"My friend went on a really ill advised date to an old asylum"

Saturday 16 March 2019

The journalist turned best selling author behind the Broadchurch series writes research heavy novels to show the reader lesser-known worlds, with her latest inspired by an abandoned asylum.

One of a large number of succesful female crime writers the author prides herself on keeping "the body count equally" male and female.

Erin Kelly, author of He Said/ She Said and the upcoming Stone Mothers, which will be published just before her appearance at the Guernsey Literary Festival, is perhaps best known to a wider audience for her role in creating the storyline behind Broadchurch, "everyone wants their story to go on TV", she candidly admits.

It's no wonder her work has been so popular with readers though, who appreciate the attention to detail in character, plot and setting - it's something looks for in a book herself. 

"My favourite books combine rattling plots with beautiful sentences and really good psychological insights – I’m greedy, I want it all," she said. 

Her latest novel Stone Mothers (above), takes a look at the human history found within the relics of a forgotten past and the attitudes we like to think are long gone with it. 

"It was inspired by a friend of mine who went on a very ill advised date to an old asylum, she found a cabinet of old medical records, they were just left there, if found in the wrong hands the information could be really dangerous. I thought of the life of this building," she said. 

Stone Mothers is about Marianne who was seventeen when she fled the town, her family, her boyfriend Jesse and the body they buried - having grown up under the constant eye of the old asylum.

Erin Kelly said it's a misconception to think female writers can't use the thrilling aspects of violence and murder to build and enticing narrative that doesn't necessarily take the power away from female characters. 

Pictured: Erin Kelly. 

"It's true in the past the woman was more likely to be in the body bag, but there are so many female crime writers. I think I keep the body count pretty equal in fact the female is more likely to be the perpetrator in my books," she said. 

One of her biggest successes to date, He Said/ She Said, about a couple who witness a potential rape and suffer the repercussions of their involvement, received a resounding response for its handling of the topic. 

"I’ve been incredibly moved by the emails I’ve received from victims of similar crimes. I’ve never had a reaction like it," she said.

Pictured: The first series of Broadchurch starred David Tennant, Olivia Colman and Jodie Whittaker.  Photo courtesy of ITV. 

The commissioned crime drama set in a sleepy seaside town, Broadchurch, was hailed at the time as a break away from Midsummer Murders style twee and drew comparisons to Scandi Noir in which the tone is set by the unseemly dark undercurrents of small town life. For this reason the writer says Guernsey could well be a fitting setting for a detective novel. 

"There's hardly a town in the UK which doesn't have its own detective drama. I write a lot of suburban London because that's where I live, but there are things that a tourist to a place sees that a resident might be blind to," she said.