Helena Maeve talks to Pride Publishing about Best Kept Lies, the first book in her new Shadow Play series.
What can we expect from Best Kept Lies?
Spies in... well, not quite love, at first, but certainly sufficiently into each other to start breaking all sorts of rules. As tempting as it would've been to write a Mr. and Mrs Smith scenario where ample ammunition and big guns save the day, Grigory and Karim are ultimately at the mercy of their respective, and rival, agencies. This makes for a lot of tragic, for-the-last-time trysts and the bone-deep certainty that what they want they can never have. Of course, you know that idiom about saying never...
Tell us more about your Shadowplay series.
Shadowplay is six short novels about six couples whose affairs are a danger to themselves, each other and the organizations they work for. Best Kept Lies gets the ball rolling by upsetting the playing field and from then on cracks begin to appear in other agencies around the world, for different reasons. To be a spy is to commit yourself to leading a double-life which never really becomes yours. Shadowplay looks at what happens when that Rubicon is crossed, for better or worse.
This series sounds like such an interesting concept! Why did you decide to write about spies from opposite sides of the track?
Shortly after I began writing for Totally Bound, I halfheartedly sent in In the Presence of Mine Enemy, a novella with a LeCarré flavor, which I'd written and submitted on a whim. Readers seemed to enjoy it, though, and the feedback's been so positive that I was tempted to dip my toes into this world again. It combines everything I like: men in bespoke suits, subterfuge and doomed romance.
Did writing this book involve much research into the intelligence community?
I shudder to think what the authorities might think of my browsing history while I was writing this series. Research was inevitable, but I tried not to get too bogged down in the nitty gritty of the intelligence community. At the heart of any story there must be interesting characters and a worthwhile plot, otherwise all the correct terminology is like tinsel hanging off a desiccated tree. And no one wants that.
You have written many pairings and genres in the past, which is your favourite?
It really depends on the story. I've dabbled in genres I enjoy reading but didn't particularly like writing. I've also written stories in genres I don't read and found that experience a lot more fulfilling. Right now, I'm really hankering for some historical fiction. Maybe next time you see me, I'll be coming out with a historical spies novel!
What can we expect from you next with Pride Publishing?
The next five novels in the Shadowplay series are all written and I'm slowly working my way through the edits. Those should be published over the next few months. I also have a romantic ghost story coming out just in time for Halloween and a murder-mystery with a dash of m/m/m to end the year. And who knows what 2016 will bring?
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