EP 12 The Redundancy That Changed Bestselling Author Andrea Mara's Life

What do you do when the career you’ve spent 17 years building suddenly disappears? When bestselling author Andrea Mara was made redundant from her job in financial services, she had a choice: find another “sensible” job or take a chance to build something new.

In this episode, Andrea shares the story behind that life-changing decision and how an unexpected redundancy gave her the time to discover whether writing could become a career.

Today, she’s one of Ireland’s bestselling crime authors, with multiple hit novels and All Her Fault adapted into a major TV series.

We talk about the reality of changing careers in your 40s, forging a new career while raising three children, overcoming self-doubt, and why the biggest risks are often the ones worth taking.

We also chat about:

• why redundancy became the turning point she never saw coming
• the career coach who helped her stop searching for another “safe” job
• the realities of life as a full-time author
• where the ideas for her bestselling psychological thrillers come from
• the long journey from All Her Fault becoming a bestselling novel to a Sky TV adaptation
• why success is often far less glamorous - and far more hard work - than people imagine

Whether you’re dreaming of changing careers, writing a book, or simply wondering if it’s too late to start again, Andrea’s story is a reminder that sometimes the biggest setbacks become the beginning of something even better.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hello there and welcome to the Delusional Optimist. My name is Diana, and this is a podcast for anyone ready to rewrite their own story. My guest today is someone whose books have genuinely made me suspicious of perfectly normal people. If you've read Such a Nice Girl, No One Saw a Thing, Someone in the Attic, or It Should've Been You, You'll know Exactly What I Mean. Bestselling Author Andrea Amara has this incredible talent for taking the most ordinary situations and turning them into everyone's worst nightmare. And if you're more of a TV fan than a reader, you might have already seen the sky adaptation of All Her Fault, which brought one of her biggest novels to the screen with Sarah Snook and Dakota Fanning in the leading roles. What I really wanted to talk to Andrea about today isn't just her writing and her books, but it's the story of how she became an author because until not that long ago, Andrea was doing something completely different. In fact, Andrea spent 17 years working in financial services until one day everything came crashing down when she was summoned to her boss's office and made redundant. She loved her job and this came as a massive shock, and what could have been a huge setback actually ended up being a massive turning point that changed her life. Why? Well, because Andrea took a chance on herself. She started writing, and the rest is a story that most aspiring authors can only dream of. In this episode, we talk about taking risks, starting over, navigating rejection, building a creative career from scratch, and why sometimes the thing that feels like the end of one chapter is actually the beginning of something even better. I absolutely love this conversation and I think you will too. This is Andrea Mara.

The Reality Of Author Life

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Andrea Mara, welcome to The Delusional Optimist.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I'm so excited to have you here because I'm genuinely a true, true fan, and your story is absolutely incredible. I love that it's one about taking chances, backing yourself, which is something that you know we really believe here on this podcast. And also a reminder that life isn't always linear and there's silver linings to, you know, situations that might not appear so from the get-go. So before we get into your story, how are you today? What's going on in your world?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Good. Yeah, it's just a really busy time at the moment because such a nice girl has just come out. So it's sort of non-stop publicity side of things, but the normal stuff, which is the edits for next year's book, have to keep going. I have three teenage kids, and as any parents know, this time of year when there's graduations and end of school year, this, that, and the other is kind of a really busy time too when you're crawling to the finish line. So it does feel like a particularly busy time at the moment, but in a good way.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

It's interesting that even when you're a published, super successful author, the juggle of motherhood in real life still competes. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

I mean, the biggest challenge for me every day, the biggest question is what's for dinner. So, you know, if anyone knows what's for dinner, please DM me because I never know what's for dinner.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

I suppose having children and juggling, such a busy career, keeps you on your feet, and you do need to always be thinking on your feet, especially as a thriller writer and an author who is always conjuring up new scenarios.

Childhood Creativity And Imagination

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Take me back to what you were like as a child. Were you always imaginative and creative and thinking on your feet? Or were you, you know, different? Did that side of you come out as life progressed?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

I I'd say I was pretty normal for the want of a better word, kid, who kind of just liked a bit of everything. And I mean, yes, I did have an imaginary friend, but I think loads of kids had imaginary friends, and I wrote stories, but I think everybody did. I say, especially in primary school, there's a lovely focus on creative writing that maybe drops away a little bit in secondary school. So I I would say I liked a bit of everything, but I'm not a person who kind of age two was like, I want to be an author. That didn't come until much, much, much later.

