Books / Thriller
Gilly Macmillan: ‘Bristol’s people, architecture and location all inspire me’
Bristol-based thriller writer Gilly MacMillan is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author. To Tell You the Truth, is her fifth novel, has been described as “a twisty thriller that’s impossible to put down”.
The story follows Lucy Harper, a bestselling thriller writer, who was the only witness in her brother’s disappearance as a child. When Lucy’s husband goes missing, the writer’s past and present begin to collide as secrets and questions from Lucy’s childhood resurface.
Bristol24/7 spoke with Gilly:
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Why base To Tell You the Truth on a writer?
I love reading books with unreliable narrators and have always wanted to write one. When I was considering who this character might be, it occurred to me that a crime writer might actually be a very unreliable narrator, because we divide our time between real and fictional worlds.
And then I asked myself, what if this particular crime writer has a very secretive past, and what if she has become a little too close to her characters? Lucy Harper practically leapt off the page after that, quickly becoming my favourite of all the characters I’ve written.
Image: Cornerstone
The main character, Lucy Harper, is a writer, like yourself. Are there any parts of Lucy’s personality or mindset that mirror you?
My personality isn’t much like Lucy’s, but some of her professional mindset is drawn from my experience of writing crime novels.
Lucy writes a book a year, as I do, so I drew on the intense work ethic required to achieve that output, and also the chaos that level of concentration can create in other areas of your life.
Focusing on writing often doesn’t leave time for much else and in the book, this means that Lucy emerges from finishing a novel to find that some things in her life have begun to spin unexpectedly out of her control.
What is it about Bristol that inspires you to use it as a setting for novels?
I love this city. Bristol’s people, architecture and location all inspire me. There is so much vibrancy here, and so much life, and those are fantastic ingredients for the setting of any novel.
Gilly Macmillan loves setting her novels in Bristol, citing its people as one of her inspirations. Photo: Jon Craig
Your books have appeared on bestseller lists and in New York Times, Globe & Mail and Der Spiegel. What makes a successful thriller?
For me, a good thriller is one that keeps you turning pages because you cannot wait to discover what happens next. This might be because the plot is phenomenally pacy or intriguing, or because your imagination has been seized by the characters, or because you are in love with the setting. The very best thriller writers, I think, can combine those elements irresistibly.
Can you tell us anything about your next project?
I’ve just begun work on my seventh novel, a thriller inspired by a film from the 1940s. I can’t say much more than that yet, because it’s early days, but it’s so much fun to write that I’m scaring myself.
Main photo: Céline Nieszawer/Leextra
Read more: Interview: Gilly Macmillan
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