Amanda Cassidy claims move from journalism to writing fiction felt 'natural' as she releases third book

AMANDA CASSIDY is a woman on a mission.

The Irish author, born in Kildare and now based in Dublin, is determined to write a book every year and to keep the themes and characters fresh, new and exciting with every new title.

Having spent the bulk of her career so far working as a journalist, Cassidy is relatively new to the world of fiction writing. But that has not held her back.

No, since she launched her first crime thriller Breaking in 2022, she has turned out a new book every twelve months.

And what is most striking about that feat is that there are no sequels or series here, instead each title comes with its very own – and very different – story.

The plots are entirely different, the locations are many miles apart and the characters are in no way connected. Which is all part of Cassidy’s plan.

Having formerly spent years working for Sky News, Cassidy is still a freelance journalist and commissioning editor.

But she has gradually moved across to becoming a full-time author – something she says was always in her, just waiting for its moment.

“I have always been a storyteller, even when I was younger,” she told The Irish Post.

“I think my parents read to me a lot when I was a child, I had a very vivid imagination and I kept a journal,” she explains.

“I just spent a lot of time imagining what my life might be like if x, y or z happened.

“So, I think the move [to writing fiction] was kind of natural after I spent some time as a journalist.

“It seemed natural that I would return to that imaginative play and magical thinking. I love it, it is quite cathartic for me and a great form of escapism.

“So now I am doing less and less freelance,” she adds.

“I do it to keep my toe in it, as I really enjoy it, especially the travel journalism, and it definitely does feed my work as a writer, but I am increasingly embracing life as a fulltime writer and I am really enjoying that.”

Since publishing her debut novel Breaking in 2022, which saw Cassidy shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger award, she released her second thriller The Returned in 2023, and August 1 will see her third book The Perfect Place hit the shelves.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Cassidy has already finished her fourth novel, which will be bookshop-ready in time for summer 2025 and is in the planning stages for book number five.

“I plan to write a book a year,” the career-minded author admits.

“I really like jumping on to something brand new,” she explains.

“After The Returned people were wondering if there would be a sequel because the character in it seemed quite memorable through the feedback I got.

“But I want to live a hundred lives, I just want to jump on to the next idea,” Cassidy says.

“And once I had closed the door on The Perfect Place, I was really happy to move onto the next idea.

“My next book is about a prison break which is a completely different departure, and my fifth book will be completely different again.

“I just love starting afresh and living a new life through my character each time.”

In her first book Cassidy explored themes of motherhood and guilt.

Set in the Florida Keys, Breaking tells the tale of a child who goes missing from a beach while her mother is enjoying a drink at the beach bar.

Critics described it as a “rich, gut-punch of a crime thriller” and it proved a powerful debut for the fledgling author.

More praise was to follow when Cassidy published The Returned last year.

The tale of arson and abduction, set in a rural Co. Kerry village full of dark secrets, drew readers in from the get-go and grew the author’s fanbase further.

For 2024, Cassidy’s third offering, The Perfect Place, is set in a haunted chateau in France.

The main character is an interiors influencer who has bought and is setting about renovating the chateau despite their being some unnerving strings attached.

“I actually lived in a haunted chateau when I was in college for a summer,” Cassidy explains.

“So, it is something that I always really wanted to come back to and write about.”

“Well, we were told it was haunted,” she adds, “and I am a bit of a cynic, but there were a few incidents that happened that made me question that,” she says.

“There was a dip on the bed one evening and things going missing, so I don’t know what it was, but it was very atmospheric.

“I am still not sure what really happened.”

Cassidy was 21 then and living in Italy at the time.

“That was a very very long time ago, when I lived in Italy for a year,” she explains.

“So even though this book is set in France, it was my experience at an Italian chateau that really shaped it.”

When it comes to her books, locations really matter to the author.

“Place is so important to me, and the destination of my novel,” she says.

“I have done a lot of travel as a travel journalist, so I am always trying to revisit those areas.

“I’ve just finished my fourth book, but I am now working on my fifth book, and I am planning on setting it in the Maldives,” she adds.

Research also matters to Cassidy, who spent time with her family in the south of France before she began writing The Perfect Place, and also spent time with her influencer friends to get a sense of what life is like for them behind the screen.

“I went to the south of France ahead of writing the book just to get the details right,” she says.

“I think that is really important and there is only so much you can get by going on Google maps or by you tubing vineyards.

“So, I went I brought my daughters, and we went to vineyards and we just had an amazing experience, but it really drilled down a lot of the details for me for the novel.”

She adds: “I also know a few influencers myself and am always influenced by things I see, especially on Instagram, so I was kind of interested in looking at that through a different lens for this book.

“Research-wise I had seen a lot of the front facing influencers and what they want to present, but I was always curious about what was really behind the scenes.

“So, I got to spend some time with a few friends of mine who are influencers and got an idea of the analytics that are involved in it.

“I really wanted to look behind that curtain and lift that veil.”

So will Cassidy stick with the crime thriller genre or can we expect any plot twists in her own story?

“As a writer I really should be able to write anything,” she says.

“Being a journalist trains you to write everything from human interest to crime.

“I think I stopped at crime as I worked as a crime journalist for Sky News for so long and so often you would see these awful things happening and wonder ‘God, imagine that happened’.

“So, there was definitely a form of working it through and processing it through imagination for me.

“But I would love to write a sweeping romance novel in the future, and I still write poetry.

“I feel like if you are a writer, you are a writer. So yes, there could be more to come in a different genre in the future.”

Now that she is firmly in the swing of her fiction writing career, Cassidy has had time to reflect on what she likes and dislikes most about it.

“The best thing about this type of writing is playing with the shape of it,” she says.

“You know, I very much see writing as art and I think as you shape a novel it takes on a form and then you can step back and look at it as an entire thing.

“I find it really interesting that you can do that with words, that you can play around and shape something and make people feel something and that’s really why I write, to connect.

“I want people to feel something from my writing and my work, whether that is feeling frightened or feeling something eerie is going on, or for them to just cry, as many people did at the end of The Returned – from the feedback I got, I learnt there was a lot of tears.”

What has been more challenging for Cassidy is to let others in on her writing process.

“One of the biggest challenges of writing novels, is having feedback from others, as in working with editors,” she says.

“I am always used to working by myself and self-editing,” she explains.

“As a commissioner editor I have never had that extra element of it, so it’s challenging but I also love it because now I really see the value of editors’ work.

“I had never really appreciated that before, they really bring s book to life alongside the writer.”

And what advice would she give anyone hoping to move into the world of fiction writing?

“I think I wrote out a lot of bad writing at the start, and even in my early days as a journalist too,” she says.

“Start writing as much as you can because naturally you will write out the self-conscious writing and get rid of it and then you will slowly move on to really strong writing.

“I am a big believer in writing every day and reading a lot too.

“I read a lot of books, you don’t have to, but I do read a lot and I do think that really helps a lot.”

The Perfect Place by Amanda Cassidy is available from August 1, published by Canelo.