We chat with author Lexie Elliott about her new release Bright and Deadly Things, which sees a remote back-to-basics mountaintop retreat in the French Alps turn deadly as an Oxford fellow finds herself in the crosshairs of her late husband’s dangerous secrets.
Hi, Lexie! Great to have you back for another conversation. Your new novel, Bright and Deadly Things, publishes February 14th. Anything ironic or meaningful to you about your book publishing on Valentine’s Day?
Surely nothing says I love you like the gift of a psychological thriller? Buy it for all those important people in your life; they will feel seen, understood, appreciated…
In truth, the date wasn’t a deliberate choice—it was scheduled for a mid-Feb release and, for some reason, Tuesday seems to be the most popular day for book launches in the US—though I would say that all my novels delve into human relationships and group dynamics and all the different forms of love that can exist within those, so it is fitting in some sense. So, yes, do go ahead and buy it for all those important people in your life!
If you could only describe your book in five words, how would you do it?
Smart, character-driven, exotically located thriller. (Thank heavens for hyphens!)
The story is mostly set at the Chalet des Anglais in France. What can you tell us about that location, and why did you choose that setting?
The Chalet des Anglais does in fact exist; it’s owned by three Oxford colleges, and each of them holds invitation-only reading parties during the summer. I was lucky enough to spend a lovely week there in the year 2000, when I was working on my doctorate; everyone got along swimmingly with nary a whiff of murder! It’s such a unique place in an absolutely stunning location that when I began to consider setting a novel in the world of academia, I immediately thought of it, and it seemed like a wonderful way to put a different twist on the “campus thriller” genre. I tweaked various features of the Chalet and its surrounds to better service the story, but I hope I’ve managed to maintain something of the distinctive atmosphere of the real thing.
The “closed room” style mystery is a big hit, as we’ve seen in pop culture from The Glass Onion to the popularity of escape room parties. What do you think is the appeal of stories in which a group of people are kept together in a limited space?
It’s a great device; I’m a big fan of it, both as a reader and as a writer. It’s a really effective way of building tension and creating a compelling, claustrophobic atmosphere, and I think readers appreciate tales in which it’s clear that the antagonist must lie within the cast of characters that they’re already met. I love writing in the mystery genre because it’s like a form of scaffolding that the writer can build on to investigate all the themes and ideas they want to delve into to. For me, the “closed room” structure is a particularly robust form of scaffolding!
This book has a very subtle thread of the supernatural running through it, with a sinister clock and a house that seems well, hostile to the inhabitants. Is there a supernatural aspect to all your novels? Why is it important to you?
There is indeed a touch of the supernatural in all my books. It’s not usually present in the initial outline, but it somehow turns up in the first draft, and I don’t know that I’m able to articulate quite why it always creeps in. I would guess it stems from the heady mix of fantasy and mystery novels that I read voraciously as a teenager, and it must be important to me since it keeps on occurring. I naturally tend towards ambiguity, and I would always rather leave space for the reader than spoon-feed; it certainly fits very well with that ethos. But in truth I’m trying to put into words something that occurs organically without any conscious intent on my part, so I’m not sure my explanation counts for much.
This is your fourth book. What have you learned as a writer since your debut The French Girl, was published?
I’ve learned an enormous amount about the publication process! Before The French Girl was published, I had no real understanding of quite how much work is involved in turning a book from a digital manuscript on the writer’s laptop into a hard copy on a bookshop shelf. I have a much better appreciation of that process now, and I’m genuinely grateful to all the people who are involved in bringing each of my books to the readers. In terms of the craft of writing, I now have much more respect for the second draft. I used to think that all of one’s creativity was poured into the first draft and beyond that the process was rather dry, but I see it differently now. You can really change the emphasis and direction in the second draft; it takes skill and precision—and creativity—to find the right sentence, and the right place for it, in order to shift the tale in the direction you want.
Oxford academia has a key role in the novel, and you were a student at Oxford yourself, graduating with a PhD in physics and then working in banking in London. How did you make the transition to writing fiction?
I always wrote in my spare time—mainly short stories—but in 2008, like many others, I lost my banking job due to the Global Financial Crisis. I’d just had some success in short story competitions, and that gave me the confidence to use this unexpected time on my hands to have a go at a novel. It took me an embarrassingly long time to finish it (due to having two young children to look after, as well as the fact that I went back into the financial industry) but the result was my debut novel, The French Girl (published in 2018). I only became a fulltime writer eighteen months ago; prior to that I juggled working in the city with writing and managing family life—which was hectic, to say the least! I enjoy the increased flexibility of writing fulltime, but I do miss having a busy bustling office to go to.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
The best advice came from my fabulous agent, Marcy: Life’s too short to write books you don’t want to write. I couldn’t agree more: novel writing is such a long, lonely endeavor that if you don’t gain any satisfaction from the process and you’re not proud of what you’re producing, then perhaps you ought to find a better way to spend your time. The worst advice is one you hear quite often: You have to write every day. It’s rubbish. You have to write often, it’s true, but not every day. I hate to think of any aspiring writers beating themselves up because they can’t cram writing into every single day of their schedule.
What’s next for you?
Right now my time is fairly well-occupied with promotion of Bright and Deadly Things, but I’ve also been working on developing an idea for a new novel into an outline. I’m not quite sure if that really will be what I write next, though, so I’d better not say too much just yet.
Have you read anything recently that you’d recommend to our readers?
I’ve been reading outside of my genre quite a bit lately, so neither of these recommendations are thrillers, but I loved Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss. I’m not sure I’d have read it at all had it not made the Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist last year—to be frank, a novel in which the main character’s mental health and key relationships are imploding sounds like the sort of thing I would normally cross a library aisle to avoid—but it’s so extraordinarily clever and funny and heart-warming and, yes, heartbreaking at times… I can’t recommend it highly enough. I also pretty much just inhaled Leigh Bardugo’s most recent dark academia novel, Hell Bent (which is the sequel to The Ninth House) when it came out in early January. She is so entertaining and so skillful; I confess to more than a little jealousy.
Where can readers find you on social media? Are you doing any live events?
I can be found on both Instagram and Facebook under @lexieelliottwrites, and on Twitter under @elliott_lexie. And of course, there’s always my website. I have quite a few events coming up and I would love for readers to join me for them—here’s a small selection:
- Mystery and Thriller Mavens: Monday, Feb 13th @ 3pm ET, Facebook live with Sarah DiVello, Mystery and Thriller Mavens | Facebook
- The Poisoned Pen: Thursday, Feb 16th @ 1pm MT, Facebook Live with Barbara Peters, Lexie Elliott discusses Bright and Deadly Things | Facebook
- Words & Whimsy Book Club: Friday, Feb 17th @3pm ET, Facebook Live Words & Whimsy Book Club | Facebook
- Crime Time Live on A Mighty Blaze: Tuesday, March 7th @ 3pm ET, Facebook Live with Hank Phillippi Ryan, A Mighty Blaze | Facebook
