Striking fear into the hearts of her readers is of the utmost importance to S.J. (Sharon) Bolton. The author of five successful thrillers, her aim is to terrify: “I love scaring people. For me a book will work if, from the very first page or two, the reader is on edge. If you’ve created that atmosphere of doom, that something is going to go horribly wrong, you can almost feel those fingernails scratching down the windowpane,” she explains, when we meet in her cosy kitchen in a village on the outskirts of Oxford. Bolton carved out a distinctive niche with her 2008 debut Sacrifice, the first of three thrillers (followed by Awakening and Blood Harvest) often described as “rural gothic”.