Tell us about your new book, None Of This Is True?
None of This is True is about two women who meet by chance in the same Queen’s Park pub on the same night whilst celebrating their 45th birthdays. Mousy Josie is mesmerised by glamourous Alix and when she discovers that Alix is a popular podcaster, becomes obsessed with the idea of Alix making a podcast about her and her unusual and rather unsettling life. She tells Alix that she is on the cusp of great change.
What inspired this story?
It was inspired in part by the idea of birthday twins, but also by a man I saw through a window in Kilburn one afternoon when I was walking the dog. I felt as if there was something dark going on in the apartment behind him and wanted to write about him to find out what it was. But the main theme was the idea of letting the wrong person into your life, those split-second decisions that can change the course of your life forever.
Tell us about the relationship between the two women…
Alix is initially quite thrown by Josie, and the strange intensity of her proposition; her instincts tell her to say no, but she is in desperate need of a new idea for a podcast and can’t quite resist Josie’s promise of a remarkable story to tell. The reader sees Josie behaving very strangely from the outset, but Alix isn’t aware of the threat that Josie brings to her life until it’s too late to back away.
What is it about thrillers that drew your interest as a writer? How would you say your interests have shifted since you first started writing?
When I sat down to write my first novel, I intended it to be a dark psychological thriller, as that was my favourite genre at the time, but it didn’t turn out that way, mainly because of where I was in my life at that point and also cultural influences of the time like Nick Hornby and the popular TV show This Life, so I found myself writing a quirky, blokey, very 90’s rom-com instead. But all my early romantic novels had dark themes running through them, and I’ve just slowly evolved over the years away from those relationship-based novels and further towards the darkness.
Do you think that the internet – specifically mediums like podcasts and social media culture – has impacted the way crime and thriller stories are told?
I think they can all be useful instruments in the writer’s toolbox. I didn’t originally intend to use the documentary structure in this novel but I realised that while the story of Josie and Alix’s strange relationship was creepily compelling, it wasn’t necessarily propulsive enough to push the reader through the book. Using clips from a faux Netflix documentary that was made two years after the events of the novel was a really good way of introducing jeopardy and a chilling sense of foreboding into the story. Equally though, the plethora of technology available to the average person these days can make it harder for a writer to find ways to mask secrets or hinder the protagonist’s search for the truth.
Your best-seller debut novel, Ralph’s Party, was published in 1999, and your 20th book, The Family Remains outsold Marian Keyes! Has the way you view success changed over the course of your career?
I’ve got a long way to go to catch up with inimitable Ms Keyes, though having a breakout book in the US has definitely helped me to begin to catch up! But yes, I’ve had two bites at the cherry of commercial success; the first came right at the beginning of my career with Ralph’s Party and the second a few years back with Then She Was Gone in the US and The Family Upstairs here, which were both big lockdown hits and brought me a huge new readership. Nowadays, I don’t count success in terms of books sold, but in terms of consistency and not letting my readers down.
What’s the most gratifying thing that’s happened to you in the course of your career?
I think the most gratifying thing was the re-blossoming of it at a point when I thought it might never happen for me again. I first made the Richard & Judy list back in 2016 and it was amazing to finally be taken seriously as a writer and no longer just be seen as ‘that chick lit writer’. I don’t feel the need to justify myself anymore, my career is now built entirely on writing good books and making good decisions and that’s a nice place to find myself at this point.
What does your typical day look like?
At the moment, it’s ridiculously busy, messy and out of control. Both children are at home and off school, the new book is coming out so there’s loads of promo and events, I have a big American tour coming up, there are film deals being thrashed out, a sick dog, holidays to plan for (mostly my children’s and not mine sadly!), mini-dramas on an hourly basis and a big batch of rewrites looming on the horizon. But during quieter times, I start the day slowly, catching up on admin and domestic stuff, then I walk the dog, have some lunch and try to write 1000 words between 2 and 6pm, then I’ll have an early supper and hit the sofa for some TV bingeing after that.
What’s your favourite thing about living in London? Any favourite spots?
I’ve lived in London my entire life (bar four years in the suburbs in my 20s) and I love every little thing about it. I am very privileged now to be able to afford to live in a nice house in a nice neighbourhood and do all the nice things that money allows, but I loved this city equally when I had no money and lived in shabby flatshares. I love the people, the energy, the distinct neighbourhoods, the diversity and community. I love that London never stops growing and evolving, and in fact, one of my current favourite spots is the newly developed King’s Cross area where I do nearly all my socialising these days. It’s so convenient to meet there and it has such an incredible choice of bars and restaurants.
If you hadn’t been a writer, what else might you have done?
I was a secretary at the time of writing my first book and had imagined that I would carry on doing that until I got married and had some babies; that was the full extent of my ambitions in my early 20’s! But luckily when I was 26 a friend made me a bet to write three chapters of a novel and that set me off down a completely different path. Now, if I were to choose a different career, I would love to be a fiction editor. Editing my work is one of my favourite parts of the writing process, and I could happily do it all the time.
