. So, after talking things through with Juliet, I was left with a decision to make – to go lighter or darker in my writing. And from there, I fully embraced my criminal side and wrote The Woman in the Dark.
My advice to writers would be to be patient and make your book the best it can be before submitting. Be prepared to make changes and never take rejection to heart. It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with your book if it’s rejected – just that it’s not right for a particular agent who can only take on very few new clients. And always appreciate the amazing work a lovely agent’s assistant does (hi Kiya!) … you never know where it might lead.
What are you working on at the moment? / What are you writing next?
I’m currently halfway through writing my next thriller! Here’s a little teaser…
Twenty years ago, in a small village, on a street at the edge of nowhere, a little girl disappeared. Suspicion fell on Cass, her teenage babysitter, and although the child was never found and no charge was ever brought, that taint of suspicion has remained…
Today, Cass is still living in the same house on the same street; the oddball, the hermit, the woman you cross the street to avoid.
And now, another child has gone missing…
