Today I’m delighted to feature Rebecca Griffiths. Rebecca writes psychological thrillers and her latest title A Place to Lie has recently been released in paperback.

 

Author bio:

Rebecca Griffiths grew up in rural mid-Wales and went on to gain a first class honours degree in English literature. After a successful business career in London, Dublin and Scotland, she returned to mid-Wales where she now lives with her husband, a prolific artist, their four vampiric cats as black as night and two pet sheep the size of sofas.

Over to Rebecca:

 

Which 5 pieces of music/songs would you include in the soundtrack to your life and why?

 

It is especially difficult to restrict myself to 5 because I love music above most things and depending on my mood will listen to anything from the wonderful piano arrangements and voice of Nina Simone to the rock band Rival Sons, but these are the pieces that continue to sustain me down the years and ones I just couldn’t live without:

J.S. Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 – Prelude.

Albinoni: Oboe Concerti, Op. 9, No. 2, Adagio.

Brahms: Intermezzo, Op. 118, No. 2 in A Major.

Pergolesi: Et Jesum – sung by Emma Kirkby.

J.S. Bach: Have mercy, Lord, on me (St Matthew Passion) — sung by Kathleen Ferrier.

Highlight 5 things (apart from family and friends) you’d find it hard to live without.

 

My animals.

The unpolluted star-studded wide Welsh night-time sky.

Birdsong.

My garden on summer evenings.

Notebook and pen.

Can you offer 5 pieces of advice you’d give to your younger self?

 

Speak out about the abuse that’s happening at home. Make them believe, make them listen and remember it is not your fault.

Stop giving so much of yourself and trying to please people who don’t deserve you.

Nothing lasts forever. Time passes and will resolve everything.

Don’t throw your diary away out of embarrassment and fear of someone finding it. Write something each day and keep hold of it to read when you’re older.

Get good at waiting — you’re going to be doing rather a lot of it in your life!

 

Tell us 5 things that most people don’t know about you.

 

As well as enjoying a long and varied business career, I trained and worked as a Cordon Bleu chef.

Was on Blue Peter for winning 1st prize in a painting competition when I was 9.

Play clarinet and piano.

Have ridden horses since I was 5 and once owned an ex-racehorse, the son of a Derby winner.

Love doing cryptic crosswords.

What are the first 5 things you’d have on your bucket list?

 

Buy a campervan and take off exploring the country with my husband . . .

Write a screenplay for The Odd Women by George Gissing.

To have one of my plays for radio dramatized on BBC Radio 4.

To visit Antarctica and see Captain Scott’s hut.

To be able to afford to own a second home on a remote and otherwise deserted Scottish island.

 

Thanks for joining us today Rebecca, I love the sound of your rural life with the animals, the stars and birdsong, I can almost hear Albinoni drifting across the lawn. I don’t think I’d want to leave. That said I also have a hankering for a campervan too, but sadly my OH doesn’t. I like the idea of travelling but with the security of your own self contained transport. I hope you get to do that, among your other dreams.  

 

Rebecca’s Books

 

A Place to Lie

In a dark, dark wood

In Summer 1990, Caroline and Joanna are sent to stay with their great aunt, Dora, to spend their holidays in a sunlit village near the Forest of Dean. The countryside is a welcome change from the trauma they know back home in the city; a chance to make the world a joyful playground again. But in the shadowy woods at the edge of the forest hide secrets that will bring their innocence to a distressing end and make this a summer they will never forget.

There was a dark, dark house

Years later, a shocking act of violence sends Joanna back to Witchwood. In her great aunt’s lonely and dilapidating cottage, she will attempt to unearth the secrets of that terrifying summer and come to terms with the haunting effects it has left on her life. But in her quest to find answers, who can she trust? And will she be able to survive the impending danger from those trying to bury the truth?

 

The Primrose Path

Haunted by her past. In danger from her present.
Isolated, alone, vulnerable.
Sometimes the danger is closer than you think.

As a teenager, Sarah D’Villez famously escaped a man who abducted and held her hostage for eleven days. The case became notorious, with Sarah’s face splashed across the front of every newspaper in the country.

Now, seventeen years later, that man is about to be released from prison. Fearful of the media storm that is sure to follow, Sarah decides to flee to rural Wales under a new identity, telling nobody where she’s gone.

Settling into the small community she is now part of, Sarah soon realises that someone is watching her. Someone who seems to know everything about her . . .

 

You can follow Rebecca via Twitter