There are some authors who have a gift for creating a setting in their novels that truly resonates with readers. In writer-speak, ‘setting’ includes both place and time. For example, in Joanna Cannon’s wonderful novel, Three Things About Elsie, the names of her characters are subtly evocative, as is the inspired reference to Battenburg cake on the cover. You know just from these things what era you’re in, or what generation the characters belong to. In The Truth Waits, I men

Writing fiction, I’ve discovered, has side-effects. Not bad ones, like some medications, but they are unexpected. Like being more observant. Not only do I notice objects in more detail, I notice things I would never have noticed before. Like spiders’ webs: the way they are constructed - not always perfect, but perfectly designed for purpose. The way the raindrops hang in minute rows along the delicate strands, the way the light refracts from them, with a mirror-like effect if

When my debut novel, Dare to Remember, a psychological thriller, was published in February 2017, my second book, called The Truth Waits, was well under way. I’d started writing it in that nerve-racking period when I was waiting for responses about my first novel from agents, then from publishers, so, as all that takes quite a long time, I was some way down the line with book two when the excitement of actually having a book published (number one) kicked in and I was thoroughl