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What inspired The Break In? Did you have to do any research into the themes explored?
The spark of an idea for The Break-In actually came when I was on a writing retreat in the Cotswolds - I picked up a 1982 collection of short stories by Patricia Highsmith that I hadn't read before. One of them was called Something You Have To Live With, and in it a woman is confronted by a burglar at her deserted home, and ends up killing him with a stool. Like Highsmith, I found myself fascinated by how the knowledge that one was capable of such an explosive act of violence might eat away at a person, and that was how the character of Alice was born. In terms of research I did have to do some research into an illness which one of the characters in the book suffers from; and I spent a day working with a friend of mine, Hannah Yates, who works as an art restorer, which gave me a really useful background for Alice's job. I also spent a lot of time in and around Haggerston and the Regents Canal, where the book is set.
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How do you plan the twists and reveals in your thrillers?
I'm actually not much of a planner - at least not upfront! For me, the best ideas come during the process of writing, and that's the magic of it. I do start with a high-level idea: so for the Break-In, I knew that what happened with the break in itself would be a catalyst for Alice discovering that her life as she knew it was unravelling in various ways, and to her discovering something that the people close to her were hiding things from her. But I had a few possibilities in my head as to what the specifics of that might look like. I find it quite helpful to write like that in the early stages - because I want my reader to feel there are multiple possibilities and to keep them guessing! As I go on, a clearer idea emerges in my mind, and then about halfway through is when I do my real plotting, both forwards (how it’s all going to come together from this point) and backwards - going back over what's been written already to ensure it's all nicely seeded and intriguing enough to keep readers turning the pages!
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Who is your favourite character in The Break In?
Definitely Linda, whose character was inspired by lots of the strong working-class women I knew growing up in East London. I would have had her in every scene if I could.
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What have been some of your favourite recent crime fiction reads?
I've read some sensational thrillers recently! Araminta Hall's One Of The Good Guys really blew my mind recently - I couldn't put it down. The Death Of Us by Abigail Dean is an extraordinary achievement - it's as much a love story as a thriller. Abi Dean is in a league of her own. There are two extraordinary, twisty thrillers out this month that I loved - Be Mine, a thriller about a wellness cult by Lizzy Barber, and The Cliffhanger by Emily Freud, which is a very meta thriller about a millionaire author couple with a toxic marriage. -
Who are some of your favourite authors that you would recommend?
For thrillers, I love Mark Edwards, Lousie Candlish and Andrea Mara - Mara's new thriller It Should Have Been You is brilliant. On the more literary end of things, I'm a huge fan of the writing of Ali Smith, Sally Rooney, Deborah Levy, Julia Armfield and Claire Keegan.
