Heidi Field | Updates

Two Is My Favourite Number

Heidi Field — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

So, November 19th is publication day for The Other Mother, book two in my Peasedale Woods Killers series, and I am SO excited!

I read and listened to a lot of authors talk about how difficult book two is, after the high of publishing a debut novel, having to get to grips with penning another eighty odd thousand words.

Well, lovely reader, I had a BALL. I already knew what The Other Mother was going to be about, how the story was going to play out, and where my protagonist, Suzannah, was headed…and it wasn’t anywhere fun!

Suzannah was a subsidiary character in my first book, The Other Boy, the mother of an accomplice, a woman in denial who was keeping A LOT of secrets. Following the aftermath of her son’s involvement with a serial killer, she is unable to move forwards in her life and find happiness because of the incarceration of her son and the shame and stain of his hideous crimes.

Suzannah’s story is about her constant battle with the truth and the havoc it will wreak on her life if it comes out. She is a woman whose lies pile up until she is at breaking point, forced to make dangerous, calculating choices that threaten everything she is trying to build with her new fiancé.

I flew through the first draft of this novel, so I was surprised when my beta reader gently expressed her concerns about the entire second half of the book. Wow! But, without feedback how do I know if what I am writing is any good, right? So, I took a deep breath and went back to my manuscript.

What I discovered was SO much better than my first attempt. I had underestimated Suzannah and failed to see a dark, resilient side to her which took the second half of the book to another level. I also created a backstory that brought the whole novel together.

My second reader was my partner. He is not a big reader, the holiday reader type. He devoured my book in two days. Holy moly! He was so desperate to see how Suzannah’s lies would play out, and get to the truth, that he couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

Second novel, second attempt, second reader. See how those 2’s are playing out for me. The work, of course, didn’t stop there, but I was having so much fun with this story that the momentum kept me racing through to the finish, full of energy and enthusiasm.

I have two more books to write in this series, The Other Killer, which is with my editor, and The Other Brother, which is underway.

I have recently finished reading John Marrs Keep It In The Family. At 43% in I had worked it out, the whodunnit part, and I had a small slump because I thought I knew where it was going. I was right, and wrong, and I loved that. The layering. There was more to come, and it is exactly this kind of unfolding that happens in The Other Mother. Just when you think Suzannah has finally caved and told the truth, something else veers the reader off track.

I was asked a question recently about which authors I would like to go on a writing retreat with and it made me think about the elements I like to see in a good book and which writers do those things well. This is my wish list of great book elements that I hope you will find in The Other Mother: twists, heart, relationships, grit, depth and cunning.

I always listen to fun music when I workout, to lift my mood at the start of my day. This morning it was Body Rock by Maria Vidal. Go dance wildly in your kitchen and have a great day.

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Tule Halloween Mystery Blog

Heidi Field — Mon, 6 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

What if you didn’t know where your teenage son was last night...

What if his body was found in a shallow grave in the woods…

What if there were twelve other bodies dug up….

What if your son WASN’T a victim…

How well do you really know your loved ones, the people you live with every day, the family you trust? Scott and Blair thought they knew their son, but they were wrong.

Becca’s review of The Other Boy sums up the feeling of my book beautifully –

Holy moly. Where to even start. I'm so torn over Mason. I can't say anything without giving it away, so I won't. But as a parent, I feel for Scott and Blair so so much. But I feel Mason's story too. It's a lot. My word, I'm stumped. This is good. It's really good but it will injure you.

As with all stories, the book is about the relationships within it. Do you ever really know someone? What do you miss when you are too focused on your own path? As a parent, at what point do you pass the responsibility for choices made onto the child? The Other Boy is about parents and children, love and loss, regret, guilt and forgiveness.

Halloween has always been a favourite holiday in our house, and we always host a party for the kids. They play apple bobbing, wrap each other up in toilet paper in a team game of speed, take turns throwing a dice to get a six and the chance to eat chocolate with a knife and fork wearing gloves, and they go trick and treating. Our neighbourhood is all-in, decorations, dressing up, pumpkins, buckets of sweets, and adults lurking around corners scaring the unsuspecting children.

It’s fun.

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Mothers

Heidi Field — Sun, 5 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I recently received some feedback for the next book in the Peasedale Woods Killers series, book three, The Other Killer, where the beta reader said the overriding theme in the series is that mothers love their sons.

She is, absolutely, right.

I am a mother of two boys, and I have also been involved in the raising of three stepchildren, two of which are also boys. I wrote the first book in this series, The Other Boy, in response to a documentary I watched about Dean Corll, the Candyman serial killer, responsible for the rape, mutilation, and murder of over twenty teenage boys and young men.

