Miranda Kate - Engaging Psychological Thrillers

Miranda started out life wanting to be a film director, but when directing people didn't work, she turned to words instead, finding them much easier to deal with – most days. Miranda has been featured in several Flash Fiction anthologies and ezines, and published several books, including three collections, four novels, and a novella. She writes across genres, which include Horror, Science Fiction Fantasy, Time Travel and Paranormal Fantasy, often mixing them together – the one constant being that they are all dark. Under the pen name, M K Boers, she writes psychological thrillers. Miranda Kate, spent her early childhood in Surrey, in the south of England, and her teens and early adulthood moving round the UK, but currently resides in the Netherlands. As our Author of the Day, she tells us all about her book, Dead Lake.

Please give us a short introduction to what Dead Lake is about.

When Tricky has her Obsidian stolen while being evicted from her home, she doesn’t take it lying down. To get it back she comes up against the head of the district, Carter, and his corrupt dealings. Adept at working with energy and time, as well as communicating with trees, Tricky is drawn into something bigger than ownership of a gemstone.

Can you describe the initial inspiration behind Dead Lake and how the character of Tricky came to life?

For seven years I hosted a weekly writing event called Mid-Week Flash Challenge, where I would provide a picture prompt to inspire writers to write a piece of flash fiction (anything under 1000 words – or in the case of my challenge, under 750 words). I used it as a way to keep myself writing regularly. It helped me come up with fresh ideas and characters, and Tricky, the main character in Dead Lake, arrived in one of them. She then started to pop up regularly and once I had about twelve pieces, I realised she had a much larger story to tell. And once I wrote that I realised there was a series in her tales! This particular storyline is a trilogy, but I’m confident Tricky has more to tell me in the future.

Tell us more about Tricky. What makes her special?

Tricky is stubborn, brazen and loves flirting with men. She’s also very intelligent, well-educated, sharp-witted, and exceptionally gifted. She adores trees because she can communicate with them using energy, and her mother taught her how to manipulate time. She’s also very funny, and very persistent, and prides herself on being, as her nickname suggests, tricky. She does things her own way, and doesn’t like being committed or responsible for anyone or anything other than herself.

The world in Dead Lake is set in a post-apocalyptic future. What influenced your vision of this future world, and how did you go about creating its unique societal structure?

I’m an avid movie watcher, and I love a good disaster movie, especially end of the world ones like Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012 – the last of which really helped me visualise what sort of havoc a shift in the tectonic plates of the earth might wreak. And on top of that all the talk on climate change and none of our governments taking it seriously, and the rich thinking they are safe because they’ve bought into a contingency plan or built a bunker, it made me think about how it might look later when their greed can’t buy them anything anymore, because there isn’t either technology or the people with the knowledge about how to create it, especially when it’s the least of people’s worries. So I came up with how I thought a society might end up shunning all the things that caused such an event.

The antagonist, Randolf Carter, is portrayed as ruthless and power-hungry. What motivated you to create such a character, and how does he reflect the underlying themes of the book?

Randolf Carter is a man who wants power and attention. He believes he can have it all and control people, like most people in high positions, and he’s not alone which make him believe he is untouchable. This is a story about power play, and how the lead character gets caught up in it. Tricky isn’t one to get involved and be motivated to do things for the greater good, so this is a challenge for her, and we find out how she handles it – especially Carter.

Your writing has been compared to authors like Robin Hobb and Philip Pullman. How do you feel about these comparisons, and have these authors influenced your work?

I’ll be honest, I haven’t read either of those authors, though I know of them, so I can’t say they have influenced my work. I am, however, a big fan of Raymond E Fiest, and love the fantasy worlds he creates – and some of the darker sides of it. I’m actually an avid horror reader, my biggest influences being Stephen King, Clive Barker and James Herbert. Dead Lake does have a dark side to it, as does much of my writing.

The world-building in Dead Lake is richly detailed. How did you pull this off?

I’m not quite sure to be honest! I’m actually not a big planner, and don’t write detailed backgrounds on my characters or their worlds, but as I write, they either tell me through dialogue, or something comes up that I have to explain or explore. Tricky’s background and motivation in regards to Randolf Carter and the network he is involved in, stems from the traumatic event of seeing her mother burnt at the stake. This is key to the story, yet I’ve only alluded to it, rather than made it the focus. It also gives Tricky more emotional depth to explore, and explains more of her character and desire not to get attached to people and push away feelings.

Under the pen name M K Boers, you write psychological thrillers. What differences and similarities do you find in writing psychological thrillers versus paranormal fantasy?

Fantasy allows you to play more; you can make it up as you go along and stretch belief and bring in any concepts. In psychological thrillers they have to be more believable, and more real world, because they are real people and places within our present world.

What do you hope readers take away from Dead Lake and the Tricky’s Tales series as a whole?

Enjoyment of a fast paced story that makes you want to keep turning the page. Also I hope to breed a love of Tricky and her world, so people are excited to read more about her and her antics. And maybe they too will ponder what a world without our current day luxuries might look like.

You mentioned that you initially wanted to be a film director before turning to writing. How has your background and interest in film influenced your storytelling?

I studied drama in college and my first job was working backstage at a West End theatre in London. I love the thrill of a story being played out scene by scene. Structure and story arc are something I was taught, and help me understand how the thread of a story needs to be weaved through and kept moving forward. I also find dialogue much easier to write than descriptive pieces, and I think that is due to working with scripts. For me, when I write, I am translating a series of visual scenes in my head into words, and transcribing a conversation. The two for me are intertwined. And my ultimate dream would be to have one of my books made into a film and being involved.

What are you working on right now?

So many things! The most prominent being a collaboration with three other authors, where each of us will write a separate story set in the same world. Mine will be another Tricky tale, though she won’t be in her own world!

I’ve been gestating on two novels: one horror, one psychological thriller, the latter of which is taking form. It will be a psychological thriller set in the dark world of sex trafficking. The actual writing hasn’t started yet, only the research, which has been very unsettling.

And I’m working on a short story in Tricky’s world, which will be exclusive for my newsletter subscribers. I hope to have that ready soon.

Where can our readers discover more of your work or interact with you?

Many places:

Newsletter - https://purplequeenpublishing.eo.page/kn9nt

Bluesky Social - https://bsky.app/profile/purplequeenpub.bsky.social

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MirandaKateAuthor/

Website – www.mirandakateboersauthor.com