Adele Parks on Eyes on You and love in 2026

If I met you in an elevator and we were travelling a few floors together I might try to pitch to you, my new suspense thriller, Eyes On You I would tell you that it is about a brutal murder, a broken witness, a dangerous obsession and that Amy, our traumatised but resilient, protagonist is all three of those things. Humans are complex, we can be many things at once. We’re formed by all our experiences, relationships, memories and secrets. When Amy was just 15, she watched her father brutally murder his secret lover. Her testimony put him behind bars for a very long time. She’s basically very troubled.

We meet Amy age 32, just when her father might be eligible for parole. Unsurprisingly, after that childhood trauma, Amy hasn’t reached her full potential but lives in the shadow of that infamous night. She works in a grotty, noodle bar; she’s wasted away her twenties in shock and shame hiding from the notoriety of the crime, she’s set to do the same with her thirties. Given the chance, therapists would have a lot to investigate, but she’s a loner and doesn’t let anyone in, personally or professionally. However, that is about to change when a stranger walks into the restaurant where she works. Oliver Harrington also has a past he’d rather not dwell on; he too is an example of trauma shaping identity. The pair feel an instant attraction, that mercurial, much sought after, once in a lifetime fascination with each other. They bond so intensely that it feels like love. But is it?

In this book I wanted to dive deep into what we think love is now in 2026; a complex, much-therapized, emotionally intelligent, extremely exposed, cynical world. I’ve written a particularly dark and twisty psychological suspense novel which is very character based. The more I investigated this matter, the more questions I had on how love can turn dangerous. What is the difference between extreme sexual attraction and being ‘in love’? I drew the conclusion that love is just a blink away from obsession, it is basically a matter of reciprocity. And stalking? The insidious companion to obsession, what’s that about? How do people justify such extremities in the name of love? 

In Eyes On You I write from various points of view, all the narrators consider themselves reliable, but are they? How do people who behave as wildly as they do in my novel – crossing moral, socially acceptable and even legal lines - justify their actions and see themselves as reasonable? I want readers to ask whether we ever truly know anyone, including ourselves. 

Eyes On You also looks at the themes of truth and perspective. I know there’s a fashion for ‘my truth’ or ‘their truth’, an acceptance that truth is subjective sometimes; I’m wondering if we’ve dismantled facts so much that there is no longer such a thing as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If there is, I believe the reader is going to find it, not my characters who are as previously mentioned unreliable, far too good at telling themselves what they want to hear! I’m depending on you to sort through their dark minds and work it out. Who can you trust? 

This novel is fast paced and has multiple layers of secrets, secrets kept from the world, secrets kept within families, and secrets people keep from themselves. This meant I certainly challenged myself with plotting; constantly having to keep in mind who knows what about whom. Most of the time, readers know more than the characters do, although (I hope) not always and not everything because I’m here to entertain and I want you to gasp at some of the twists as you dig down. 

I often write about ordinary families who find themselves in extraordinary situations. Before Amy’s dad murdered his mistress in a jealous rage, she had believed her family were living a perfectly average, happy-enough life. She had no idea her father was having an affair. She thought he was a wonderful dad. I believe if readers relate to the characters starting point, they feel invested and perhaps, in some cases, even sympathetic when things get complicated. It was interesting to explore the way trauma echoes down through families and across generations. The idea behind this story is that whilst we don't choose our families or our history, we can choose what we do with what we inherit. I’m a believer in freewill. 

Eyes on You by Adele Parks (HQ HarperCollins) out 27th August 2026

Be afraid. Someone’s watching. At fifteen, Amy witnessed her father brutally murder his secret lover. Her testimony sealed her father’s fate. With him in prison, Amy and her mother must rebuild their lives in the shadow of a notorious crime. Years later, Oliver Harrington walks into the restaurant where Amy works. Just like Amy, Oliver has a past he’d rather forget. Amy is drawn to him at a profound level; they feel a connection, an understanding… This seems a lot like love, but does it hide something darker – an obsession that could lead Amy into a web of deception and violence she thought she’d escaped? As the truth looms ever closer, Amy must confront a harsh reality: where there is love, there is often betrayal.