The story I wrote focused on the teenage accomplices of the killer, the story told from the point of view of the grieving, desperate parents, unaware of what their sons were involved in.

The Other Mother continues the story for Suzannah, one of the mothers. It is about how she negotiates life after her son is incarcerated, the sacrifices and choices she must make to try and forge a new life, with a new partner and a new baby, and how badly things can go wrong when the past comes back to bite you.

“No one wants to get close to me, to the mother of a monster, a woman who spawned the devil.”

The idea that a mother’s love is unconditional and all-consuming resonates throughout the story, and when the threats to Suzannah ramp up, her fear drives her to make some terrible decisions.

I love delving into the psychology of my characters, which is why have been drawn to writing psychological thrillers. I like to watch the darkness that my characters work hard to contain spill out when they are put under pressure, risking their sanity and their salvation. I love to put people into desperate situations, and then find out how they will claw their way out.

“I’m between a rock and a hard place, and all roads lead to destruction.”

My stories also look at teenagers, those tough years of change and growth, driven by raging hormones, big dreams, volatile emotions, and fragile egos. Choices made in those years can be so far reaching, they can really shape the grown up that emerges from the chaos, and this is seen in many of the characters in The Other Mother. Actions that can’t be undone, decisions that cause damage, relationships that create a dangerous toxicity, feelings that are twisted and manipulated for selfish reasons.

“Did you? Put me first, huh? Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night?”

Secrets also play a big part in this story, and I wanted to show how a character can tell a lie that grows into a bigger lie, and this in turn creates the need for yet more and more lies. Suzannah’s story is like quicksand, the more she struggles to hide the truth of her past, the faster she sinks.

“I will always be that duck on the pond, however serene I make my life appear; below the surface I must paddle like crazy to keep myself afloat. The day I stop paddling will be the day I sink.”

But, throughout Suzannah’s journey there is also love, in abundance, in many forms. Romantic love, friendship, and the unconditional love shared between parents and their children. All the loves in The Other Mother are tested, they are all put under strain, and each one leads to places that the characters would not have gone if love was not involved.

Love can be hard won, too easily taken for granted, or disrespected, it can drive good and bad behaviours, and it is not always an emotion that brings happiness.

“And then there’s the relief. That’s the feeling that really stings, the one that plays on my conscience long after I’ve left.”

A mystery is about solving a crime; a thriller is about surviving it. This is Suzannah’s survival story. I hope you enjoy it.

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On Editing...

Heidi Field — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Writing The Other Boy was a long process with a LOT of learning on route, swathes of text removed and reorganized, and characters lost. It was terrifying and thrilling. My favourite part of writing a book is, undoubtedly, the editing. Once the first draft is written, anything is possible, and there are so many wonderful surprises still to discover.

The Other Boy has been an organic, free-writing process and the twists and turns wrote themselves. There was no planning, the scenes just came along as I wrote. When I got feedback about things that didn’t work, I removed large sections and then went back to the characters for the answers.

Having said that, I became a member of Jericho Writer’s, and I watched many of their masterclasses. I realised that I needed to give myself permission to go places that felt uncomfortable, and have characters do things that go against my own moral or emotional compass. Sometimes, I just needed something to happen that was a surprise, something unexpected, something to steer the story in another direction, and once I told myself that, the answer presented itself to me. It’s a bit like a puzzle in my head with a missing piece, my mind churns over the dilemma until it fills the gap.

Often, the twists were just a matter of writing down what an unhinged, stressed, out-of-control, insecure or terrified character would do. Those big emotions drive the big choices, right or wrong, good or bad, and panic and fear are wonderful motivators for the worst kinds of behaviours.

Becoming a writer, like any creative endeavour, is a brave choice, giving yourself permission to spend hours and hours working at something that has no reward, no outcome, other than your own satisfaction. Of course, I hoped that my books would one day find a publisher, but the joy of writing The Other Boy was the journey of discovery, my ability to bin hours of work to make the book better, crisper, more interesting, to write a character and then erase them and not look back. It feels like being on a huge, super-fast, rollercoaster, and I do love a rollercoaster, the horror of having to lose those precious words and then the delight in finding something so much better beyond the cuts.

I learned that not everything I do is worthwhile or any good, but if I keep trying, I can keep improving. Not once have I wanted to give up or stop writing, and much of my day away from my desk is spent thinking about scenes, conversations between characters, plot twists and the next novels I want to pen.

It is all-consuming, and a wonderful way to spend my time.

It helps that I love to exercise, running, ultra-walking, and long weights sessions in the gym, all presenting me with more time to think about my stories and my characters. The Other Boy is a series of four books. Book two, The Other Mother, is in the production stage and will be released mid-November, and I am currently writing book three, The Other Killer.

Publication of The Other Boy has boosted my already crazy enthusiasm for a career I love. I hope you enjoy reading my books as much as I adore writing them.

