KAREN’S KILLER BOOK BENCH: Welcome to Karen’s Killer Book Bench, where readers can discover talented new authors and take a peek inside their wonderful books. This is not an age-filtered site, so all book peeks are PG-13 or better. Come back and visit often. Happy reading!

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HONEYCOMB
Seven Days. Six Strangers.
One Experimental Drug.
BY S. B. CAVES

Blurb

Big Brother meets Black Mirror in this high-concept thriller in which six strangers take part in a mysterious medical experiment in an isolated mansion. 

Amanda Pearson was once the hottest rising star in the music world. Not anymore. Washed up, broke and directionless following a public breakdown, she is certain she will never be adored again. But she is very wrong.

Her old manager calls her out of the blue with an opportunity: a week’s stay at an isolated mansion with five strangers, all under constant observation. Every day they must take a pill. Five people will be taking a placebo, but one person will take an experimental drug that they are assured has no adverse side effects. So, what’s the catch? Amanda isn’t sure, but the pay is too tempting to turn down.

However, it soon becomes clear that this is no ordinary experiment. Each day Amanda discovers more about her fellow housemates, that the old mansion holds horrifying secrets, and that there is no way out…

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Before we get started talking about your writing, tell us a little about yourself, where you’re from, what you do for a living (if you’re not a full-time writer) what hobbies you have, etc. Whatever you’d like to share to introduce yourself.

My name is S.B. Caves, and I am the author of I Know Where She Is (2017), and A Killer Came Knocking (2019), and my new high-concept thriller novel, Honeycomb, is out in July. I was born and raised in London, where I currently live with my wife and two sons. When I’m not reading and writing, I enjoy watching retro horror films from the 70s and 80s, and bingeing thriller shows and true crime documentaries.

1. What genre(s) do you write and why?

I tend to write dark thrillers that lean into horror. I’ve always enjoyed scary stories, going back to when I was a kid renting obscure horror films from my local corner shop in north London. I really enjoy stories that place ordinary people in threatening situations, where the tension continues to escalate. For me the best type of thriller novels are the ones that intimidate and unnerve the reader, so that’s what I try to write.

2. If you were to choose one superpower, what would it be?

The obvious answer would be to fly or turn invisible, but I think the ability to not need sleep would be great – I could get so much done! Though, knowing me I’d probably just spend the extra time reading books.

3. Do you ever get stuck when you’re writing a book? What do you do to get “unstuck”?

I don’t tend to get stuck that often, but I don’t actually plot my novels out. So sometimes I’ll finish a draft and need to edit it quite heavily, or, in some cases, rewrite the whole thing. As I’ve become a more experienced writer over the years, I’ve found that my technique is much better which helps. If I do feel myself encountering any sort of writer’s block, I generally tend to read (sometimes I’ll zone out while reading and start thinking about what I’m writing).

4. What is your least favorite part of writing?

I pretty much love writing, and I’m obsessed with the practice of it. When I’m working on a novel, I try and get to a point where I’m writing two-thousand words a day. The problem here is that you can burn out doing this, so sometimes it’s a real struggle (I often fall asleep on my laptop mid-sentence). Though if I give myself a night off, I get guilty and feel like I’m wasting my time when I should be writing.

Sometimes if I write myself into a ball of knots, unpicking those knots can be a chore.

5. If we came to your house for dinner, what would you prepare for us?



My kids enjoy my spaghetti Bolognese – that’s my go to if I’m in a rush and it’s one I can’t really get wrong at this point. My secret weapon is to add Worcester sauce and Cajun seasoning, which might not sound like it works, but it does!

6. What is your typical day like?

A typical day for me usually involves dropping off and picking my kids up from school, making dinner, and reading some bedtime stories, before chipping away at whatever manuscript I’m working on. I don’t get a whole lot of leisure time usually, but I do sneak in some reading or a terrible horror film before I pass out on the sofa.

7. What is most difficult for you to write? Characters, conflict or emotions? Why?

Because I write quite aggressively (2k words a day until the manuscript is finished, which usually takes about two and a half months), my books tend to be quite fast paced. Sometimes that’s a good thing because I always want the reader to be entertained and not feel like they’re slogging through one of my novels, but there are times when I wish I could slow the pace down a bit. Sometimes I think being able to take your time with scenes is a real skill, but it’s quite a delicate balance.

8. How likely are the people you meet going to end up in your next book?

Not very likely, though naturally a lot of character traits and mannerisms might work their way into my subconscious. There’s a character in Honeycomb called Sherry that is sort of loosely inspired by this woman I used to see around my area when I was a kid. She was a busker that couldn’t play guitar very well, and had these two massive dogs and wore weird, psychedelic trousers and lots of metal jewelry. I never spoke to the woman (she frightened me a little bit in truth), but when I was writing Honeycomb, her physicality came to mind.

9. Tell us about your hero. Give us one of her strengths and one of her weaknesses.

The hero of Honeycomb is a young lady named Amanda Pearson who, as a nineteen-year-old, won a reality TV singing contest and became an overnight sensation. Then, less than a year later, she became a one-hit wonder and a national laughingstock. After using drink and drugs to deal with the humiliation, Amanda managed to kick her addiction and now wants a chance at redemption. She is invited to take part in a social experiment that has an element of medical testing and sees it as her chance to earn some decent money and get her career back on track.

Amanda’s strengths are definitely her determination and her will to succeed against all odds, even with her confidence shattered to pieces. Her main weakness is probably her desire to recapture fame, even though her fleeting experience with it ruined her life.

10. Tell us about your next book & when is it being published?

Honeycomb is a high-concept thriller that places six very different strangers in an old mansion to take part in a medical experiment to test a new drug. Five of them will be taking placebos, but one of them will be taking the drug, though they aren’t told what it does – they are only assured it has no adverse side effects. Things start to go wrong very quickly. It’s full of twists and turns, with a plot that becomes increasingly more unhinged as it accelerates toward the final reveal.

Honeycomb is published July 9, 2024.

About Author S. B. Caves…

Links to S.B.’s websites, blogs, books, #ad etc.:

Amazon Kindle: https://amzn.to/4bwGDqc

Amazon Paperback: https://amzn.to/4bvK9AZ

For more information about me and my books, please visit https://www.sbcaves.com/

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