Seventeen Years In Financial Services

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, you took a very different path in terms of building your career and what you set out to do. So financial services for 17 years, very different to the book world. Tell me a little bit about that chapter of your life because I believe you were actually very happy doing that job. Unlike a lot of people who you, you know, might be staring out their window and being like, oh, like I wish I could be doing something else. It sounds like you were very happy in your career.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Yeah, I loved it. I mean, so like when I was finishing up school in the 90s, the Celtic Tiger hadn't hit yet. And there was very much a sense of like, okay, we all have to do something sensible in college if we're going to college and then find sensible jobs, presumably in another country. Like it would have seemed logical and almost inevitable that we would have to move somewhere else in order to get good jobs. So I did commerce and German in UCD, imagining I would move to Germany and work there. And then the Celtic Tiger hit, the IFSC was established. There were jobs everywhere. It was such a huge change for people who had grown up in the 80s and 90s to suddenly see, and there was huge unemployment in Ireland back then. And like I was a kid, it didn't directly impact me, but you we were all very aware of it, I think. And then suddenly there's staff wanted signs everywhere, recruitment agencies springing up all over the place. So many jobs in financial services. Everyone I knew was working in financial services. And yeah, I really liked it. Like I was there for 17 years in different roles in different areas of the company, and I genuinely enjoyed it. Like a lot of my job was the people management side of it, and that's what I loved was like talking to people. And one thing I remembered from college was that managing means getting the best results out of people. And that was how I saw my job was to like find the best way to work with people to get the best results every day. And a lot of that was communication, wording an email in the best way possible to get what was needed to be done, done. And to that end, in a way I feel like it's not a million miles away from writing because you're always putting words together to convey an idea or to, I suppose with crime, it's to maybe distract the reader from what's really going on, to set out the clues and the red herrings. So it's all it's all words, it's all storytelling. So I I would possibly be at a uh a minimal number of people who would see a correlation between financial services and writing crime, but I think it's there.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

I feel like you're clutching a little bit. I think you're like, there is a lease. Also, you were dealing with people who may have in turn, you know, inspired personalities in your stories along the way at the back of your mind. So, you know, there is, you're absolutely right, there is a correlation. This idea of having, you know, going into a sensible job or striving for a sensible career, you know, when you're leaving school and things are uncertain and you don't know what's ahead, it is a lovely idea because you're almost, you know, guaranteed all going well to have a job unless there's a crash. Um, but do you wish that someone back then had said to you, it's okay to indulge in your other interests if, if, for example, writing, if that was something that you were interested in, it might have seemed unachievable or dreaming a bit too big or a little bit too wild for a young girl who I think you originally lived in Cork, right? Do you wish that someone had said it's okay to chase that dream too?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

I don't because like I, well, for lots of reasons. One of the reasons would be, and I would say this, I sometimes go into schools and do talks. It's very hard to be a writer straight out of school or college. I mean, you yes, you're a writer if you're writing, but to be a published author straight out of school or college is really, really difficult. And most writers I know have done multiple other things before being published, and that's what feeds the the books then. I think in order to it sort of sounds a bit cliche, but to live a rich life, to travel, work in different jobs, meet different people, that's all the stuff that feeds the books. And without that, there might not really be enough there to really create. Now, of course, there are exceptions. There are amazing authors who are published very young, but I would say the vast majority of people do other things first. And also, I guess, I mean, I didn't have that dream. I didn't think I wanted to be an author. That really only came 10 years ago. Um, so no, I don't think I would change anything. I'm I'm happy with how it all went with my first career in financial services. And as you say, it does, you know, I met plenty of characters along the way who, while I don't directly use real people as characters in books, of course it's all feeding into the characters in the books. So yeah, I wouldn't change it.

Redundancy Hits And It Stings

SPEAKER_01 9:49

So you're doing your your job that you truly, truly love, and then you get an email or a phone call or you're someone to a meeting and you're told, We're making you redundant. Did the world feel like it was crashing down on that day?

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Yeah, it did. And I took it really personally in a way that I now like, what was I thinking? I guess I did feel I had given all these years of and I'm a real kind of like rule follower and turn up every day, never call in sick, work hard, do my best. And so I was like, oh my God, they didn't care about any of it. So I was pretty devastated. And I definitely took it way more personally. Now looking back, I do understand that I was just a number on a spreadsheet like everybody else, and big macro decisions don't really take into account um individual people. And yeah, but at the time I was so upset and so annoyed. And I had started blogging a few months earlier, and I had called the blog Office Mum because it was about working in an office and being a mom of three kids and trying to juggle the childcare thing and the commute and the guilt and overthinking everything and wondering what other people were doing to manage all of this. And that was the other thing that really annoyed me about the redundancy was that I had called the blog office mom, and then I didn't have an office. I was like, oh my god, they've ruined my blog as well. So yeah, I was really upset, and of course, now I can look back and see things differently, but at the time I was devastated.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

It had afforded you an opportunity and a time to take a step back and reassess what you wanted. And I know there was the chance to relocate, and I think you said your family was too young at the time to do that. So when you did take that step back to focus, you know, on other things, maybe a little bit on yourself. I think you said that you actually did start sending your CV out to different companies. What was the thing that made you stop and go, do you know what? I'm gonna give myself the time that I need to let my creative juices start flowing and put pen to paper.

