1--What is the title of your latest release?
THE VACATION
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Eight people from across the world stay at a run-down backpacking hostel in LA. They’re all trying to escape from different things, but some of them unwittingly have shared pasts. How far can you run before there are no places left to hide?
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
As a 21-year-old I left the UK to go backpacking around the USA. I ended up staying in a similar hostel in Venice Beach to the one featured in my book. It was such a strange, quirky place with lots of colorful characters. It was the perfect backdrop for a story of travel, escape and redemption.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Hmm… there are elements of Tommy’s character that are based on me. And as much as I enjoy my own company, I don’t think I’d want to hang out for too long with myself! Too much of me isn’t always a good thing.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Adventurous, frightened, underestimated.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
This book was originally self-published seven years ago. I’d written five more books since. Once it was picked up by a mainstream publisher, I re-read it and spent about a week cringing before I started rewrites. So I hope I have learned that I wasn’t as good as I thought I was back then and that I’ve become a better writer.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I wait until I’m totally done. Getting that first draft done and those words on a page is a huge buzz. And I find the rewrites – draft three in particular – the most fun. Also, I don’t write consecutively. I write different parts of the book in a different order as and when I feel like it. I then enjoy piecing them all together.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Pizza, chocolate and cheese. I can be a bit of a fussy eater but I have yet to find a cheese I have not devoured.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
It’s a double aspect room with a giant floor to ceiling bookshelf on one wall. Another wall has dozens of framed prints and pictures, including a shadowbox featuring all my late dog Oscar’s collars. He died last year and featured in every single one of my books. The desk is long (allowing me much room for mess) and there’s a record player on a table behind me that I haven’t used in about four years.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Current authors include Peter Swanson, Lisa Jewell, John Boyne and CJ Tudor. They are my automatic-buy writers. Historically, I admire Patricia Highsmith and George Orwell.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
The Beach by Alex Garland came the closest. I’d been through a reading lull for a few years when I picked this up in the 1990s and fell in love it. It partially inspired me to write The Vacation.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I self-published my first three books. In the same week, two separate mainstream publishers got in touch asking me if I’d be interested in being traditionally published. I said yes. And a few days after that, a production company wanted to option my book The One, which ended up on Netflix. If I’d had any expectations back then (I really hadn’t), those events would have gone beyond them all. Even now, every time I get “the call” for something else, I wonder if it’s a joke.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
I don’t have one. I read in all genres. My latest reads have been biography (Britney Spears, The Woman In Me); contemporary fiction (Yomi Adegoke, The List); mythical (Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles) and psychological thriller (Robyn Harding – The Drowning Woman.)
14--What’s your favorite movie?
How many am I allowed? True Romance, The Lost Boys, Inception and Stand by Me.
15--What is your favorite season?
Spring. I like the temperature and the build-up to summer and lighter nights. I also like to potter around the garden like a pensioner.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Watching my enthusiastic four-year-old son opening my presents while I quietly wish it was me doing it.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I don’t listen to podcasts, but I loved an ARC of CJ Tudor’s next novel, The Gathering; the last movie I enjoyed at the theatre was Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning and the last TV series I binge watched was The Fall Of The House Of Usher on Netflix. Writer Mike Flanagan can do no wrong in my book.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Thai or Italian. I can’t cook either. I can’t cook, period.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
With a full-time job and a young child, free time is a luxury! I read or watch mindless reality television like Selling Sunset, given half a chance.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
Three books in the next 18 months. Two psychological thrillers and one speculative fiction. And then I might take a break.
A Novel
On the paradisical shores of Venice Beach, Los Angeles, eight strangers find themselves corralled in a rundown backpackers hostel with secrets they’re more than willing to kill for. This holiday-set read is a compulsive and addictive thriller, perfect for fans of T.M. Logan.
How far would you run to escape your past?
Venice Beach, Los Angeles. A paradise on earth. Tourists flock to the golden coast and the promise of Hollywood. But for eight strangers at a beach front hostel, there is far more on their mind than an extended vacation. All of them are running from something. And they all have secrets they’d kill to keep…
Mystery | Thriller [Hanover Square Press, On Sale: December 19, 2023, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781335013255 / eISBN: 9780369742049]
Until recently, John Marrs worked for twenty-five years as a freelance journalist based in London, England, where he interviewed celebrities from the world of television, film, and music for national newspapers and magazines. He has written for publications including Guardian’s Guide and Guardian Online, Total Film, the Huffington Post, Empire, Q, GT, the Independent, S Magazine, and Company. He is the author of When You Disappeared, Welcome to Wherever You Are, The Good Samaritan, Her Last Move, The Passengers, What Lies Between Us, and The One, soon to be a Netflix series.
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