The Yacht

"A yacht is a smaller vessel whereas a cruise ship can be massive. In January, the biggest cruise ship ever was launched and sailed out of Florida. It can hold up to 10,000 people and has seven swimming pools and a water park. It’s just unbelievable. In this book, there are only six people on the yacht. I don’t know how much to give away! They plan to have a New Year’s party on deck in the harbor. There’s a helicopter on the yacht. They’ve got outside heaters and music going. There are lights, there are canapes and so much champagne, it’s untrue. It’s about three friends who have been close for years but are no longer friends in the same way. Two of them are rich, but one of them is not rich at all. There is tension between them. Some dreadful husbands are thrown into the pot as well. There are arguments and our protagonist—the poorer one of the group—decides to leave after the party in the morning. But she discovers a terrible secret about their situation, and they end up isolated and at sea. It’s a bit like Lord of the Flies . They’re locked in the middle of the sea with no food and no water, and they turn on each other. I don’t think I liked any of them — but I kind of loved them all, if that makes sense. I loved to hate them. It was like dominoes: one would do something terrible and then somebody else would do something even worse. It was very tense. It had everything. It had isolation, a small group, a locked room feel in that there was a small space with only a certain number of guests. It had jealousy. And it had extreme wealth. I was obsessed with it when I was reading. I couldn’t put it down. The book is supposed to be a thrilling, hooky read, the kind that keeps you guessing, but I wanted there to be some element of depth to the characters. One of my characters has been quite changed. I needed an event that bridged who she was to where she is now. She was taken hostage — kidnapped and held for ransom. I wanted to get her story right. I spoke to Hostage International, this amazing charity that do incredible work and they recommended some books that had been written by people who had been held hostage. I wanted to understand how others had been changed by such an experience. So even though it’s not given a vast amount of page space, I hope it’s a valid account of how somebody may change when something so huge happens to them. I also went on two cruises. I mentioned the one I went on straight after lockdown. I also managed to go on another one with a couple of friends and really discovered what isolation was like, because I caught COVID. I ended up on the medical deck. I couldn’t leave, I wasn’t even allowed to call room service to order a coffee. They had to bring set meals, and the medical staff would come along in a full hazmat suit, to deliver food, take my temperature, etc. every morning. I spent 48 hours isolated in the medical unit, and then I was ushered off the ship and a friend drove me home. So I felt that I really experienced isolation on the ship as well as enjoying the luxurious parts of it. Obviously, I saw the medical unit for myself, but the captain also gave us a tour of the bridge and talked me through the security measures. He told me how they would hold somebody they suspected of a crime, and what they would do in an emergency and if a body was to be found; also what the procedure is if somebody falls overboard. I felt confident I covered the research carefully. Hopefully it stands the test. Oh my god yes! As I was saying earlier, I love to hate the characters. You love to watch their downfall because you don’t find them very appealing or they’re slightly repellent. It’s really good watching them tip all the way down. The Scarmardos are awful. The dad enjoys his role as head of the family. He’s quite old-fashioned. He has that whole Italian machismo thing, ‘I am the man and my authority is key.’ I love all of that in him and he has it in spades. He has ruled his family with an iron fist and now, when they try to rebel, he’s got all the money so they can’t push back too far because they don’t want to be cut off. When he marries somebody who is younger than his eldest son, they all go mad with worry about their inheritance, but they can’t seem to be too angry because he demonstrates he will cut back on their allowances. They’ve got to knuckle down and any kind of hatred or anger they feel comes out through secrets, through actions they can’t be very public about. It was a lot of fun to write. I have two friends who have grown up next door to each other. They’re from a not-very-rich background — both their families worked at the local factory. They grow up having ice lollies on the back lawn, stealing their mother’s lipstick and having sleepovers on a Friday night. They watch richer people go skiing and decide to go to university together and change their lives. Then, when they finish university, they go traveling, and they crew on luxury yachts. That is how one of them is taken, and held hostage. It’s also how they suddenly have access to all of this finery in life that they’ve never experienced before. And so ultimately, after this terrible thing occurs, one of them ends up marrying a billionaire and the other one goes back home to lick her wounds. They haven’t spoken for three years — for reasons that will be unearthed in the novel… ‘Five Nights’ by Rachel Wolf is published by Head of Zeus at £9.99 as a paperback original today (29 February, 2024)"