When I first started writing The Teacher, I knew I needed a setting that would heighten the tension of the story.
Somewhere ordinary, familiar, and close-knit—because domestic thrillers are at their most unsettling when the danger isn’t in some distant city, but right on your doorstep.
For me, that place was Bare.
Bare is a small village that sits snugly on the edge of Morecambe. It has its own rhythm and identity, a tight community where people know each other’s names, faces, and habits.
That closeness creates the perfect environment for a novel about secrets, whispers, and the kind of gossip that can tilt a family’s life off balance.
I know Bare well.
I spent many evenings at the Village Club when I was part of the Speakers’ Club. It’s one of those places where you get a real sense of the heartbeat of the community—locals gathering, stories being shared, and reputations made or broken over a pint.
It has the same warmth and camaraderie that makes Bare feel like home, but also the same intensity that means nothing stays hidden for long.
The geography of Bare also appealed to me.
You can wander along the promenade and in ten minutes find yourself at the Eric Morecambe statue, but somehow the village feels contained, almost like its own world.
The chippy, the pub, and the micro pub The Little Bare all serve as social anchors—places where people meet, watch, and talk.
For a writer, those spaces are goldmines: the chance encounters, the knowing looks, the snippets of conversation that ripple outwards until the whole village seems to be in on a story.
That sense of being watched, of living under a magnifying glass, runs through The Teacher.
Isabel Draper, my protagonist, has what looks like a perfect family life, until her daughter’s new teacher begins to creep into their world. He’s charming, dedicated, and admired by everyone.
Soon Olivia, Isabel’s daughter, is calling him her favourite teacher and sharing secrets she won’t tell her own mother.
As money goes missing, rumours spread, and social workers start asking questions, Isabel finds herself doubted by everyone around her.
Bare is the ideal stage for that unraveling.
In a small, self-contained community, one whisper can be as damaging as proof, and once a story takes root it’s almost impossible to shake.
By setting the novel here, I wanted to capture that claustrophobic intensity, where the promenade might offer views out to the wide expanse of the bay, but the village itself closes in tight.
The Teacher will be released on October 11.
It’s a story about family, trust, and the danger that comes when someone admired by everyone else is the very person you should fear.
