It perhaps shouldn't be a surprise that for 'the superstar of psychological thrillers' Louise Candlish, the five books that changed her life are not for the faint-hearted.
It did rather surprise us, though, to hear that her nostalgic childhood favourite faced a rather grotesque fate in the hands of the young Louise! Albeit for a very sweet reason.
Louise, who celebrated 20 years as a writer last year, is best known as the author of Our House, which won critical acclaim, awards and sold over a quarter of a million copies – and was turned into an ITV drama series. Come with us as we get some inspiration for new reads, and learn a little more about one of our favourite writers.
"Ladybird’s illustrated fairy tales were my childhood bedtime stories and Rumpelstiltskin really fired my imagination. I confess to doing a weird thing – I scratched out the faces of the villains in the pictures. A psychologist has since told me this suggests an unusually well-developed sense of justice in an infant!"
"Orwell is a hero and I studied this for O level English Literature in 1984, which was cool. My geekier friends and I used Newspeak all the time, referring to things we liked – Crunchies, for instance – as ‘doubleplusgood’. It’s one of a handful of classics I reread every few years and there have been times when I’ve thought we’re getting scarily close to it becoming reality – which is doubleplusbad."
"As the perfect psychological crime novel, this is a source of inspiration. The story opens in post-war East Anglia on the morning of Vera Hillyard’s execution, then unravels the events that led to it. I read it soon after the success of Our House and it made me think, ‘OK, don’t go resting on any laurels, Lou. There is room for improvement.’"
"When I was 12 and something of a juvenile delinquent, I was grounded for a whole summer and only allowed out unsupervised to go to the library. The result was I read all of Agatha Christie’s novels in six weeks, favouring the ones with glamorous settings far removed from my bedroom prison. Evil Under the Sun has all the classic ingredients, and I love how British 1940s social niceties prevail, even among those characters who turn out to be quite deranged. I don’t think I would have become a writer without that summer of ‘Aggie’."
"Tom Wolfe is my all-time favourite writer, both for his exuberant style, and for the fact that he reminds me of the 1980s and 90s, which I think of as Arcadia, before phones captured us. I’m a sucker for a campus setting and love a cautionary tale of ambition, so this story of chippy Charlottefrom-the-sticks rising through the ranks fills me with evil glee."
READ LOUISE’S NEW BOOK
Notes on a Scandal meets Indecent Proposal in this slow-burn thriller. Gen Zer Pixie’s rental arrangements stir suspicion in her older neighbour Gwen, who narrates the consequences with chilling wryness.
Louise's new book is available now
You can find out more about Louise and delve into the 18 books that she's written at her website and follow her on Instagram.
This article first appeared in the August 2025 issue of woman&home magazine. Subscribe to the magazine for £6 for 6 issues.
