I’m feeling very lucky this evening, as Stephanie Carty has joined me to talk about her latest novel, A Safe Place, which was released on Tuesday, and which I absolutely can’t wait to read!
A Safe Place (family drama suspense)
As a reader, I’m drawn to novels where all is not what it seems and characters are layered. I think family life offers an intriguing way to look at dynamics between characters. In A Safe Place, there’s an additional intensity in 12-year-old Cate’s relationship with her mother Imogen, because they’re together almost all of the time and don’t mix in the outside world.
As a clinical psychologist, I’m particularly interested in how a person’s childhood shapes the adult they become. This novel moves back and forth in time to help the reader unpick why Cate’s mother has chosen to keep her daughter away from society, and what secrets she’s hiding. We see Imogen at different ages as a child to build up a picture of her own unusual upbringing.
A Safe Place starts with the quirky narrator voice of Cate, who has never been told how old she is, why she never leaves her village, or why her loving mother can’t touch her. This life is all she’s ever known. I thought puberty was the ideal phase to focus on, as Cate starts to question her identity and the closed-off world she inhabits. I had to be thoughtful in the way I made her think and speak – she’s never had the internet, school, friends or the influence of media. I guessed she would have a wild imagination, sometimes not knowing the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. She has birds as friends and daydreams instead of television. When her mum’s childhood sweetheart Zach arrives, Cate sees it both as an exciting opportunity to find out more but also a potential threat to their ‘perfect’ life together.
I intended the tone of the novel to be slightly unsettling. Cate tries hard to be a ‘good and grateful’ girl but there are clues along the way that the idyllic childhood Imogen wanted for her daughter is not sustainable.
Writing this book was enjoyable, particularly the chapters from Cate’s unusual point of view and creating the backstory of how her mother’s childhood was just as extreme in a different way. There’s a blurring of what’s right and wrong – the answer depends on which character you ask!
What happens when your home becomes your prison?
Twelve-year-old Cate has never left her village. She’s never had a friend. She’s never even hugged her mother.
Imogen, Cate’s mum, spent her youth travelling the country with her father. He believed she had a gift and used her for his own gain. With her innocence snatched away, Imogen vowed to build an idyllic and safe childhood for her daughter.
But Cate soon becomes curious about life outside their home, and Imogen begins to wonder if the decision to close them off from society was the right one. Then when Zach, Imogen’s enigmatic ex-lover, returns to the village, years of deception come to light.
Why has Imogen never touched her daughter? Is Zach responsible for a heinous crime? And what is Cate truly capable of?
A Safe Place is a chilling suspense novel about decades of secrets, lies and guilt.
About the Author:
Stephanie Carty (formerly writing as Stephanie Hutton) is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the U.K. Her short fiction has been shortlisted and won international writing competitions, with her stories published widely in anthologies. She teaches the application of psychology to fictional character development. She isn’t very good at switching off.
https://stephaniecarty.com/about/
