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Zoe Lea I Psychological Thriller Author

@zoeleawriter

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Psychological thrillers from the Lake District
If He Wakes * The Secretary * Closer Than She Thinks
Also at @leacreativesocial
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Three psychological thrillers written not one of them set where I actually live, until now.

Hello, I’m Zoe, and for years I’ve written about ordinary people who have terrible secrets and the moment that everything unravels for them.

I also live in one of the most beautiful places in England, so I decided it was time to write about something set here, in the Lake District.

Swipe through to meet me properly (and I really do have falcons, well, my husband has them, but they are here!) and if this sounds like a book you’d enjoy, sign up to my newsletter, link in bio, to be the first to know when the new book will land.

#psychologicalthriller #thrillerbooks #lakedistrictnationalpark #thrillerwriter #bookstagram by @zoeleawriter

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3 months ago

Windermere Lake District history I just found out after living here for over a decade.

I’ve caught the train from Windermere more times than I can count, and I never once wondered why the town has the lake’s name when it’s a good walk from the water. Turns out Wordsworth is part of the answer.

In 1844, there were plans to bring the railway from Kendal right into the Lakes. Wordsworth hated the idea. On 16th October 1844 (182 years ago today) he published a poem in the Morning Post against it, and he even named Orrest Head, the hill just across from where the station is now, as the view he wanted protected.

Later that year he wrote letters to the paper too, and he didn’t hide that part of his worry was ordinary working people arriving in crowds.

He didn’t win.
The railway was approved in 1845, but it was cut short and stopped at a tiny hamlet called Birthwaite. When the station opened in April 1847 it was called Windermere, because that’s what the visitors were coming for. The hamlet grew into a town and kept the name.

I write psychological thrillers set round here, so this is the part that stays with me. A beautiful place, and someone very sure about who should be let in.

If you’re coming up by train, Orrest Head is about 20 minutes’ walk from the station (it’s on my free Windermere map, link in bio). Save this for your visit, and send it to the friend who always asks why Windermere isn’t on the lake.

#LakeDistrict #Windermere #LakeDistrictHistory #Wordsworth #thrillerbooks by @zoeleawriter

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14 hours ago

Bowness-on-Windermere Lake District history I just found out after living here for over a decade.

On 19 October 1635, a wedding party was crossing Windermere on their way home from Hawkshead when a sudden storm sank the ferry. Forty-seven people drowned (and eleven horses), the biggest loss of life ever recorded on the lake.

They were buried together in a common grave at St Martin’s Church in Bowness, and it’s still there, under the chancel. I’ve been inside that church plenty of times and had no idea.

Locals called it The Mournful Marriage. The shipwreck turns up in a dramatic painting by De Loutherbourg (Belle Isle, Windermere, in a Storm, which hangs at Abbot Hall in Kendal), and a poem written at the time blamed the storm on a witch. (Because of course it did.)

This Monday is 391 years to the day.

And that’s only one of the stories in that churchyard.

There’s a gate built for coffins, and two gravestones a few yards apart that tell opposite sides of the same story.

I’ve put the whole walk on my website (link in bio), and the highlights go out in my newsletter, The Opening Chapter, tonight. Comment BOWNESS and I’ll send you the link to sign up (you’ll get the first chapter of my next thriller, set in the Lake District, as a welcome).

Beautiful places hide terrible things.

#LakeDistrict #Windermere #BownessOnWindermere #LakeDistrictHistory #psychologicalthriller taken in Bowness-on-Windermere by @zoeleawriter

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3 days ago

Got this message yesterday from a lovely friend, and it’s absolutely not the first time this has happened.
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve appeared to ignore family, close friends, my kids, and generally, anyone I know.

A few years ago after explaining this on Instagram before I went to Harrogate book festival, as a warning and apology that if friends didn’t come up close I wouldn’t see them, someone got in touch and said I may have prosopagnosia (face blindness) and after looking it up, I’m pretty sure I have it.

So, if you’re passing me on a street, waving at me from the other side of the room, standing next to me in a bar even, and I seem to ignore you, I’m not! Promise!
It’s because I probably can’t ‘see’ you.

It’s really hard to explain, but unless you come right up to me and give me a second, I can’t pick you out from a crowd.

