Lucy V Hay (aka Lizzie Fry)
Lucy V. Hay aka Bang2write is a script editor, author and blogger who helps writers. Lucy is the script editor and advisor on numerous UK features and shorts. She has also been a script reader for over 15 years, providing coverage for indie prodcos, investors, screen agencies, producers, directors and individual writers. Publishing as LV Hay, Lucy’s debut crime novel, The Other Twin, is out now and is being adapted by Agatha Raisin producers Free@Last TV. Lucy is also Lizzy Fry whose fantasy thriller debut, The Coven, was published in 2021. Her latest, The Good Mother, is out now with Joffe Books.
Books by me
Toxic
"What if you had to make a choice as a teenager that had ramifications that lasted the rest of your life? In Toxic, I wanted to explore peer pressure and bullying via 'mean girls' and 'queen bees' - something any teenage girl can relate to! In this book, my protagonist Jasmine is invited to a party and she must decide whether she goes or not. Seemingly an innocuous choice at first, it gets more and more complicated and unearths some horrific consequences for poor Jasmine and her best friend, Olivia. "
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The Other Twin
"Consequences is a frequent theme in my books and we see it here too, in this dark mystery set in Brighton. When Poppy Wade's troubled sister India dies falling from a railway bridge, everyone assumes it is suicide. Yet India has left a blog that publishes on her death which implicates nearly everyone they know, including Poppy's ex-boyfriend Matthew and even their own parents. Poppy must track down the mysterious 'Jenny' also mentioned in the blog to discover what really happened to India."
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The Coven
"The first book I wrote under my Lizzie Fry pseudonym, The Coven is a dystopian fantasy thriller set in a world just like ours but in which up to 50% of women have some form of magic. The Trumpian-like president of the United States does not like this one bit - and declares all forms of magic illegal, with his shadowy cabal The Sentinel attempting to enforce this world-wide. When she is targeted by Sentinel, a young witch must go on the run with her father, a rogue Sentinel officer and an older witch who has broken out of prison. "
Buy this bookBooks that influenced me
Imajica
"Imajica is one of the few fantasy novels I’ve read, plus it’s a rare book I read more than once. Barker himself considers it to be his best work and I am inclined to agree. Covering such themes as God, gender, sex and death, Barker creates a storyworld that is meticulous in its detail. I absolutely love Barker’s theory of parallel worlds and how there are five dominions … Earth is ‘The Unreconciled Dominion’. Most of Earth inhabitants are unaware of the other four dominions because we no longer believe in magic. I adored the journey dual protagonists Gentle and Jude take in this book."
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The Fireman
"This is one of my favourite pandemic thrillers ever, written back in 2010. That’s right, this book is set in a pandemic, but it ain’t like Covid … Instead the unfortunate people who catch ‘Dragon Scale’ spontaneously COMBUST. When pregnant nurse (and keyworker!) Harper catches the disease, she wants to live long enough to deliver her baby. She’s heard of ‘The Fireman’, a guy who can apparently control the flames and NOT die. She sets out in search of him, along with allies … and her mad ex-husband on her tail. This is such a rich storyworld, filled with three-dimensional characters and commentary on important themes."
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The Hunger Games trilogy
"Everyone knows this one, Katniss Everdeen is another iconic character … and rightly so. What’s unusual about her is she is NOT just another ‘kickass hottie’. She’s nuanced and layered, plus the book’s commentary on mental health is fantastic. I love the movies too. The difficult relationship Katniss has with her mother is so well drawn but does not blame her mother directly, but the system … Katniss feels let down in having to grow up ‘too soon’. This gives her an inflated sense of responsibility and drives her character arc. She tries to save everyone and crucially, doesn’t always succeed. As someone who wants better mental health representation in fiction, I find myself thinking about Katniss a lot when I am writing. "
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The End of the World Running Club
"When meteorites hit the UK, Edgar and a small group of others get left behind when everyone else is taken to Cornwall, so they can escape to the continent away from our little wrecked island. Roads are impassable, all the helicopters at the military base have left. This means Edgar and his friends must literally RUN, on foot from Scotland to the Westcountry to be reunited with their families. On the way this band of misfits have to face unbelievable peril as the whole country goes completely Mad Max. What I particularly like about this book is it really plays with our expectations when it comes to characters. Grimes, our boss soldier in charge is a woman, for starters. Bryce, a big bear of a man who lived like an overgrown student before the asteroids hit, is super emotionally literate. This is in comparison to antihero Edgar, the supposed family man. I love it when fiction subverts expectations. "
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Twilight
"This one is a real 'Marmite' book, but I love the concept behind this story … It’s basically Romeo And Juliet for teenagers, only Romeo is a vampire. A bombproof central concept! Also, the world-building is fantastic. My favourite has to be the notion vampires don’t need to breathe … so they sink to the bottom of the ocean and walk across the seabed to other countries. Love it."
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Just What Kind of Mother Are You?
"In Just What Kind of Mother Are You?, Paula Daly explores the dark side of motherhood, as her protagonist tries to come to terms with the fact she has LOST someone else’s child! I love this book, which became part of the TV series starring Anna Friel, Deep Water (2019). The novel is full of twists and turns, as the protagonist’s search for the truth leads her down some unexpected paths. Along the way, she comes to question her own role as a mother, and whether she is really cut out for the job."
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Gone Girl
"Another ‘Marmite book’, Amy Dunne has kicked open the doors for more complicated lead characters. Some industry pros even go so far as to call it ‘The Gone Girl Effect’. Of course, Amy Dunne was not the first female lead to laugh in the face of the label ‘likeable’. There were lots of classic, iconic UNlikeable female leads. Film Noir is the most obvious, especially with its ‘femme fatales’. If you’re a fan of hardboiled crime fiction from the 1950s (and I am), then you’ll find them in novels, too. But I love Amy because she gave me the confidence to write my own 'UNlikeable' female leads. "
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