The Career Coach Turning Point

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Well, I'd love to take credit, but it wasn't me at all. It was an amazing career coach. We got outplacement support from work, and I had the opportunity to meet with a career coach. Her name's Dervla Baviera, so we're we're still friends today, and her business is Clearbird coaching, and she's fantastic. And she was asking me, you know, and what do you like doing? And what you know, and I was like, I've got to get a job, I've got to get a job, and I'd signed up to all the recruitment agencies, and I was really worried because I had been in my old job for a while, therefore I had built up lots of really nice things. Like I worked three days in the office, one day from home, and this was before COVID, no one was working from home at the time. So this was a really big coup that I had got them to agree to this, and it took a long time to get them to agree to it. And then I had one day off for parental leave, and I had a car space, like it was as easy as it could possibly be. And I knew if I got a new job in a different financial services company, I'd have to start again doing a five-day week, five days in the office. You know, I couldn't just walk in and go, hi, I'd like a car space and a four-day week. So I was really worried about the kids and childcare and how I was gonna start over somewhere new. And Dervila said to me, She's like, Okay, hang on a sec. I just want you to visualize for a sec. Close your eyes and visualize in a perfect world, what would you be doing for a living? And I had, as I say, been blogging and doing a bit of freelance writing at that point for magazines and newspapers. And I said, I would love to be sitting at my laptop in my house writing for a living. And she said, Okay, let's make that happen. And then I gave her a thousand reasons why it couldn't happen. And she was like, she just kind of picked them apart and she didn't tell me what to do, but she made me see straight. And she was absolutely brilliant. And like she got me to unsubscribe from all the recruitment agencies because I was just getting these floods of emails every day and feeling more and more stressed as I was looking at them. She's like, unsubscribe. Like if you change your mind and you want to go back and get a job in financial services, you'll go look for one. And then I always remember she said to me, Oh, I had said to her, Oh my God, but like let's say I took six months out to try freelance writing for a living, what uh would I be like after six months if I then had to face into doing a financial services interview? I'd be absolutely terrified. And she was like, sure, yeah. And Camir, listen, if you had an interview tomorrow, how would you feel? And I was like, Oh my god, I'd be terrified. And she was like, What difference does it make to wait six months? So she was really good at making me see sense. And so I decided to give it a go. I sat down with my husband and we did the sums because, like, that's a huge thing, you know. And lots of people said to me, Oh, wow, it's really brave to take the leap. But I had the cushion of a redundancy payment. So I wouldn't be, you know, people have said to me, Oh, would you recommend I leave my job to become a writer? And I'm like, do not leave your job to become a writer. You need to stay in your job and keep earning your money that pays your rent or your mortgage. Write your book on the side, try to get an agent or a publisher, and then only when you have an advance and you can do the sums and see how much money will be coming in, if at all possible, not always, then maybe consider giving up your job. But I knew I had a redundancy payment coming. So we were able to work out that if we took the kids out of childcare and I was at home with the kids, but working at night, like writing at night while they were asleep, that maybe we could make it work. And we decided I would give it a go for six months and see how it would go. So I put all my work clothes in the attic because I was thinking, well, I'm gonna need these again in six months. It took me years to get rid of the work clothes because I didn't want to attempt fate. And yeah, the six months went by and I was like so busy with deadlines, I didn't even pay attention to the six-month milestone and just kept going. And yeah, that was 2015. So that was 11 years ago. So all thanks to Dervila Baviera who gave me the push that I needed.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

I feel like we all need that person in our lives in some shape or form, whether whether it's a partner, a best friend, a career coach, whatever it might be, because we all like to get in our own way sometimes, and it definitely sounds like you were getting in your own way. You had everything you needed to be able to, in terms of you know, talent and success, but your brain was telling you otherwise. I have to, you know, keep doing the financial services stuff because that's who I am. That's you know, that's my identity.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

And it's the sensible option, and I'm I'm quite a sensible person and always was. So the idea of I and actually, I would say 11 years into freelancing and self-employment, I am still not used to the lack of structure in some way, but also the lack of stability of a monthly paycheck. I'm still not used to not having a monthly paycheck. So, yes, sensible structure, rule-driven me really struggled with the idea of going into this unknown world of freelancing. But I am very glad that Dervla made me do it.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Did it feel like a breath of fresh air when you accepted this is what I'm gonna do, and then got into your routine and then things started taking