Joanna Lumley has it and says it why she calls everyone ‘darling’ which I may start doing. 🤣
So if you see me, wave and I stare right through you, please send me a message and let me know like this lovely friend did, because I hate the thought that you might think I’m ignoring you when I’m absolutely not! by @zoeleawriter

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6 days ago

I‘m not saying we’re forming a girl band called ‘Plot Twist’ after the brilliant T-shirts @laurapauthor sent us... but I’m not *not* saying that either. (Stay tuned for our world tour/ takeover announcement 🤣🤣)

#plottwist #thrillerwriter #bestmate #ifyourreadingthissayhi by @zoeleawriter

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7 days ago

by @zoeleawriter

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13 days ago

This is what my character, Jane, thinks about Bowness in my novel, In Her Pocket. It’s hers, not mine- NOT MINE 🤣 - (honestly, Bowness, I love you & felt I needed to state that in all caps) thoughts on driving along the main drag, but it made me smile when I was editing it this week.

I must have written it in the summer, which is when the chapter is set, because driving through Bowness in October is a completely different experience. Thank goodness.

I’m still writing and editing In Her Pocket and In Her Shadow side by side, and progress is slooooooow. There’s a meme about it in the newsletter that I felt in my bones.

The whole story went out via email in ‘The Opening Chapter’ today.
Along with the secret wood I promised you (mossy, magical, and full of dens that my mind immediately made sinister), a German thriller series that’s perfect autumn viewing, and a question for the time travellers amongst you.

Link in bio if you’d like the next one. And if you want to read the one I just sent out lemme know and I’ll forward it to you. They go out every other Wednesday & you can’t read them anywhere else!

#fictionwriter #thrillerbooks #thrillerbooksaddict #authorofinstagram #lakedistrict taken in Kendal, Lakedistrict by @zoeleawriter

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17 days ago

Psychological thriller writer, Lake District café, and one notebook. This is where most of my stories start: a half-heard conversation, a look across a table, a detail that doesn’t quite add up.

My newsletter is where I share the rest. Every issue goes behind the scenes of writing psychological thrillers set in the Lake District, the true stories that spark the fiction, what I’m reading, and the things thriller writers don’t usually say out loud.

A new letter lands tomorrow. This is me writing it here, yep I do it longhand and in a notebook. I’ll type it up later. So If you love dark, twisty books, the Lake District, small villages and big secrets, tap the link in my bio to subscribe, it’s free.

#psychologicalthriller #thrillerbooks #LakeDistrict #BookTok #booknewsletter taken in Kendal, Lakedistrict by @zoeleawriter

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18 days ago

I got this message today from someone who just signed up to my newsletter and it put a smile on my face all day! 🥰

Out next Wednesday with info on a secret wood that I just discovered here in the Lake District, and when you sign up, you get the opening chapter of In Her Pocket and it has people hooked! Link in bio x

#thrillerbooks #lakedistrictuk #lakedistrictnationalpark #writing taken in Windermere by @zoeleawriter

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22 days ago

Went out for a walk the other day to clear my head because, editing, and found this place as described by Cumbria Wildlife trust as the ‘Lake District temperate rainforest.’
Want to know where it is?
Go back to the first slide, find my not so very well hidden emoji, comment that emoji and I’ll let you in on the secret! by @zoeleawriter

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25 days ago

This is a comment my character Jane reads on social media in my novel, In Her Pocket. It’s fictional, (fictional!) but it’s been in my head all week.
I’m writing and editing two books at once, which is not something I’ve done before or would necessarily recommend.
There’s a dual timeline running between them, so the comment Jane reads in one book is written by Rebecca in the other.
Every time I edit or write something in one book, I have to go and check the other to see if it makes the right impact.

The whole story went out via email in ‘The Opening Chapter’ just now.
Along with a brilliant, quirky bar recommendation in Windermere where you genuinely can’t be seen, and might meet a skeleton, the most surreal film I’ve seen in a while and a question for the filmwatchers amongst you.

Link in bio if you’d like the next one. They go out every other Wednesday.

#fictionwriter #thrillerbooks #thrillerbooksaddict #authorofinstagram taken in Windermere by @zoeleawriter

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a month ago

I always read the acknowledgments! I'm super nosey that way, and because I know how bloody hard they are to write. A friend told me to keep a note as I was writing of all the people I need to include when In Her Pocket goes to print, and I'm so glad! I live in fear of missing someone vital out and feeling awful afterwards.

#thrillerwriter #novelwriting #booksaremagic #readingbooks #reading by @zoeleawriter

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2 months ago