Twenty-five years ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to Tuscany, Italy, for three weeks. My then parents-in-law had taken a beautiful rustic villa just twenty minutes outside San Gimignano for the summer and had generously invited their son and I to join them.

I fell in love with the romance of the landscape; no wonder Tuscany is the setting of so many iconic love stories and films. The majesty of the rolling hills, the soldier lines of cypress trees, the medieval spires of the ancient towns that rise through the clouds…

Sadly, the vacation itself was less than idyllic. Three generations cooped up in torrential rain that lasted for days on end left us all bickering and stir-crazy. I vowed to my partner that I would write a book about our experience one day. Well, the best intentions and so on… two and a half decades later, I am no longer with the guy concerned, his parents have sadly passed away and the baby in our group (whose crying caused so much consternation back then) is now a practising lawyer.

But I never forgot Tuscany. And so, when I had the idea to take a dream holiday location and turn the experience into a nightmare, I gravitated back to those rolling hills.

The key themes in The Perfect Liar, my third novel but first psychological thriller (Bookouture: 6^th November 2020), are passion, deception, and false identity.

Three forty-something friends, Susanne, a beautiful divorcee; Dale, a single teacher, and Evie, newly bereaved and between jobs, borrow a friend’s villa and treat themselves to the trip of a lifetime. There they meet Harry, the owner of the villa’s godson, enjoying a last fling of freedom before starting a high-profile job in London.  Handsome, wealthy and charming, the impact of Harry in their midst soon sends the women spiralling into conflict, mistrust and ultimately, danger.

Throughout the book, every one of its landmarks, from Rome’s Piazza Navona and the Pantheon, to the museums and cathedrals of Florence and Siena are places I visited that long-ago summer. Recalling their beauty was easy but adding a sense of threat and danger was the fun part! Like all those wonderful (mainly but not exclusively) American movies which start out in cheerful, white-weather-boarded suburbia, where kids peddle bicycles and neighbours wave hello to each other as they get into shiny cars on well swept drives: then bam! A dead body is found and suddenly the scene slips on its axis – no longer the safe haven we perceived it to be, but a mocking parody of perfection, as police trawl the area for a killer on the loose.

Writing suspense had been a long-term goal. My first two novels written in my early fifties were lodged firmly in the contemporary women’s fiction genre and set in suburban gentility. It was only by Book Three, that I felt ready to tap into suspense, fear and danger. And I struggled at first: it felt like a vastly different skill set. Women’s fiction is often character led, where first and foremost, we care about the protagonists – investing in their dreams, emotions and relationships. But with psychological thrillers, whilst a believable, authentic cast of characters is vital, they also tend to have pacey, watertight plots – often with multiple and elaborate twists. All of which takes a degree of planning and inventiveness that I had never tapped into before.

So, with a huge amount of help from my editor (another steep learning curve), I wrote THE PERFECT LIAR. And I hope readers will be drawn into the characters’ dreams and dilemmas, delighted by the backdrops and shocked by the plot-twists. Because it may have taken twenty-five years to happen, but finally I wrote a book set in Tuscany.

Throughout Beverley Harvey’s many years spent working in advertising and PR, she had always wanted to write fiction. In 2015 a creative writing course inspired her debut novel, which was published in 2017: the sequel soon followed. Beverley’s third novel – her first with Bookouture – fulfils a long-time goal to publish a psychological thriller.

Born in the north of England, but raised in the south, Beverley currently lives in West Sussex with her partner and their adorable terrier. When not writing, you’ll find her reading, walking the dog or listening to rock music. Follow Beverley on Twitter @BevHarvey_