I am thrilled to have Heidi for a guest post today ~ thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources for organizing.
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Genre:Â Thriller
Publication Date: June 25, 2025
Estimated Page Count: 340
Standalone First book in a three book series
Author Content Warning: It is a serial killer story from a different angle, the killer rapes and mutilates teenage boys although there are minimal references to the crimes.
Writing The Other Boy has been a long process, four years since I began, and I have learned A LOT on route. In the beginning, Blair was the focus of the story, her mental collapse following the death of her son, but as I wrote I realized that the story I wanted to tell was the discovery of who her boy really was, the journey she and Scott needed to take to find out why their child made the choices he made, and what it showed them about themselves.
As with all stories, the book is about the relationships within it. Do you ever really know someone? What do you miss when you are too focused on your own path? As a parent, at what point do you pass the responsibility for choices made onto the child?The Other Boy is about parents and children, love and loss, regret, guilt and forgiveness.
I have written at least five drafts of this book. Blair had a sister, who was featured throughout, and was cut out entirely. I lost whole chapters and rewrote the ending multiple times. I have easily written four times the final word count. The challenge, for me, was deciding what worked and what didn’t. It is a skill that I will always need to work on and seek help with, and the feedback from beta readers and from my incredible editor, Sinclair, has been invaluable.
It is hard to see how characters, plot twists and dialogue will land with readers when you are so immersed in the process of writing. A fresh perspective is essential. I needed the criticism; the praise will come if the story deserves it.
One of the most difficult parts of writing, for me, is not getting side-tracked with research. I’m picking topics and stories that I find fascinating, and I can get lost for hours in the research. There’s not a lot I can’t tell you about serial killer accomplices from the last fifty years, who they are, what they did, what their lives were like growing up, their sentences, prison experiences and what has become of them.
In the end, you can’t rationalize an irrational act, and any attempts to understand the motivations of a killer are futile. The unique ingredients that came together to drive the choices of all the teenagers I read about are just that, unique. You cannot comprehensively unpick the steps that led to their crimes or recreate them.
Thrillers are thrilling because you don’t know what is coming next and it is almost impossible to predict how the villain will react. Psychological thrillers delve into the murky minds of the antagonist and feed into the insecurities of the protagonist, creating a melting pot of fear and desperation. I hope I have achieved this in The Other Boy.
Book blurb…
The Other Boy is a pulse-pounding psychological thriller with shocking twists that will keep you turning pages late into the night.
When the worst comes calling…
Scott and Blair Bagby are a happy, successful English couple living in the suburbs with their teenage son and Great Dane. Life seems good, until one beautiful spring morning when a detective inspector knocks on their door asking if their son is home, unleashing an unspeakable horror that blows apart the life they thought they had.
Police have discovered bodies buried deep in the Peasedale forest and the inspector suspects one is Jamie, the final victim of a brutal and prolific serial killer. But Jamie’s death is unlike all the others, starting with his emergency phone call that leads to a macabre burial ground near a dilapidated hunting shack and creates shocking suspicions.
With bone deep grief threatening to destroy their marriage and their sanity, Scott and Blair set out to investigate Jamie’s death, a journey that not only upends their perceptions of who they are, but torturously reveals they may not have known Jamie at all…
Purchase Links
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-other-boy-11
https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Heidi_Field_The_Other_Boy?id=Bk9OEQAAQBAJ&hl=en_US&gl=US
Author Bio –
Heidi Field was raised in the beautiful countryside of the South of England with her parents and her two sisters. In her twenties she was a freelance Sports Massage Therapist. She achieved a Degree in Zoology at the age of thirty and then went on to raise two boys and became the stepmother of three more young children. She still lives near her family home with her partner, their Great Dane and the children that have yet to fly the nest. In her early forties Heidi completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Winchester University. She entered the course hoping she would become a children’s fantasy writer and left with a burning desire to write contemporary mysteries and thrillers. Heidi wanted to put relatable people in extraordinary situations, challenge them, push them to their limits and watch them fight for their sanity. The Other Boy is her first novel.
Social Media Links –
My facebook author page is:
Heidi Field Author
@HeidiField11
@heidifield.bsky.social
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