Author Paula Hawkins opens up about her latest thriller 'Into the Water'

— -- Best-selling author Paula Hawkins opened up about her new book, "Into the Water" in an interview with "Good Morning America," admitting that she even was able to scare herself as she penned her latest thriller.

"You know if you're sitting by yourself in a house, there's no one around and you're writing a creepy scene you find yourself getting actually quite ... freaked out," Hawkins told ABC News of her latest book, which surrounds a string of female suicides in a fictional countryside village.

The British author's debut thriller, "The Girl on the Train," became a smash hit following its publication in 2015, selling more than 20 million copies worldwide and becoming a 2016 Hollywood film starring Emily Blunt.

Hawkins told ABC News that it was "very exciting" for her second novel, which was released last week, to finally be hitting bookstores. She told ABC News that the dark mystery took her three years to write.

"Women who have been accused of witchcraft were brought to this place for the 'ordeal by water,' it was called that, and they put them in the water see if they sink or swim," Hawkins said of her new book.

She said she was inspired to write about the topic of water, because of "the fact that the water is very beautiful, it can be calming, it can be dangerous, it can conceal things."

"As a metaphor, it works very well, and it runs through the heart of the this book as it runs through the heart of the town," she added.

"Into the Water" is currently available in bookstores nationwide.