Building A Writing Life Around Kids

SPEAKER_01 17:28

momentum. It must have felt so good.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Like it was good and also crazy because like the kids, my kids at the time, I think they were three, five, and seven. So my youngest was still at home. He hadn't started preschool yet. So it was like freeing in one sense to be out of the office for the first time in 17 years, but also it was just crazy busy because I had to really get everything done after they went to sleep at night, and I would work till maybe half eleven at night. And I always remember I used to come into my husband at half eleven at night and he'd be watching football, and I'd be like, Okay, put on suits, and suits was my comfort watch. That was my like, I'm finished work now, please just put on suits so that I can forget everything and start again tomorrow. But bit by bit it became more manageable. My youngest started preschool about six months after I started freelancing. So suddenly I had like two hours, 40 minutes every morning, which sounds so tiny in retrospect. But at the time, it was like, oh my God, I'm on my own in the house for these two and a half hours every morning. And I would ignore everything, ignore the breakfast dishes, and I would just get as much as possible done in that time. And I'm I'm still like that 11 years later. I'm still really disciplined and careful and overly precious, I would say, about my time. And when people, if someone asks me, Oh, do you want to get a coffee? And I'm kind of like in my head, I'm like, I can't, I can't get a coffee because I have to work while my kids are at school, even though they now don't get home till like half three or four in the afternoon. But I think it's just ingrained in me that the freelance life means you have to maximize your time and you can't just there's no days off. You don't just, you know, take annual leave. There's no such thing as annual leave. So I don't know if that ever changes. I look forward to finding out.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

It's interesting because you'd assume for someone who has had so much success, and I know that you're striving for more and even better and bigger, and if that's even possible, I mean, you've had your book adapted to, you know, a TV show. You're selling so well, you're topping charts. I think you're doing pretty well. You'd think that by this stage you'd be able to like take a little step back and take a breather.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

No, because I'm I do a book a year. So, like the book that's cut so Such a nice girl is just out, but I'm in deep in edits for next year's book. And I have sent ideas through to my editor for my 2028 book, and it should have been new, which only came out in paperback in February, is still like on the shelves and still, you know, technically, I'm still promoting that book as well. So you kind of have four, is that four or five, I don't know, books on the go at any given time. And so I would say it's busier than ever. There's never I like I would take time off at Christmas, and also I would try to take time off when we go on a family holiday in the summer. But even at that, I have ended up doing edits on our family holiday or writing publicity articles if I'm asked to write them. And like I don't, someone said to me recently, why don't you set an out of office on your email? And I'm like, I don't even know how to do that anymore. But also, like, cause because you're never out of the office. Like, if if someone needs to email me to say, this is really important, would you be able to write this article because it's a great opportunity? I'm not gonna say no because everything isn't in my interest. Whereas in my old job, if I was on holidays, unless there was a massive emergency, there was someone else to do my job while I wasn't there. So yeah, I don't think I I don't know, maybe I'm never gonna get used to that freelance life, that self-employed life. Um but but it's also good. I wouldn't switch, I wouldn't go back.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

I wanted to ask, does it does it feel like work or do you truly just love every element of it?

Why Writing Is Hard Work

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Oh my god, it feels like work. I do not love every element of it. I love I love going to book parties and book launches and nice dinners with other authors. And I love seeing my book on bookshelves, and I love the highs of you know, you really want to get in the charts, and you get in the charts, or you get some good news in an email. Obviously. The TV stuff that you mentioned, that was a real highlight for me. But the actual daily work of sitting down and writing a book is so hard. I find it really hard. And especially a first draft, I find that really difficult when I'm not sure if this book is going to work or not. And I have to get to the end of the first draft really quickly to see does it work or not? So, no, it is very much work. And I do find it hard, but the payoff in terms of how good it feels when it's done and it's ready to get out on bookshelves and you can move on to the next thing. That's really good. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Is that what you're thinking of? Like the end goal, like seeing it on the shelf, and that's what keeps you keeps you motivated along the way. And also, have there been books that you've started that you've had to scrap because you're like, Do you know what, Andre? This is this is not good.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yeah, that happened to me with such a nice girl, actually. So it there is a different version of that book that just it didn't work. The structure wasn't quite right because the so the such a nice girl is about two mothers and two daughters. And in the original structure, the first half of the book was from the mother's point of view, and the second half of the book was from the daughter's point of view, the two daughters, and sort of alternating chapters. So you're seeing the same story but from each different POV. And in that version, the daughters were a little younger as well. So in in the book that's just out that's been published, the daughters are 24. In the earlier version, they were 19 and they were on a J one summer. So it just meant the whole second half of the book kind of read like YA because they were 19. And my editor was like, this isn't gonna work because your your readers are not looking for a YA book. So I had to start over. And yeah, that is hard to do, but but I I much prefer the the actual version of the book that got published. So it all turned out well in the end.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

So how long does a process usually take? I know it's a year-round turnaround, or maybe you're working even a year ahead, but how long does the process of like writing that first draft take and then you know being able to see the final fully fleshed book?