More information about Adele Parks can be found on her website. You can also find her on X @adeleparks.and on Instagram @adele_parks.

National Crime Reading Month

 

National Crime Reading Month Returns this June 

with Bestselling Authors

Lives of Crime: The Compelling Power of Dark and Twisty Tales

The national charity The Reading Agency and the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has a cunning plot to get the nation reading.

This June, the partners in crime invite the nation to step into the shadows and discover how crime fiction turns us into voracious readers.

National Crime Reading Month (NCRM) is a month-long festival of reading that takes place every June, hosted by the CWA with The Reading Agency.

This year it opens with an exclusive online panel, The Lives of Crime, featuring bestselling crime authors.

On 4 June at 6pm, the CWA chair and bestselling author, Vaseem Khan, will host authors Fiona Cummins, Adele Parks, and Penny Batchelor in the free online panel event. The authors bring their unique perspectives on crafting addictive mysteries that hook new readers and reel them into the world of reading.

It will kick start over a hundred local author events and talks that run throughout June across the UK and Ireland, which take place in libraries, theatres, bookshops and online.

Readers are asked to keep an eye on the website www.crimereading.com as new events are added throughout the month, as readers are encouraged to #PickUpAPageTurner.

Events have been announced in libraries up and down the country, from Hillingdon Libraries Crime Festival in Ruislip featuring Rev Richard Coles, Nicci French, Elly Griffiths and Mark Billingham, to Blood in t’ Dales with an author panel and Q&A in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, featuring Catherine Yaffe and L.K. Pang.

Karen Napier, CEO, The Reading Agency said: “Through our reading advocacy work, we know how important crime fiction is both for lifelong reading lovers and for those who are just starting out on their reading journey. Thanks to its structured plot-driven narratives, crime fiction often rights wrongs and solves mysteries so we experience a sense of justice and resolution in the pages of a novel, which we often can’t find in the real world. This is part of its huge appeal.”

Regular reading has far-reaching social impacts; improving health, wellbeing, life chances and social connections.

Research from The Reading Agency, who work across the UK to empower people of all ages to read, shows that adults who read for just 30 minutes a week are 20% more likely to report greater life satisfaction. However, only half (50%) of adults now read regularly, and 1 in 10 find reading difficult.

The Lives of Crime panel will explore the genre's universal appeal - from psychological thrillers to cozy mysteries – and how it creates accessible pathways to reading for audiences who might otherwise never discover the joy of books.

Linda Mather, the CWA NCRM Liaison, said: “Crime fiction's straightforward language, compelling characters, and twisting narratives make it an ideal gateway for new readers. This exciting launch panel for NCRM will discuss how these elements combine to create stories that are both intellectually stimulating and accessible to diverse reading experiences and abilities.”

Linda added: “Whether you're a long time crime fiction aficionado or curious about the genre's remarkable ability to create new readers, this event offers insights into how these masters of suspense craft stories that refuse to be put down and welcome everyone to the reading table. The panel will also talk about how crime fiction is evolving as a genre and responding to our rapidly changing world.”

Join online for an evening of murderous inspiration and literary conversation that celebrates how crime fiction breaks down barriers and opens doors to the power of reading.

Admission is free. Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lives-of-crime-the-compelling-power-of-dark-and-twisty-tales-tickets-1328044108679?aff=oddtdtcreator

SlaughterFest 2022

Slaughterfest the crime writing festival curated by internationally bestselling author Karin Slaughter is back! 

