Exclusive interview with author Lucy Clarke and a review of her new novel of love and betrayal set in Tasmania
Rating: Three Stars
by Gabrielle Pantera
“There is something so irresistible about secrets,” says A Single Breath author Lucy Clarke. “The moment I hear someone whisper, ‘I’ve got a secret’, my ears prick up. I’m sure that many people keep the odd secret in order to protect someone they care about, and most of these will be harmless enough. But then there are those darker secrets, the ones that are tightly wrapped with lies, and presented as truth. Those are the dangerous ones – and also the ones that are wonderfully exciting to explore in fiction.”
Clarke’s writing is engaging, will keep you guessing to the end of the book. There are plot twists and a shocking ending, and Clarke’s vivid descriptions of Tasmania feel like being there.
A Single Breath takes us on the journey of Eva, a midwife who, while mourning the death of her husband, learns the man she loved and married is a fraud. Why did he do it? One nagging question, why she didn’t do a Google search before marrying him?
Eva and Jackson have been married for eight months when tragedy strikes. Witnesses see Jackson swept out to sea while fishing. A search is started at once, but no body is found, leaving Eva devastated. Putting her midwife business on hold, she visits Jackson’s family in Tasmania.
Instead of it calming her and bringing peace, meeting Jackson’s father Dirk and brother Saul brings more questions. Her whole marriage was based on lies. As Eva spends time with Saul, she starts to develop feelings for him. Can she trust him? Will she trust any man again?
“After my first visit to Tasmania, I knew I wanted to set a novel there,” says Clarke. “So I returned the following winter for a research trip. Later on that year, I heard of a friend-of-a-friend who was leading a double life in order to hide a huge secret from her family.” Clarke was intrigued by the idea of not really knowing those we think are closest to us. She thought how devastating it would be to find out the truth after that person had died. “These two threads began to weave together,” says Clarke, “stitching themselves into the beginning of a story.”
Clarke prefers to write longhand. “There’s something about the simplicity of a pencil and a blank page that appeals to the romantic in me,” says Clarke. “I love to write to music, too. There are certain albums I play to help me step into a character’s mindset, or to inspire a particular atmosphere in a scene.”
Clarke’s first novel, Swimming At Night was released in hardback last summer. It will be available this summer in paperback.
Clarke is currently writing her third novel. Called The Blue, the novel is set on a yacht sailing towards the South Pacific crewed by a group of travelers. “Best friends Lana and Kitty join the yacht in the Philippines and sail through crystal blue lagoons, and remote, uninhabited islands,” says Clarke. “But, on a 10-day ocean crossing, the crew wake to discover one of their friends is missing. Relationships between the crew fracture, and Lana and Kitty’s friendship is stretched to breaking point. It’s a story of friendship, love, hedonism, and the delicate balance between truth and lies.”
Clarke was born and still lives in Bournemouth with her husband. “Our house is a two-minute walk from the beach, and on windless nights we can hear the waves breaking, which is heaven,” says Clarke.
A Single Breath by Lucy Clarke. Trade Paperback, 384 pages, Publisher: Touchstone (April 8, 2014), Language: English. ISBN-13: 978-1476750156 $12.05 also available as an ebook
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