SPEAKER_00 24:17

It's probably about two years. I'm usually like if I have a book coming out in as I mostly do, I'm usually sending my editor ideas two years beforehand, and then ideally starting to write it kind of about yeah, about a year and a half beforehand, and then there's the whole editing process. So there's always a few books on the go. So, like I would be writing one book and editing another book. So if I'm writing a first draft, I'm trying to write it as quickly as possible. It's coming out in two years, but if I get edits back from my editor on the book that's coming out next year, that's the priority. So I set aside the one that's coming in two years and focus on the edits, get those back to my editor, which might be it that part, depending on the stage of editing, that could be two months or that could be three weeks, uh get that back to my editor and then pick up the first draft of the next book that I was working on and try and figure out what on earth I was doing and go back to that. So it's never just linear, there's always the overlap of different stages with different books. But I would say overall, two years is probably the answer.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

It's so interesting to hear that as a reader because you know, you take for granted when you read, you know, the final edited version and you're so engrossed in it and you're loving every second, but you forget that behind this amazing story that has kept you up all night because you want to get to the last page is someone who has been grafting so hard behind the scenes. Sometimes you do forget that, you know, and then you're like, right, on to the next one, but like for you to do that for the next one, you're going through that whole process all over again.

The First Publishing Deal Moment

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Take me back to getting your first publishing, your first publishing deal, and how that came about and that feeling of, oh my god, this is working out for me. Well, I feel like you're the type of person that will say it's not working out until you've seen it on the shelf, but that might be true, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Um, but yeah, I do remember the moment. Like I remember the excitement of getting offered a three-book contract. So my my current publisher is Transworld, who are part of Penguin in the UK, but my first publisher was Poolbag, who are an Irish independent publisher. And so they offered me a three-book deal in November 2016. And I just remember like staring at the email, going, is this real? Is this actually happening? And my husband was away at the time, so I was, I can't remember if I was messaging him or phoning him to tell him, and then I had to go pick up the kids from school, and I still remember driving past my local supervalue and sitting in traffic and thinking, this is a crossroads in life, and just sort of almost taking a moment and thinking about the fact that if I say yes to this, which I already knew I was going to say yes, that no matter what happened, everything would change forever. Because either I would say yes and write a book that would sell and do well, or I would say yes and write a book that would not do well. And that second thing is also life-changing because I would have to live with knowing that I tried this and it didn't work. So I just have the clearest, most visceral memory of thinking, oh my God, this is a turning point in my life. And like I've forgotten most things in my life. I just cannot remember anything that happened, you know, throughout the last however many years. But I do really remember that. And yeah, I had to write the book then because the deal was based on an outline, and I had to write the book really, really quickly. In hindsight, that wasn't an ideal way to work. I do like to write a first draft really quickly because I can immerse myself in the story and get it done really, really quickly, and then go back and spend months fixing it, rewriting it, revising it, fine-tuning it, which is the really I find that's my favorite part is the editing I'm doing before I send it to my editor. And I I really do need that time. As with this first book, I didn't really get that. I wrote it from November till February, and it was published in May, which is very short. Yeah. Um, but then I did two more with that publisher, and then I decided that I really wanted to have a UK publisher because the Irish publishers don't have distribution in the UK. So it's great. Your book is in Irish bookshops and you have local readers, which is fantastic. But if you want to get into UK bookshops, you really do need a UK publisher for the most part. So I went looking for an agent in 2019, and I connected with my lovely agent whose name is Diana actually, and uh Diana B, because she's Diana Beaumont. And yeah, so then we went on sub a year, went on submission a year later, and that's how I ended up with Trans World, and that's who I've been with ever since.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

It's such an exciting journey and trajectory you've been on.

Doubt And Doing The Work Anyway

SPEAKER_01 29:37

But when you were writing that first one and you had your three-book deal, did you have moments of doubt, especially because you're under time pressure, where you felt, what if I can't do this? What have I let myself into?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah, hugely. And as as you say, especially because the book wasn't written. I was like, but what if this is terrible? And I remember talking to my dad about it, and I was like, I don't know how to do this. And he's like, How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? And I was like, Okay, so I can just do every single day. And this was like writing in the car on school runs and you know, late at night when the kids were in bed and all of that stuff. And I was still freelancing at the time, which when I look back was kind of insane because I had daily deadlines for newspaper articles and then this slightly longer but not much longer deadline for the book. And I mean, that was crazy. I should have stopped writing the articles, but I was, I don't know, I suppose I just thought I had to keep that going because what if the book didn't work out? I didn't want to, I had spent time building up, you know, as you know, building up your contacts, building up relationships with editors, and I didn't want to let that all go in case the book thing didn't work out. So yeah, it was like a crazy time of my life looking back.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Yeah, but it's worked out pretty nicely. So it's a nice reminder for the rest of us to just keep keep on keeping on when things get hard. Just do what you have to do to get through through the next phase. And I mean, I'm I don't have children yet, so I can't even imagine the pressure of having to look after three little mini-mies while also trying to meet your deadlines and you know not let people down and not let yourself down and still turn up as mom and then find time to look after yourself so that you're not completely running out of all of all your energy and you're draining your battery. Yeah, I just can't imagine what a stressful but also exciting time that must have been like for you in those moments.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Yeah, it was. It was absolutely that. It was stressful and exciting, and like so many things in life, you look back and go, What? How did I do that? But you just get through it, don't you? Whatever you're trying to do, and you just keep focusing on what you need to do today and try not to worry too much about tomorrow. And yeah, but you can see why I get precious about time and when people say, Hey, why don't you get a coffee? And I always remember my my sister, I'm sure she won't mind me saying this. She was going back to work after her first maternity leave and she couldn't get a crash place for her daughter anywhere. And she told me that one of her friends was like, But your sister's at home, why don't you get her to mind her? And I was just like, Oh my god, I am barely holding it together with my own three kids and trying to write a book and writing all these articles and blogging still at the same time, because that was just the free therapy on the side. And you know, the idea that there's somebody out there thinking I'm just sitting at home having a coffee and would easily be able to take in an extra child into the house. I was like, oh my God, does anyone know how crazy busy I am? And it was sort of not the point, who cares what anybody knows, but it also did feel because I I was doing more hours at that point than I had been in my old job. But people were still kind of like, oh my God, it must be so lovely being at home.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

