The Beaten Track by Louise Mangos

She thought she was home safe, but trouble followed her all the way back.

After her stalker takes his life and she’s jilted by a holiday lover, Sandrine comes home from her round-the-world backpacking trip perturbed, penniless, and pregnant.

When she meets handsome Scott, he offers her love, security, and all she and her new baby could ever wish for.

But their dream is about to turn into a nightmare.

Louise Mangos recently spent some time with The Big Thrill discussing her latest Suspense, THE BEATEN TRACK:

What do you hope readers will take away from this book?

In a time when travel has been restricted due to a world pandemic, THE BEATEN TRACK takes the reader back to a time when a carefree journey around the world was possible. Readers can vicariously travel with Sandrine, who is unaware of any impending danger, from the comfort of their armchair.

Louise Mangos

How does this book make a contribution to the genre?

THE BEATEN TRACK is a suspenseful psychological thriller containing themes of obsession, stalking, and murder.

Was there anything new you discovered, or surprised you, as you wrote this book?

I travelled extensively in my youth and wanted to use some of the adventures recorded in my journals in the narrative of this multi-setting suspense. I was surprised how each location came back to me so clearly, and how easy it was to adapt the sense of menace to the narrative as though each setting became a character in itself.

No spoilers, but what can you tell us about your book that we won’t find in the jacket copy or the PR material?

Sandrine’s journey takes her from Switzerland to San Francisco, Hawai’i, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Nepal, and back to Europe.

What authors or books have influenced your career as a writer, and why?

Teresa Driscoll, Sarah Vaughan, Louise Candlish, and Gillian Flynn are suspense writers who have influenced the direction of my crime writing. Ian McEwan is one of my favourite writers, and he has been able to cross the boundary of pretty much every genre in all his novels. I’d love to see more blurring of the lines between genres which are mostly driven by marketing.

Is there a question that you feel is important to you and/or your novel? Write it in below, but be sure to answer it too!

Q: If the settings are all real places you have travelled to, how much of the narrative is pulled from personal experience in the novel?

A: I pretty much followed the protagonist Sandrine’s journey in the novel in the eighties and experienced many of the adventures she had, even down to a bout of dengue fever in Thailand. But the antagonist in THE BEATEN TRACK is entirely fictional.

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Louise Mangos writes novels, short stories, and flash fiction, which have won prizes, placed on shortlists, and have been read out on BBC radio. Her short fiction has appeared in more than twenty print anthologies and magazines. THE BEATEN TRACK is her third suspense novel. Louise holds a masters in crime writing from the University of East Anglia. She lives on a Swiss Alp with her Kiwi husband and two sons.

To learn more about the author and her work, please visit her website.