What is the title of your latest release?
THE NIGHT HUNTER
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
If Lucy Foley, wrote a murder mystery in the South African bush.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I wanted to pick a place that I knew very, very well. My father is South African, and I’ve been going on Safaris since I was only a child. We moved a lot as I grew up, but no matter where in the world we were living, my parents always made sure that we came back to South Africa to see the wilderness. It was a big part of us as a family. It was only after I started writing that I realized what a perfect location for a thriller it makes! No phones, no police and plenty of predators to clean up after a dead body…
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
Probably. We’d run in similar circles back in London, but I feel like she’d be way more high-achieving and ambitious than I am!
What are three words that describe your hero?
Stubborn. Resourceful. Ambitious.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I really deepened my love for the setting in writing it. You learn greater appreciation for the little details that you notice. I had a bit of a difficult relationship with safaris from being a kid, not dissimilar to my main character (but hardly as drastic!). It was a real joy to sit back and fall in love with each detail as I put them to page.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I can’t help myself! I definitely do a bit of editing throughout the drafting stage, but after each draft I also do bigger structural rounds. I don’t think of them as separate stages, in a way writing is editing and editing is rewriting.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Chocolate. I’m funny that I won’t eat anything then all at once I’ll scarf down an entire bar when I’m looking for that dopamine hit!
Describe your writing space/office!
I write in a few places. I have a wonderful office although it’s very bare, so just a desk and table. But I like writing on my phone on the London underground. That’s an oddly very productive place! I think it’s because it doesn’t feel like a formal desk, so there’s a lot less pressure. Similarly, I sometimes write on my phone in bed!
Who is an author you admire?
Recently I’ve been loving Charlotte McConaghy’s work. I love the way she writes about nature, especially in ONCE THERE WERE WOLVES. But there are so many! Lily King, Jane Harper, Jessica Knoll, Abigail Dean, Miranda Cowley Heller just to name a few.
Is there a book that changed your life?
It´s hard to pick! In so many ways a lot of books have. HOUSE OF LEAVES by Mark Z. Danielewski is a very special and strange book, and not in my usual genre, but I read it during a really low time in my life, and it didn’t cheer me up (it’s not that kind of book!) but it really took me out of myself and transported me. I had a really visceral experience reading it that was quite unique.
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.
It was a crazy time! I was having some of the busiest periods at work I have had all year, and I honestly didn’t have any time to think. I was working until midnight, then had the pleasure of taking a call or two with an editor in the middle of the night! I didn’t even know until right in the middle of things that I was lucky enough to be going to auction. This was over Thanksgiving weekend, which we don’t celebrate out here in the UK but the editors considering the manuscript did and so everything had to happen super quickly to meet the deadline. I didn´t even know to expect anything when an email turned up saying that someone had offered. There was a lot of dancing around the coffee table!
What’s your favorite genre to read?
My own! I love reading psychological thrillers the most, but I read widely. I love a good Romance, some Literary Fiction, Horror and the occasional fantasy.
What’s your favorite movie?
I don’t really have a favorite movie, but I loved The Prestige. Just a very well-constructed film and very emotional!
What is your favorite season?
Spring! It’s all the anticipation and excitement of summer without too much heat.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I love inviting friends over for a dinner party, and board games!
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker is absolutely excellent!
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Potentially Japanese.
What do you do when you have free time?
I don’t have free time these days! I play a little touch rugby if I can, lots of reading and recently I’ve been doing some gardening which I love! I especially love watching the little songbirds we’re getting in the garden, it’s not the same as a stalking lion but I have a lot of love for anything natural in my heart.
What can readers expect from you next?
I love thrillers set in interesting places where the setting has a real impact to the story, and where readers come out learning something. My next story will be similar in that way to my debut, but the location will be very different, if no less close to my heart. I hope readers enjoy going on adventures with me!
In a remote corner of the South African bush, two sisters reunite to bury a family secret once and for all, but when they’re stranded among the wild animals, they find a predator far more dangerous waiting for them in the shadows. . . .
When their conservationist mother passes, Danielle and her estranged sister Grace must return to their isolated family house nestled within a wild-game reserve. While Grace, their mother’s favorite, clings to nostalgia, only Danielle carries the knowledge of her final request: “Find the storehouse . . . Burn everything inside.”
To ease the pain of their homecoming—and the tension between them—each sister invites two friends on the two-day journey into the bush. What starts as a safari adventure, turns into a nightmare when one of them is murdered the first morning at the campsite. In the chaos that follows, they crash their vehicle, stranding them, with no way to call for help.
Now Danielle must lead them on foot across miles of merciless savannah, with dwindling supplies and only one rifle. They have days of walking ahead…if they survive that long. As the group navigates land where every rustle could mean death, a truth emerges: someone is sabotaging their escape.
Breathtaking and tense, The Night Hunter maps the treacherous terrain of family duty and loyalty as the two sisters confront what they’ve spent years trying to forget.
Thriller Psychological [ Berkley, On Sale: July 28, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9798217187867 / eISBN: 9798217187874 ]
Natalie Moss is a Filipina-South African born and raised in Manila, Philippines and has been on regular safaris since she was seven years old. An Oxford graduate, Natalie has lived in seven countries including the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, and South Africa, before settling in London. She’s an avid reader of thrillers and crime, and is obsessed with solving the puzzle of a good mystery.
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