Adele Parks on Understanding unlikeable characters

 

Since many readers’ reviews mention whether they like a character or not, there is clearly a percentage of readers that want characters to be likeable and I think by extension reliable – but I am not convinced. I believe ‘Nice’ characters can be a bit dull (to read and write, although awesome to befriend in real life!!). Affable, accommodating, goodies would not necessarily provide the other things a reader hopes for in a novel: a sense of pacey jeopardy, fear and threat in the plot and a feeling of discovery, astonishment and shock, for example, may have to be sacrificed. Why? Not because nice is intrinsically dull, but because the majority of us are ‘nice’ or at least ‘nice enough’. I’d go as far to say that many of us are really rather likeable and therefore that type of character is familiar and known to us and as such they simply may not be as compelling.

Unlikeable protagonists are often unreliable narrators. I think that’s true in real life. Personally, I’ve had too many leading men that have had just a casual relationship with the truth. However, it is completely thrilling to be entertained, teased and cajoled by an unreliable narrator between the pages of a book. Understanding the psychology behind the unreliable narrator is fascinating. Humans are a complex mash on a sliding scale of morality. I think that’s what often propels a novel’s plot. So many thrillers are dependent on unlikeable characters or unreliable narrators. A guilty pleasure, they fascinate us and leave us breathless. I love writing the colder, crueller beings. They are great plot drivers, and also it is exciting to explore the mentality of outliers in society. Because of my love of a baddie, it may come as no surprise to you that in my novel Both of You there are a plethora of likeable and non-likeable characters. I have drawn some good, likeable characters who do bad things, as well as some bad, unlikeable people who do good things. To keep you guessing I have some utterly despicable people doing absolutely abysmal things too. Here are some of my favourite unlikeable leads!

Zoe Hellers’ Notes on a Scandal 

In this novel the protagonists are both unlikeable, I can’t dress it up. They’re not people I’d want to be friends with and yet Barbara and Sheba are undoubtably powerful, persuasive and utterly fascinating. Barbara is embittered, self-deceiving, devious, vengeful and cruel. Sheba, is emotionally erratic and whilst charismatic enough to initially beguile, she is at the end of the day, an adulterer who has a relationship with a sixteen year old boy, an incredibly uncomfortable thing to digest! Nonetheless, this perceptive, surprising novel resists knee-jerk conventional moral judgements. 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

In Gone Girl I’d argue neither protagonist turns out to be particularly likeable (sorry, spoiler!). However, the thriller was so successful and popular it arguably spawned an entire genre. An incredible commercial success, the title lingered on bestseller lists all over the world for many months. Flynn’s protagonists are not only shocking and unlikeable, they are also unreliable narrators. The effect created is mystifying and exciting by turn. The reader is invited to be a voyeur on a hideously dysfunctional marriage. Flynn ratchets up the tension with every page turned, the reader is absorbed in unexpected plot twists and teased by contradictory accounts. I promise you, none of that would have been achieved if Nick and Amy had been nice people! We are fascinated by them because they are just very, very bad.

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

When I read this novel, I actually fainted. The full-on Victorian maiden thing. I was just that terrified of the bitter, soulless, pornographic step-by-step commentary of the sex scenes, and the uncompromisingly unemotional accounts of torture and mutilation. I loathe the protagonist. I am terrified of him, horrified by him. As a person Bateman has absolutely no redeemable features what-so-ever, as a character he is literally so bad, he is good. Irredeemably evil and totally unlikable yet compelling as a character. 

Both of You by Adele Parks (HarperCollins) Out Now

Leigh Fletcher: happily married stepmum to two gorgeous boys goes missing on Monday. Her husband Mark says he knows nothing of her whereabouts. She simply went to work and just never came home. Their family is shattered. Kai Janssen: married to wealthy Dutch businessman, Daan, vanishes the same week. Kai left their luxurious penthouse and glamorous world without a backward glance. She seemingly evaporated into thin air. Daan is distraught. DC Clements knows that people disappear all the time - far too frequently. Most run away from things, some run towards, others are taken but find their way back. A sad few never return. These two women are from very different worlds, their disappearances are unlikely to be connected. And yet, at a gut level, the DC believes they might be. How could these women walk away from their families, husbands and homes willingly? Clements is determined to unearth the truth, no matter how shocking and devastating it may be.

Both of you can be bought on Amazon.