"Louise Candlish, the acclaimed author, attributes her career as a writer to that transformative summer of Aggie. She reveals the five influential books that shaped her life in literature."
Louise Candlish, the acclaimed author of psychological thrillers, has revealed her literary influences that have shaped her writing style and character development.
As a child, Candlish's love for stories began with Ladybird's illustrated fairy tales. A peculiar habit of hers was scratching out the faces of the villains in the pictures, a trait a psychologist later suggested indicated an unusually well-developed sense of justice in an infant.
The summer she was grounded at the age of 12, Candlish delved into the works of Agatha Christie, finishing all her novels in six weeks. She particularly favoured the ones with glamorous settings. This experience, she believes, played a pivotal role in her becoming a writer.
Candlish's influences extend to more contemporary works as well. She has cited Anne Tyler’s Pulitzer-winning novel Breathing Lessons as a source of inspiration for its rich character development and themes of forgiveness and acceptance. Candlish calls it a “tonic for weary female souls.”
Zoë Heller’s Notes on a Scandal is another book that resonates with Candlish, with its portrayal of manipulative, layered characters. Agatha Christie's The Murder at the Vicarage, the debut novel featuring Jane Marple, is also a significant influence, providing insights into character camouflage and subtle strength in older women.
Discussions about Candlish's writing style and process reveal a deep engagement with character-driven storytelling in the thriller genre. Her works, such as Our House - which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, won critical acclaim, awards, and sold over a quarter of a million copies, and was turned into an ITV drama series - reflect this engagement.
Other notable influences include George Orwell's "1984", which Candlish studied for O level English Literature and still rereads every few years. One of her favourite books is "Evil Under the Sun" by Agatha Christie, a classic mystery novel that features British 1940s social niceties, even among deranged characters.
More recently, "The Wicked and the Dead" has served as inspiration for Candlish, considered a perfect psychological crime novel. And in her younger days, Candlish and her geekier friends used Newspeak, a language from "1984", to refer to things they liked.
These literary influences have undoubtedly contributed thematically and stylistically to Candlish's depiction of nuanced characters, especially women navigating complex personal and social dynamics.
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