Be the first to see my new thriller… 👀

Hello!

I have one of my favourite jobs to do today, which is to reveal the title and cover of my latest book.

It's called....

The Holiday Swap

And here (drum roll, please!) is the cover:

Adrian has worked his usual magic and I'm thrilled with how it's looking.

I won't lie, deciding on a cover is one of the hardest parts of publishing a book.

It has to do so much: grab people scrolling through hundreds of other thrillers online, hint at the story without giving too much away, fit the genre but still be original, and hopefully make you, the reader, think, Oooh, I need to know what happens there.

I'd love to know what you think!

So what's it all about? Well, here's the official blurb:

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THE PERFECT HOLIDAY.

A PERFECT NIGHTMARE.

We’re broke.

The last thing we can afford is a holiday.

So when my husband Robin's wealthy boss offers to swap houses for the week, it feels too good to be true.

The Lookout is everything we could ever want: a stunning glass house perched high on the Kent cliffs overlooking the sea.

Then Robin's old friend Pete turns up drunk in the middle of the night. The next morning, I wake to find blood in the kitchen.

Pete is gone.

And Robin can't remember a thing.

As I try to piece together what happened that night, I realise this was never an innocent house swap. Someone wanted us at The Lookout. Someone is hiding the truth. And someone will stop at nothing to make sure I never uncover it.

Because our week by the sea was never just a holiday. Everyone had an agenda.

Everyone was keeping secrets and everyone was lying.

Even me.

---

This was such a fun book to write. Jen and Robin are just your average couple dealing with the kind of worries we all have - from paying the bills to facing redundancy.

But their problems get a whole lot bigger when they agree to the holiday swap with Robin's boss and best friend, the charismatic Scott Masters.

It's fast-paced, plot-driven and full of twists with a villain you'll love to hate. But at its heart it's a book about marriage and the lengths we're prepared to go to protect the ones we love.

I really hope you'll love spending a week at The Lookout, even if you probably wouldn't want to stay there in real life!

Unlike The Greek Island, this book is set much closer to home.

The story takes place on the spectacular Kent coast between Deal and St Margaret's Bay. Although it's an area I know well - my first job fresh out of school was as a junior reporter on the East Kent Mercury newspaper in Deal - Adrian and I drove down there for a little research trip back in May.

Here are a few of the places that inspired the book...

The manuscript has been read by my two beta readers, Rich and Kyle, who have said lovely things like:

'I was addicted!!'

'It reminded me of Freida McFadden's books.'

'Heart-thumping!'

'The perfect summer read.'

'What a brilliant premise.'

'I enjoyed the book immensely.'

Thanks, guys. I'll take that!

The book is now with my brand-new ARC (Advance Reader Copy) team, which means I'm currently doing that thing all authors do... checking my inbox every five flippin' minutes waiting for those first reader reactions to land.

Wish me luck!

As well as edits and proofreads, the last couple of weeks have also included one of my favourite events of the year - the Bookouture summer party at the beautiful St Pancras Renaissance Hotel in London.

It was lovely catching up with so many author friends, including Sue Watson, SE Lynes, Helen Phifer, Wendy Clarke, BP Walter, Daniel Hurst and Shalini Boland, as well as the wonderful Bookouture team who work so hard behind the scenes to get our books into readers' hands.

I have to pinch myself every time I get to meet authors I have long admired. Definitely one of the perks of the job.

The Holiday Swap will be going up for pre-order very soon and, as always, you'll be the first to know when it does.

I honestly can't wait to share this story with you.

Happy reading, and speak soon!

Amanda x

PS If you're looking for a holiday read before then and haven't dived into my sun-soaked thriller The Greek Island yet, you can download it here.