Nick Petrie has just released the 6th Peter Ash novel, 'The Breaker'. It's all about the war vet with PTSD, trying to live a quiet life on the run, who cannot stand by when he sees an armed man walk into a crowd of people, and no-one knows what might happen next. His debut, 'The Drifter', won many thriller awards, he's award-winning for his short stories too, having gained MFA in fiction from the University of Washington and won a Hopwood Award while he was there. We talk about perfecting the wr...
Apr 01, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 150
Sarah Leipciger's second novel features a strange, poetic mystery than spans 3 time-frames across different parts of the world. Her critically-acclaimed debut 'The Mountain Can Wait' came out in 2015, and she has been short-listed for many awards for her short stories. Sarah also teaches creative writing to prisoners. We discuss how lockdown has affected creativity, also how she gets things done early to be there for her family, and how she doesn't understand the word-count fascination. You can ...
Mar 26, 2021•40 min•Season 1Ep. 149
Lucy Clarke is the bestselling author of six psychological thrillers, which have been sold in over 20 territories. Her new novel is 'The Castaways', which tells the story of two sisters on holiday who have a fight at the airport right before boarding. One gets on the plane, the other doesn't, and when the airplane seemingly crashes, the sister left behind determines to get to the bottom of the mystery. We talk about mulling over the idea, and how she researched the story, facts and events of pla...
Mar 19, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 148
This week's guest is the inspirational memoir and crime writer Shane Dunphy. Shane worked as a child protection worker for 15 years, the things he experienced gave him the ideas to begin life as an author, something he'd always wanted. His first nine titles dealt with his time on the frontline of social care work, and include the number one bestseller 'Wednesday’s Child'. Under the name SA Dunphy, he's published a series of crime novels about the emotionally damaged criminologist David Dunnigan,...
Mar 12, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 147
Abigail Dean's 'Girl A' is the talk of the book world at the moment. It's been one of the biggest releases of 2021, and shot her straight onto the Sunday Times Bestseller list. It tells the story of Lex and her sister Evie, trying to fix their lives and future after growing up in a house of horrors. You can hear how she plans her day to get the words down, how she figured out writing as a passion around full-time work, and how that might all have to change after its instant success. We also talk...
Mar 05, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 146
Cherie Jones is a busy lady. She is a full time lawyer, a single mother of 4 children, is currently finishing a PhD, and has found the time to publish her first novel, 'How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House'. It's about four people the legacy of violence in the Bahamas, a place so many look on as paradise. Here's the blurb: In Baxter Beach, Barbados, moneyed ex-pats clash with the locals who often end up serving them: braiding their hair, minding their children, and selling them drugs. Lala ...
Feb 26, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 145
Susie Donkin has been a writer on the award-winning show, 'Horrible Histories', since it debuted on TV in 2009. She has now used that experience of hilariously retelling history for her new book, 'Zeus is a Dick'. It uses influences from Comedy Central's 'Drunk History' and Stephen Fry's 'Mythos' to reimagine ancient myths in a modern, edgy and fantastic way. Susie has also written on Channel 4's award-winning, 'Smack the Donkey', and plenty of radio. As Artistic Director of Spitz & Co she h...
Feb 19, 2021•37 min•Season 1Ep. 144
Will Dean appears to have a glorious writing life. Hidden away in the Swedish wilderness, in a house that he built, he dreams up stories and thrashes them out in a few weeks. In reality, it's the product of years of sitting on ideas, mulling them over, and a zombie-like fuge state when he finally knows enough to tell it. After the success of his Tuva Moodyson series, he's released a tense standalone thriller called 'The Last Thing to Burn'. It focuses on 'Jane', a mystery woman locked up in the ...
Feb 12, 2021•40 min•Season 1Ep. 143
Caimh McDonnell used to be a stand-up comedian, gigging all over the country and writing for television. Now, he's a full-time storyteller working out of his own office in his garden. His new novel, 'The Stranger Times', investigates life in a newspaper which reports on the weirdest stories... which sometimes turn out to be true. It's the start of a brand new comic supernatural thriller series from C.K. We talk about the post-it notes all over the office that let him know when he's taken a wrong...
Feb 05, 2021•48 min•Season 1Ep. 142
Kate Mosse is the author of nine novels & short story collections, including the No 1 multimillion selling 'Languedoc Trilogy'. Her historical thriller 'Labyrinth' was one of the biggest selling novel of the 2000s and propelled her to success, she followed it with 'Sepulchre' and 'Citadel'. She's written bestselling Gothic fiction, non-fiction, plays, plus contributed essays and introductions to classic novels and collections. Her books have been translated into 38 languages and published in...
