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Araminta Hall on obsessive love

'As humans we will never stop loving, just as we will never stop hating.' Araminta Hall, author of thriller Our Kind of Cruelty, on the mystery of obsessive love. 

Araminta Hall on obsessive love

Who, we ask ourselves, is it who steps over these lines? Who takes heart-break and anger and uses it as a weapon?

Writers of thrillers are however unduly fascinated by those tantalising moments. Who, we ask ourselves, is it who steps over these lines? Who takes heart-break and anger and uses it as a weapon? Who is it who wants to control or frighten? Who is it who won’t accept an ending and demands a resolution the other person doesn’t want? 

And, as readers, we are drawn to these stories because a little part of us wonders, could I be that person? What does it take to become that person? Sometimes things are just too tantalising not to experience and if we can do this vicariously through the characters in a novel, then we can get the thrill without the danger.

As humans we will never stop loving, just as we will never stop hating. For thriller writers and readers it is a heady cocktail when the two things collide, a cocktail which I can’t imagine ever ceasing to be relevant or compelling.

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