Folk singer and former BBC producer Jane Cassidy talks about her debut novel, The Desire Line

In a prescient parrallel, Jane’s gripping new psychological thriller, The Desire Line, which she began writing a decade ago, opens with a similar scenario – a woman arrives home from hospital to find her house in Islandmagee has vanished and her new friends are unsure if she is delusional or the victim of an audacious crime. But why would someone erase a house from the face of the earth? Maverick TV producer Jer McCabe sets out to solve the mystery and is drawn into a dark world of female malevolence and witchcraft.

Commenting on that visit back to her Co Down home that was no longer there, and the goosebumps-inducing parallel to her book, Jane said it felt like a “very prophetic moment”.

"I had written the story (The Desire Line) a few years ago originally and and then to have the same experience of seeing the house razed to the ground, I thought this is very creepy that I have foreseen this experience.”

A lady of many talents, Jane, who now lives in Belfast, may be familiar to readers for her folk singing, her plays and/or her broadcasting work.

When she was made redundant from her job at the BBC in 2012, a “painful process”, she decided it was an opportune time to follow her passion and write a book.

“If you had asked me in primary school what I wanted to be, I would have said ‘writer’. I was always good at English, but you are not really called upon to write anything creative, it’s all factual stuff and then in university it’s critical analysis of other people’s novels.

"I was a touring musician after I left university, then my kids came along, then I was working full-time in the media, so I never really got the time to concentrate on it. It was only when I was made redundant that I thought it’s now or never. That felt very daunting because I was at a very low ebb. I was in my mid-50s, I felt I’d never work again, there’s a feeling of mortality creeping up on you, my kids were leaving home and going to university. To pick myself up from that very low place was hard.”

Jane had always assumed the novel she would write would be a serious literary book, but that wasn’t to be.

“At that point, because I was at such a low ebb, the only thing that would distract me was thrillers. And I had never really read thrillers up to that point, but I just loved them. I got addicted to them. I found that if I finished a Michael Connolly, I needed another one.”

Because she was in a ‘dark place’, Jane decided she wanted to write “something very dark”.

"I felt I needed that strong plot and strong flavours and I wanted a sleuth whose head I could get into (to get out of my own).”

She had always imagined that if she were to write about a sleuth it would be a “female one, and someone quite feisty”.

"But it was a male sleuth (Jer McCabe) who walked out of my imagination fully formed. I really like him and I miss him when I’m not writing about him.”

Great thrillers get under your skin. They deal with primal emotions of fears and longings. And the Desire Line, set against the backdrop of Islandmagee, where in 1711 eight women went on trial for alleged witchcraft, holds the reader rapt at every turn.

One of the central characters, Helena, practises the Wicca religion — witchcraft – and believes in the power of three, where every negative thought or action will be returned by the power of three. It is not until the story nears its conclusion that the reader discovers if Helena is victim or villian.

Explaining why she chose Islandmagee, Jane said: “I have a friend who has a house there and I have visited a few times, and thought it was beautiful. I was surprised by how remote it felt, although it’s so near Belfast. When I was thinking of my story and I wanted Jer to give this strange woman Helena a lift somewhere, the whole idea of the house (not being there) was the starting point...so that sparked off a whole other theme and subplot.

​"I am fascinated by female power or soft power, and benevolence and witchcraft is such a rich seam to mine. I knew of the Islandmagee witches story and I went back and read Andrew Sneddon’s book again to remind myself about it all and of course the house (Knowehead) associated with that story is still there.”

Jane has secured a three-book deal with Poolbeg Press and her second novel will be published in June 2024.

"It’s fantastic, because I can imagine if you got one book published it would be a terrifying black hole to then start from scratch and write a second one. But the reality is that I had written two stories and submitted them to Poolbeg before they gave me the deal.

"I always set out to write a series, where you know your characters very well and you find a new calamity for them to react to.”

Her third book is already well underway. For the first draft, “where the good ideas” come, she’ll write in longhand.

"I sit in an armchair, with my feet up and a cup of tea beside me. I like the feeling of the pen on paper. It’s slower too. I can touch type on a keyword, but I think slowing down is good for me.

​"I enjoy writing and it does me good. It’s cathartic. I feel so much calmer and happier and in good form if I’ve done at least an hour a day. I imagine it’s kind of like meditation – that sense of focus and stilling yourself. I have a very restless mind and it spins off in all directions, so for me to sit down with a pen and a notebook and write, it slows me down to a lovely place where I can just enter the moment with my character and that’s where the best writing emerges I find."

Although, she admits there have been “knockbacks along the way”, Jane said her writing impulse was always so strong that she never gave up.

"It is a fascinating craft and now I am so much more aware when I read other writers of what’s working and what isn’t and why. From the first chapter of any thriller I pick up I know immediately if I am going to read any more or not, because that first chapter has got to grab you. If it doesn’t you’re on a hiding to nothing.”

Her goal when setting out to write the The Desire Line was clear.

“I wanted to create a book that people would miss when they finished reading it and would miss the characters.”

For those who have read it, that objective has been achieved.

The Desire Line by Jane Cassidy is published by Poolbeg Press, priced £13.99.