Jan 29, 2021•55 min•Season 1Ep. 141
Jeff Lindsay's new book is 'Fool Me Twice', the second 'Riley Wolfe' thriller about the master thief that targets the world's wealthiest. Jeff is best known for his 8 'Dexter Morgan' novels, which became the hit Showtime series 'Dexter', about everyone's favourite neighbourhood serial killer. We discuss the pressure on his new series after the success of 'Dexter', and how he found starting all over again. Also, you can hear why his 'Riley Wolfe' thrillers are so much harder to plot and research,...
Jan 22, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 140
Emily Schultz new novel, 'Little Threats', follows twin sisters in the 1990s, in an age of rebellion, when a night of partying goes very wrong, and one of them ends up under suspicion for murder... and she can't remember whether she did it or not. We talk about how she got into the 90s mindset with music, how she tackles the first draft, and whether she's fine with being it sloppy at the start. Initially, the book started as a work of literary fiction, but when Emily figured if she brought the m...
Jan 15, 2021•59 min•Season 1Ep. 139
Rosie Nixon is busy. She is the Editor-in-Chief of HELLO! Magazine, she's worked as a journalist for many years, she's a mum of two, and has just published her third novel, 'Just Between Friends'. We discuss how she splits up her time wearing many different work hats, and why she loves to escape to tell stories. You can hear what editing a national media brand has taught her about novel-writing, and how working as a journalist has made her determined to beat the deadlines. 'Just Between Friends'...
Jan 08, 2021•49 min•Season 1Ep. 138
Ross Sutherland is a jack of all writing trades. He is a poet, a playwright, has written for radio, TV and film, and is now an award-winning podcaster. His experimental storytelling podcast 'Imaginary Advice' won gold at the British Podcast Awards in 2018, and his new series is 'The Golden House'. It's a 6 part puzzle of a podcast, presented as a corporate show for a fictional tech company, in which the presenter is trying to reveal some of the firm's darkest secrets without them realising. We c...
Dec 18, 2020•59 min•Season 1Ep. 137
Sibéal Pounder's debut 'Witch Wars' was shortlisted for the Sainsbury's Children's Book Award and the Waterstones Children's Book Prize. She then wrote 'The Bad Mermaids' series which was a World Book Day 2019 title and a Sunday Times Bestseller and has been optioned by Sony Animation. Her newest novel is 'Tinsel: The Girls Who Invented Christmas', which figures out if Santa might be a bit different to the person everyone thinks they are. We talk about writing for kids and capturing the magic of...
Dec 11, 2020•43 min•Season 1Ep. 136
CJ Cooke is a poet, a successful horror and suspense author, and a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Glasgow. She's been published in 23 countries, and her new novel is 'The Nesting'. It's set in the fjords and forests of Norway, where down on her luck Lexi becomes a nanny in a strange, high-concept house, and peculiar things start happening. We talk about why it's set there, and how CJ worked on getting the chilling atmosphere right. You can hear how the tone and pacing o...
Dec 04, 2020•42 min•Season 1Ep. 135
Sareeta Domingo has an incredibly busy working. She works as an editor for Mills and Boon, helping other writers construct and improve their work. In order to do that and tell her own stories, she wakes up early and goes to bed late, sandwiching writing-time around work and family life. She has published 5 books, a story-story collection, a series of erotic short stories, and her novel, 'If I Don't Have You', is now an audio-book from Audible.Through 3 acts it tells the story of Ren and Kayla wh...
Nov 27, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 134
Mark Watson is a hugely successful comedian, known for his marathon shows in which he'll perform for over 24 hours at a time. He's just published his 6th novel, 'Contacts', all about how technology and social media could perhaps save a life. It's almost in direct contrast to a lot of the tech narrative you hear the moment, the story is about the joys and wonder of the possibilities of the internet. We talk about why Mark loves getting fully absorbed in writing, taking time anywhere to get to his...
Nov 20, 2020•41 min•Season 1Ep. 133
Sally Gardner has sold over 2 MILLION books. She is a Costa Kids Book Award winner, a Carnegie Medal winner, and she's back with her 3rd adult novel, 'The Snow Song'. We talk about why stories are the most important thing to everyone's life, and how she keeps that at the front of her mind always. You can hear about why her visual imagination lets her know when she's off-track with her plotting, and why she's the patron saint of reluctant readers. 'The Snow Song' is about Edith, who lives alone w...
Nov 13, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 131
Gillian McAllister is a Sunday Times Top 10 bestselling author, who has just published her 5th novel, 'How to Disappear'. It's a romantic psychological thriller set in witness protection. It's about Lauren whose daughter Zara sees a terrible crime, and together they must disappear and leave everything behind... including the man Lauren loves. It comes off the back of phenomenal success for her other novels, 'Everything But The Truth', 'Anything You Do Say', 'No Further Questions' and 'The Eviden...
