FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT // BUYER ’ S PICK
Jane Hodgett Buyer , Books
After Jess leaves her job , she is pining for a fresh start . A visit to Paris to stay with her half-brother , Ben , seems like the ideal getaway . So what if he didn ’ t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him ? He hadn ’ t said no .
Jess arrives to find a lovely apartment , but no Ben . As time passes without any sign of her half-brother , Jess finds that everyone has secrets , including the concierge , the scorned lover and the journalist , among others . The Paris Apartment ( Item 387241 ; 3 / 3 ) is available in most Costco warehouses .
MICHAEL MORALEE
A welltold story
Lucy Foley shares the inspiration for her latest novel
by ANNIE MAKOFF
Lucy Foley
For the unpublished novelist , the journey to publication can feel light-years away , but for bestselling author Lucy Foley , who started her career in publishing , there was never any mystique about the process . “ I realised early on novels don ’ t start out as glossy books on a shelf , but as Word documents full of errors ,” she says . “ It gave me the confidence to have a go myself .” Now a full-time novelist of six books , including The Guest List and The Hunting Party , Foley says she rarely worries about writer ’ s block . “ Ideas just have a way of finding you ,” she explains , speaking from Brussels , where she ’ s currently staying due to COVID-19 travel restrictions . “ They are the ideas you just can ’ t stop thinking about , and you keep building on them until you have something tangible to work with .”
The idea behind her latest novel , The Paris Apartment , found her during a writing trip to Paris while Foley was working on The Guest List . Foley was renting a cheap room in a beautiful old building , which she describes as “ wonderfully antique [ but a bit ] dusty around the edges ”.
“ Every morning and last thing at night , I could hear something being dragged across the floor of the apartment above me ,” she says . “ I used to think it was really creepy , and I convinced myself someone was dragging a body . I thought , ‘ There ’ s a story that needs to be told , and I want to be the one to tell it .’ ”
The apartment made it wholesale into the novel , from the light switches on countdown timers to the rickety lift , which felt as if every use would be its last .
The resulting novel is a murder mystery set in a grand yet rather isolated Paris apartment . “ It looks at the grime beneath the gilt , the darkness beneath the surface ,” says Foley . “[ The novel ] looks at the idea of ordinary people doing terrible things . What would drive a relatively ordinary person to murder ?”
There ’ s a real sense of isolation , too . “ The apartment itself is quite isolating ,” Foley adds . “ The idea that when the gate clangs shut , our protagonist , Jess , enters a different , uneasy world . And she ’ s also isolated because she doesn ’ t speak the language .”
Foley admits she relates to all of the novel ’ s characters to a certain extent , but it is protagonist Jess she relates to the most . “ She ’ s not me exactly , but maybe she ’ s who I ’ d like to be ,” she suggests . “ She ’ s [ gutsy ] and does things I wouldn ’ t dare to do . Possibly she ’ s my naughtier alter ego .”
Foley ’ s books span several genres — crime , contemporary and historical fiction — so what genre does she most enjoy writing ? “ I don ’ t think in terms of genres ,” she says . “ But I do love a great thriller with the plot twists . Ultimately , I just love a good , welltold story with well-developed characters . That ’ s what I look for in the books I read , and it ’ s what I aim for in my novels .”
Annie Makoff is a freelance journalist from Rochester in Kent .
PHILIPPA GEDGE
FEBRUARY / MARCH 2022 Costco Connection 45