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A Day In My Life....

Heidi Field — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t consciously use people or places I know in my books, but it is obvious in The Other Boy that I have been inspired by the places and individuals that surround me. Most obviously is the setting of Peasedale Forest and the woods where Lily goes missing.

I am a little exercise obsessed, I walk early in the morning around the woods behind our house with our Great Dane, I run regularly, too, and I have a small home gym where I lift weights. It is the woods that features significantly in The Other Boy, shadowy and unforgiving after dark, secretive and isolated near the shack, a place to get lost, a place of escape, a place to hide, and somewhere to find out who you truly are.

The forest I spend a lot of my life in has log piles that appear and disappear throughout the year, some consist of freshly cut logs with thick trunks, others have logs that are thin and mossy, there are signs warning of danger should the logs roll and a person get caught beneath them. As I walked or ran around the woods whilst writing The Other Boy, I played out many of the scenes in my head, imagining Mason alone and afraid in the darkness, sweet Lily trapped and lost, how Jamie must have felt when he was first taken to Gunner’s shack.

We have built many dens with our youngest son from the fallen trees and branches scattered around our lonely woods, finding logs to use as seats, leafy ferns for cover and decoration. As a child, a large part of growing up involved being outside, walking our dog through the woods around our local pond, snaking along the sandy paths of the nearby common. For me, the outdoors holds fond and fun memories, but for the characters in The Other Boy the woods become sinister and dangerous.

When I am done with my morning walk and gym session, and I have bustled our last child off to school, the other four now at college or out at work, I come home to an empty house and write at my yellow Mac, using my yellow keyboard, in my office with bright orange walls. I find it funny that I love bright, happy colours, fun eighties music, and yet my stories are dark, twisty, heartbreaking thrillers. I am not an angry or brooding individual, I love to talk, and if everyone around me is happy, so am I.

Yet, whilst studying for my master’s degree in creative writing, I discovered my love of writing thrillers, putting ordinary, relatable people into terrible situations and watching them fight for their lives and their sanity, pushing the physical and mental limits of people like you and me.

The world goes by outside the window of my office, which looks out to the quiet road that leads to the woods. Neighbours pass by to walk their dogs, to jog, or cycle, or play with their children in the forest, and I wonder if that is all they are doing, or if they will also be hiding secrets, succumbing to an inner darkness, or facing their fears among the dense trunks, moaning canopy and murky undergrowth of the woodland beyond our tranquil country road…

The forest has now taken on a new meaning in my world, inspiration for my books.

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My First Published Novel

Heidi Field — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Other Boy is my first published novel and writing it has been the most wonderful rollercoaster of hard work, steep learning curves and dogged determination.

I first started writing shortly after giving birth to my first child, a baby who slept during the day and not at night. I was suffering from post-natal depression and my marriage was crumbling under the pressure. Hormone fuelled and in need of an escape, I began to write. The world was awash with Harry Potter, so my first attempt at writing was an epic YA fantasy, more Game of Thrones than Harry Potter. I then wrote a time-slip romance and a handful of children’s picture books. I had no idea if what I was producing was any good, I just loved writing.

I divorced and was a single mum for a few years before creating a blended family with my current partner and having a second child. We were raising five children, and I was working as a massage therapist. Life was busy! Writing took a back seat for fifteen years. When I emerged from the fog of a young family, with more time for me, I took a master’s degree in creative writing at Winchester University and my writing adventure truly began.

I loved writing thrillers, my characters were often dark, damaged, unpredictable and driven by an inner darkness, although, outwardly, they were also ordinary, relatable people who had been pushed beyond their limits and were clawing their way to sanity, freedom and salvation.

The idea for The Other Boy came after watching a documentary about Dean Corll, the Candyman serial killer, who raped, tortured and murdered over twenty teenage boys and young men. I didn’t want to write about a serial killer, or his victims, and I didn’t want to write about the families of the victims either, those stories are out there. I wanted to write a different story, one that was in the shadows of the gruesome crimes someone like Dean Corll committed, a story about the parents of the boys who assisted the killer, the killer’s accomplices.

I had four teenagers, one more child still to face those tricky years, and I asked myself how I would feel if my child made a choice that I could never have imagined, a terrifying choice. The Other Boy has become the first in a series of four novels. The Other Mother, The Other Killer and The Other Brother all explore the lives of other characters from the first novel, they all have unexpected twists, and each one will make you question what you know about everyone involved.

What you think is going to happen, doesn’t, what you hope will happen, won’t, and what you learn about the characters along the way may not be the whole story. Sometimes, it is the people closest to us who have the darkest of secrets, or maybe we just choose to ignore the signs because the truth is too frightening to face.

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