So well, that's why social media is almost, you know, a good thing because it can give people a little insight into your world. And okay, you might not document every moment of your day because maybe not every moment is exciting, but you can really show people like this is a lot of work, it takes a lot of work, it's a lot of graft. I'm sitting at my computer, I'm you know, communicating with a lot of people, I have a lot of deadlines, there's a lot of noise, and you have to just learn to shut out the noise and focus, but also not really shut out the noise because you these people need you.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

You know, yeah, yeah. And I do think there's a thing with authors about like I do it as well, where we do tend every now and then to post a picture on Insta stories of, you know, I'm on my laptop at nine o'clock on a Saturday morning because I have a deadline. And I do think there's a little unconscious thing for so many of us where people assume that if you write books, it's kind of a hobby and it's not really a job. And so we're subconsciously trying to show people, no, actually, it's a it's more than a full-time job. You're doing it all the time. And because you will see if you follow authors, there's very often pictures of laptops and post-its and whiteboards and writing on planes, trains, whatever. And I do think it's because we know that people think it's not really a job, and we're kind of trying to say, no, it's actually a really hard full-time job with holidays and nobody to apply for annual leave from.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Yeah, I mean, I find what you do so fascinating because I I write as well. I've been a journalist for a long time, I've worked in media for a long time, but in 2016 I published a nonfiction book, and oh my god, so much work. But I was like, at least I'm relying on other people to give me the content in in terms of I was interviewing people, getting their story, and then compiling this book that was aimed at teenagers to follow your dreams. And here's all these people that did it, and it didn't matter, you know, where they were from or what age they were, they made their dream come true, and whatever, you can do it too. I can't imagine just all of it coming from here, you know, like the story and the world that you create, the people you're creating, the characters you're creating, the dynamics you're creating. Like it was my brain was busy at the time, but at least I was relying on outside people to give me the information. Your brain must be like constantly on all

The Always On Thriller Mind

SPEAKER_01 35:53

the time. Like, do you jolt up in the middle of the night with ideas that you have to like, you know, jot down on a notepad or in your phone?

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Yeah, like, and I think I'd say most writers, especially crime writers maybe, do that because the idea is everything really when it's a crime novel. And when I'm in say first draft stage or structural edit stage, which is like when you've done your first draft, but now your editor tells you all the ways you need to pull it apart and sort of start over. When I'm at that stage, I'm kind of always thinking about it. So, like falling asleep at night, I'll be like, okay, what's my next plot problem that I need to figure out? And I usually fall asleep before I get anywhere with it. But that's my you know, uh weird mix of being disciplined, but my comfort blanket too when I'm going to sleep is to be trying to figure out the next stage of the plot. And yeah, you're kind of always thinking about it. I always have a notebook and pen with me so that if I have like a bus journey, I can just make, you know, notes on whatever plot problem I'm trying to work out. And that's for me the best time to figure out what I'm doing. Because if I'm just sitting at my laptop with a blank Word doc open in front of me, I'm like, I don't know what happens next. Whereas if I have a pen and notebook, it gives me the freedom to just jot down notes, many of which will be nonsensical, but then halfway down the page, maybe there's the nugget, the idea that's gonna work. And I kind of just draw a circle around that, and I'm like, okay, that's what I'm gonna do next. So yeah, it's an always-on kind of job, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

I have to ask why crime? What why why thrillers?

