Meet the Author: Lexie Elliott

Lexie Elliott was born in Scotland. Her debut novel The French Girl was published in 2018. Her second novel The Missing Years was published in 2019. Lexie's latest book is entitled How to Kill Your Best Friend. It was published by Corvus on 2nd September and is also available through our catalogue.

1. Who were your heroes and influences as you were growing up and when did you first realise that you wanted to write?

I can’t remember not wanting to write. As soon as I understood that books were written by authors, that was what I wanted to be. I used to take my scribbled stories (usually about horses!) to my primary school teacher when I was all of seven years old. With regard to important influences, I was blown away by Margaret Atwood in my teenage years. Her anthology Wilderness Tips really opened my eyes as to what’s possible within the short story form and, as a result, for a long time I primarily wrote short stories.

2. Where did you get the original idea for The French Girl?

I had the idea for The French Girl years before I started work on the novel. When I was doing my doctorate, I went on a summer vacation to a farmhouse in France with a group of friends who were also students at Oxford University; nobody died, thankfully, but the idea came to me then. It was many years before I had both the time and the confidence to actually get started on writing it down.

3. Your latest novel is How to Kill Your Best Friend. Can you tell us a little about it?

How To Kill Your Best Friend is a psychological thriller, told through the eyes of Georgie and Bronwyn, who, together with Lissa, have been inseparable since dominating their college swim team. But Lissa, the strongest swimmer of them all, has somehow drowned off the coast of the fabulous island resort she owned with her husband. Brought together at the resort with Lissa’s closest friends for her funeral, the two women find themselves questioning the circumstances around her death, and as the weather turns ominous, trapping them on the island, nobody knows who they can trust…

4. In How to Kill Your Best Friend you effectively alternate the narrative between Bronwyn and Georgie. Was this a conscious decision before you started the book?

It was. I realised early on that I wanted to explore the relationship between the group’s central triumvirate of Lissa, Georgie and Bronwyn, and to do that, I needed to be able to show it from more than one point of view. The reader sees it through both Bronwyn and Georgie’s eyes, but there are also outside viewpoints that become apparent through comments from other members of the friendship group. I hadn’t written a dual narrative before, so it was an interesting challenge, and I think that helped to keep the writing of How To Kill Your Best Friend fresh and exciting for me.

5. Is there anything you can share with us about your latest project?

Not much, I’m afraid! I can tell you that its setting spans both the French Alps and Oxford, and that it explores some murderous intrigue among members of Oxford University academia, but that’s about it for now. I’m not even halfway through the first draft, so everything is fairly fluid at this point.

6. What is the best thing about being a published author?

At the risk of sounding corny, the best thing is interaction with readers. The idea that a tale, that once lived only in my head, has not only come into being on the page but has also struck a chord with a reader, is both thrilling and humbling. I’m always incredibly touched when someone takes time out of their life to reach out to tell me that they’ve enjoyed what I’ve written. I would write even if I what I produced wasn’t published, but the “being published” part is what gives me readers, and those truly are a gift.

7. Is there a book you have read that has changed your life or made you think differently?

I read L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables at exactly the right time—which is to say, repeatedly, from the age of 9 onwards! I think young girls in particular need strong role models they can identify with to give them permission to be themselves, and Anne’s intelligence, strength, fearlessness and compassion were perfect for me at a time when I was beginning to struggle with all of the insecurities that come with the onset of adolescence.

8. What is the best advice you were ever given?

With regard to writing, I don’t have a good answer. I seem to remember being given bad advice more than good advice! The bad advice I hear most often is that you need to write every single day—you don’t. You need to write often, and you need to take it seriously, but you shouldn’t beat yourself up if you can’t manage it every day. I consider myself a runner, but I don’t run every single day; rest and recuperation are good, too!

With regard to life in general, the best advice I’ve ever heard is that people will forget what you say and they will forget what you do, but they won’t forget how you made them feel. I frequently remind myself—and my kids—of that.

9. Can you tell us one thing about yourself that your readers may not know?

Here’s one thing which is actually relevant to this book: I swam the English Channel solo in 2007. I can tell you that it’s a very long way — it took me twelve and a half hours — and it’s a very cold swim! I was a competitive pool swimmer in my school and university years; I branched out into open water swimming when I was doing my PhD and loved it. I have a group of friends that I go on swimming holidays with, though the pandemic has obviously put paid to that of late. In any case, you can rest assured that I’ve truly done the research for the swimming-related aspects of this novel!