What is the title of your latest release?
STILLWATER
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Stillwater is about Luke, a young man whose past catches up with him when the crime boss he worked for as a teenager tracks him down and wants him back on the job. Luke is roped into a hunt for his estranged father, who has disappeared with a load of the boss’s money. As he grapples with a past he’d rather forget, Luke has to call on his diverse set of skills – and hold tight to secrets that could get him killed.
It's a story about a reluctant criminal, about refusing to allow your past to define you, and about learning to be the still water when the sea around you is churning.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
The main action was always going to take place in Melbourne, Australia, because the inner-city vibe suited the story and it’s where I’ve lived a lot of my adult life. Parts of the book are set near Castlemaine, in the bush, which I chose for its rich gold-rush history and the atmospheric Box-Ironbark forest, which is spooky in the mist on cold mornings.
Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
I’d like to think so…but I might be a little intimidated. He loves good food, and he also likes to read, so we’d have that in common. I’ve spent a lot of time with him over the past few years!
What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Survivor; independent; competent.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
Many things! I did a deep dive into how money-laundering works, and I watched a lot of videos of men punching each other (I have martial artists in my family, but boxing is another thing altogether). My browser history is highly incriminating. One of the hardest parts of research is that after editing, only a small part of it appears in the book – but it’s not a waste of time, because it informs the story.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I edit as I go, which is a terrible habit. I’d love to be the writer who can write from beginning to end without stopping to fix things. I am definitely a pantser; that is, I ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ rather than a plotter. Whenever I try to plot things out, my characters have other ideas.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Kingfish (or salmon) sashimi or ceviche. I’m also pretty partial to chocolate.
Describe your writing space/office!
Organized chaos, comfortable, cluttered. I have a small study that looks out to the backyard, where we often having visiting rosellas, galahs and kookaburras. On my desk, I have a cat who "helps" by sitting on my keyboard, a mug of coffee, and several half-filled notebooks because I forget where they are all the time. I have a whiteboard on the back of the door where I write vague notes-to-self like “Check detail in chapter 28”, which of course means nothing to anyone.
Who is an author you admire?
So many! Anyone who has done the hard yards to be published has my full respect. I really admire Dervla McTiernan’s writing, particularly her Cormac Reilly books, and I’ve read almost all of Michael Connelly’s books.
My Australian crime heroes are Chris Hammer, Hayley Scrivenor and Shelley Burr.
Is there a book that changed your life?
White Teeth, by Zadie Smith. I read this at a vulnerable time, and I was blown away by the themes, the beautiful writing, and the satisfying closure. It made me want to start writing again; I’d stopped writing after high school and thought I was too busy with ‘real’ work.
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 was at my day job in a non-clinical hospital role, with back-to-back meetings, on the day that my agent was juggling four different publishers (in Australia) and I was trying to decide which to sign with. I flipped from work meetings to calls with my agent every hour; it was like slipping in and out of a parallel universe. My phone nearly ran out of charge. By the end of the day, I had run out of charge.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
I read very broadly and across genres. I love mystery, crime and thrillers (obviously), particularly a good spy thriller – the more outlandish and escapist the better! But I also love literary fiction, for the richness of prose and sentences that make me sigh, and fantasy and science-fiction for imagination and sheer creativity. Every genre has its own unique offerings for a writer. (My first novel was an epic sword-and-sorcery fantasy, which remains unfinished and will stay in the bottom drawer forever.)
What’s your favorite movie?
Very difficult to name one…Napoleon Dynamite and The Princess Bride are near the top of the list – their humour will never grow old. A classic Australian movie I love is The Castle. Also, The Usual Suspects, The Fifth Element, and The Hunt for the Wilderpeople (a movie set in New Zealand, which is an absolute gem). I like movies that use humour to address serious themes.
What is your favorite season?
Autumn. Where I live, autumn means clear sunny days and cool nights, the deciduous trees turn gold and red, and my coastal town empties of all the summer holiday-makers. Perfect.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
With cake. Is there any other way?
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Boy Swallows Universe. A brilliant book, by Trent Dalton, and perfectly interpreted for the screen.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Japanese
What do you do when you have free time?
Read, walk on the beach, yoga, gym. Sometimes I get crafty and start home DIY, art or sewing projects which I promptly abandon when they get too hard.
What can readers expect from you next?
Another crime thriller. No spoilers.
For fans of Jack Reacher, Tanya Scott's debut thriller introduces readers to Luke Harris, a man trying to move beyond his criminal past but finds himself forced back into his old life and a deadly battle to survive.
When Jack Quinlan’s mother dies of a drug overdose, it’s not his father that raises him, but Gus—a ruthless crime boss who sees Jack for what he is: a whip-smart kid with untapped potential. It doesn’t take long for Gus to forge Jack into a weapon.
But Jack was also self-aware enough to know where this sort of life was going to lead him. When the time was right, he got out. Or so he thought.
Seven years later, Jack is now Luke Harris, a regular guy putting himself through college and aiming for a real job and a real future. Falling in love. But Jack’s past isn’t so easily forgotten, and the bodies in his closet won’t forgive him.
When Luke’s newfound life collides with Gus’s underworld, survival becomes a deadly game. Luke must resurrect his dormant skills and confront the demons that threaten to consume him.
Thriller Crime [Atlantic Monthly Press, On Sale: August 1, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book , ISBN: 9780802164605 / eISBN: 9780802164612]
Tanya Scott is a writer, doctor and medical educator based on the Victorian Surf Coast. She has been writing for many years, including using narrative therapy as a tool to make sense of the world, both personally and with her patients. Many of the ideas for Stillwater stem from her work helping patients with childhood trauma – acknowledging that in reality, recovery is a long and incomplete path.
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