Nov 06, 2020•41 min•Season 1Ep. 131
Alastair Humphreys is one of the country's greatest adventurers. As well as expeditions like cycling around the world, walking across India and rowing the Atlantic, Alastair was named as a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year for his pioneering work on the concept of 'microadventures', encouraging people to get outside and out of their comfort-zone. He has written ten books about his adventures. During this episode, we talk about 'My Midsummer Morning', his journey busking across Spain wit...
Oct 30, 2020•42 min•Season 1Ep. 130
Jennie Fields' 5th novel is 'Atomic Love', it's a twisting spy drama with a side of romance set in 1950's Chicago. It tells the story of Rosalind, a worker on the Manhattan Project, who is recruited to the CIA. We chat about how she brought such an evocative era to life, bending the rules of the spy genre. You can hear how the idea came from her family history, and things she discovered about her mum and the Manhattan Project. We talk about the luxurious writing room she has, why she gets starte...
Oct 22, 2020•41 min•Season 1Ep. 129
Isabelle Broom has just published her seventh novel. 'Hello, Again' follows mosaic artist Pepper, who accompanies her elderly friend Josephine on the trail of a long-lost love affair through Europe. It has been described as “a dreamy, romantic, irresistible treat”, and promises whisk you off overseas for a fabulous adventure. We talk about how she delivers on that promise with words on a page, how she uses them to make idealistic adventure filled with emotion come to life. She writes escapist ro...
Oct 16, 2020•43 min•Season 1Ep. 128
This week our guest is the phenomenally successful Matt Haig. Since huge bestseller 'Reasons to Stay Alive', Matt has shot to the nation's consciousness. He's written kids books, christmas books, a follow up called, 'Notes on a Nervous Planet', and six highly acclaimed novels for adults. Three of his books are currently being made into films, he has sold more than a million books in the UK and his work has been translated into over forty languages. His new novel is 'The Midnight Library'. It's a...
Oct 09, 2020•53 min•Season 1Ep. 127
Trevor Wood's debut novel 'The Man on the Street' tells the story of Jimmy, a homeless veteran with PTSD who sees a murder, but no-one believes him. We talk about writing crime, about getting into the voice of Jimmy, and trying to stop the demonisation of the homeless. Trevor has been a busy man, working as a former naval officer, a journalist, becoming a successful playwright, and then choosing his time to write his debut crime novel. To do it, he went to study at University, where he got fanta...
Oct 02, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 126
Jane Fallon's 10th novel, 'Queen Bee', is out now. It's all about Stella who is the ruler of a posh, snobbish street, and how her life is thrown upside down when a new girl moves into the neighbourhood. We talk about her research for the novel, and why she didn't have to look to far away to be inspired. You can hear how she finds it tough to inhabit the heads and find the voices for her characters at first, and how she works around that. Plus, we talk about what she's learned from writing 10 nov...
Sep 25, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 125
Mara Timon's new novel is 'City of Spies', it's set in Lisbon during World War Two. It's a part and place of the war that warrants a story being told, as it's endlessly fascinating, but not many people know of it. We follow agent Elizabeth, whose cover is blown while discovering a huge wartime secret, and she must evade capture by the Gestapo while discovering more of the truth. Raised in New York, Mara moved to the UK almost 20 years ago; and fell in love with London and the way it melds the ol...
Sep 17, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 124
This week we're chatting to YouTuber, radio presenter, film maker and now writer, Calum McSwiggan. His debut is a memoir, 'Eat, Gay, Love', which tells the story of his journey around the world, meeting different members of the LGBTQ+ community. He hosted a popular radio show for FUBAR Radio and has also created several short films, including the award-winning Love Happens Here , which was named 'Best LGBT+ Short Film' at the Buffer Festival in Toronto. In 2019 he started a book club to encourag...
Sep 10, 2020•39 min•Season 1Ep. 123
Erin Kinsley's second book 'Innocent' tells of a close-knit community devastated when a local celebrity is found dead. It follows on from her immensely successful debut 'Found, published last year to great acclaim. You can hear why that book was a story she needed to tell, and to get it down she completely changed her writing routine and process. We talk about the diagrams and charts she works through to write, why she switches between a fountain pen and laptop depending, and how he writing diff...
Sep 03, 2020•49 min•Season 1Ep. 122
Menna van Praag is the author of 6 magical realism novels, her new one is 'The Sisters Grimm'. It's a story of four girls born on the same day with their fate twisted together, they must find each other to save their lives, but one is destined to die. It's a twist on classic fairytales, and we discuss the first moment the idea for the story came into her mind. We talk about the deal that she made with her husband to become a writer before she was 30, why she self-published and how she managed to...
Aug 27, 2020•49 min•Season 1Ep. 121