SPEAKER_00 37:40

I I've always read crime. Like I grew up reading Agatha Christie and Enid Blyton when I was younger, and then reading a lot of detective fiction, police procedural, American serial killer kind of fiction, also Harlan Coben, Jeffrey Deaver, James Patterson kind of everything and anything that was like crime adjacent, psychological suspense, Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Fine, Kate Atkinson. So yeah, that's just not exclusively what I've read, but it's always where my interest lies is page turners where I want to know what's happening. And they can be character-driven, they can be detectives, they can be psychological suspense. I don't really mind as long as it's gripping and I am interested in the characters and I want to know what's going on, and you know, unpeeling the layers. That's what I love as a reader. So I think if I was ever gonna write, it was always going to be crime.

What Crime Fiction Really Is

SPEAKER_00 38:43

And I guess I mean, one thing I do find is there can absolutely be a misconception about what crime is. Like I've had people say to me over the years, oh, I don't really like crime novels because I don't like all that gore and blood. And you're kind of like, okay, I don't remember the last time I read a book that had any kind of blood or gore in it. Because especially if you're reading domestic suspense, psychological suspense, which is mostly what I like to read, you're you're, you know, you're reading about someone who's just in their own house and anxious about something that's going on that doesn't make sense to them. And so there's not really any blood or gore involved at all in those kind of stories. And I think, yeah, people have people think it's X or Y, they think it's all detectives or it's all police, or it's all whatever. Whereas there's so many subgenres in crime. And I think there's a lot of hybrid genre kind of books where it is a story about a family and something that happened long ago, and people are trying to figure out what happened and this sort of effect it's having on the people in that family today, and that might be marketed as book club fiction or general fiction or women's fiction or uplet. But effectively, if there's a crime at the heart of the story and it's having repercussions, to me, that's in the wider genre of crime, and that's my favorite.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Oh, and it's so good, and you're so good at writing, you know, thrillers, crime, domestic suspense, whatever category you want to put them into. Your books are incredible, and I I often wonder do you literally see as sinister moments in the everyday? Because that's what your books are kind of based off. They're everyday, you know, moments like sending a text to the wrong group, or you're attending a wedding and something is amiss because somebody goes missing, or you're just on the tube and your child takes off on their own down the train. Do you see the world through those types of eyes where you see things that could go wrong around every corner?

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Yeah, like definitely. And I think a lot of crime authors would say the same that it's the what if. So we always wonder about the what if. So anything that happens, every decision I make is a what if. It's like, okay, I need to go to the shop now, but I'm gonna have to like leave the house to leave the house empty and I can't lock up, or that's a probably a ridiculous example. But like I'll be thinking ahead about like, okay, but my daughter's gonna be home in two minutes, so it doesn't matter if I don't lock the door, and then I'm like, okay, but what if someone breaks in just in that two minutes and the dog's home alone and no, I can't leave the dog? Okay, I need to find the key or delay why I'm leaving. So it's it's always not in a debilitating way, but always kind of thinking, but what if I make this decision and that's the outcome? Kind of butterfly effect, ripple effect stuff all the time. And there's so many books we read, and I love reading them where that's the idea is that one small thing happens or one big thing happens, and there's a knock-on effect that hits so many people or can go across generations. And yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Do any of your your ideas come out of anxiety? Like, are you an anxious person if you're you know, you're like, well, what if that happened, or what if what if this happened if I did that? Like, is is some of that still a place of anxiety?

SPEAKER_00 42:27

No, it's just I don't think I'm an anxious person. I think it's almost the opposite that like if I if I imagine it could happen, it can't happen. It's like a sort of a reverse temp fate, a kind of a magical realism. And I know from talking with other people in the past, lots of people do this. It's kind of like if you map out the worst thing that could happen, you're actually preventing it could from happening. Because how big a coincidence would that be if you figured out exactly what could happen and then it just did? That no, that's not possible. So I think, yeah, no, I think I'm quite quite calm and measured when I'm thinking, okay, I should really not do this because this bad thing could happen. And I don't really get anxious, but that is my way of not getting anxious, is by thinking about what could happen.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Thinking it through, yeah. Although some of your some of your ideas for your book stemmed from real life experiences I read, especially Nobody Saw a Thing where you and your sister were genuinely on a train as kids, and you genuinely got on without your parents, and then your dad's like, Go to this stop.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Yeah, yeah. So that was like in London on a family holiday. I was 12 at the time, and my sister was six, and yeah, we got on and the doors closed, and it all ended well because someone was beside us on the train and said, Oh, your dad was shouting Tower Bridge. I'll show you where Tower Bridge is, and got us off the train. And yeah, we were like asking my dad about it recently. We were like, It did the person. And get off and wait with us. And he was like, no, they just went on their way. So with the book, like it was only really when my dad retelled the story a couple of years ago that I realized how terrifying it must have been for him and my mom as the parents. Whereas I only knew it, I don't think I was particularly scared at the time. I don't really remember, to be honest. I only know it through the retelling from my dad. But like now that I have my own kids, I'm like, oh my God, that must have been absolutely terrifying. And it was the late 80s, so we didn't have mobile phones or anything. I just I hope we would have had the sense to find a police officer if my parents hadn't found us. But I kind of thought, okay, that would be a good idea for a book. And obviously, because it's a crime novel, there's going to be a lot more to it, and they're not found at the next stop. But also I made the characters younger because I guess 12, you know, a 12-year-old has some agency, can speak to a police officer or a member of staff, whereas I made the the children six and two, and the mom finds the two-year-old, but not the six-year-old. And what I enjoyed doing is the two-year-old has obviously seen what happened and knows where her sister is, but is too young to tell anyone she can't talk. So I quite liked that element of it.

The Seed Of Such A Nice Girl

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Where did the idea for such a nice girl come from? Was it inspired by the murder that took place by any chance in um oh that five-star resort last year? Can't remember what it's called. No, Bally Finn. Remember, there was like a murder in Bally Finn Dement Demain or Demens after a wedding weekend, I think it was, or something like that. Or maybe maybe I'm putting a wedding into the story because I got married around that time. Anyway. Where did it come from?

SPEAKER_00 45:52

No, so basically it's more so it's about the relationship between the moms when their kids are being very nice to each other. And what that's coming from is when my kids are small, and I know from talking to other parents, lots of people can relate to this. So if I was picking them up from Crash or preschool, and sometimes you'd get called over by the manager and they'd be like, Can I just have a word with you? And your heart sinks because you're like, Oh no, what is this? And the manager would say, Look, there was a little incident earlier. And again, those are not words you want to hear as a parent of small kids. And then they would say, and it was a biting incident. And my first thought would always, please let them be telling me my child got bitten and not that my child has been going around biting other people. And then you feel really guilty for thinking that, but nobody wants to be the parent of the biter. And I guess over all the years, while my kids have been in primary school, you know, there's this thing where they become really good friends with someone in the class, and you might know the mom from the school run, and then your kids are having play dates and they're friends, and it's so nice, and you get on really well with the mom, and you're like, This is so nice. Our children are friends, we're becoming friends, this is so great. And then your daughter will come home and go, I hate her. This is what she did today. She's so mean. And you're like, Oh no, I guess I'm not friends with the mom anymore. But it it is a little awkward because you're like, and I I do, I probably do overthink this stuff, but I'd be like, Okay, so do I acknowledge with this mom that our kids are fighting? Do we just also stop talking to each other? You know, what do you do? So it's that awkwardness of the relationship between the parents or the adults, if the children, or in this case, the adult children, have a falling out. But because this is a crime novel, it's not just a regular falling out, it's potentially murder. So the moms have to find the two missing daughters, but not knowing who is the killer and who is the victim, and that puts a strain on the relationship. So that's kind of that was what inspired the idea.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

I'm only on chapter, I actually listened to this one on an audiobook, Don't Hate Me. So I'm only on chapter 60. I listen to audiobooks all the time. It's like, don't hate me. I'm cheating with the reading this time, but I'm on chapter 60. Well, that's good, that's reassuring to hear that as an author in your mind.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

We must be clear about this. Listening to audiobooks is not cheating. And also, I have an audiobook on the go 365 days a year. I love audiobooks. And because most of what I read in print would be advanced copies of books that are not out yet, where authors or well, more like editors and agents are looking for endorsements for their authors, I don't really get to choose what I read in print. So, audiobook is my like golden place where I can listen to whatever I want. And some of the best books I've read over the last five or six years have been audiobooks. So, no, it's not cheating.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

So, you listen to the audiobook, and then if you really love it, you buy the physical book as well. That's what my husband does, and I'm often like, you didn't read it, you listened to it.

SPEAKER_00 49:03

Um I think I love reading a physical book. I haven't done it, but I have thought about doing it for both the wedding people and Margot's Got Money Troubles because I listened to both of those in the last few weeks or months, and I loved both of them so much, and I kind of thought I'd like a copy on my bookshelf just to remember how much I love them. So that's a good reminder. I think I'm gonna do that this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

I must put Margot's Got Money problems on my list, but I loved the wedding people as well. It was so good. I want to talk real quickly because we are gonna run

All Her Fault Goes To Television

SPEAKER_01 49:33

out of time. You're a busy lady about the whole excitement around all her faults. I read that someone in the film industry read a review of your book, and then that sparked an idea for them to then obviously pursue getting film rights and everything else. Talk me through that insanely exciting chapter of your life because I'm sure it took place over a period of time between filming and negotiations and everything else. But what was it like getting an email to tell you that your book is gonna be turned into a TV series? And then what was it like seeing the TV series on the screen with actors that you love so much that you named one of your characters after before you even knew this was gonna happen?

SPEAKER_00 50:17

Yeah, like the whole thing was incredible. So the book was optioned, as you say, so basically Unbeknownst to Me. So Orderful came out in summer of 2021, and it got crime novel of the month in the Sunday Times in the UK. And Unbeknownst to Me, a man called Nigel Marchant of Carnival Films, reads the Sunday Times and he read it that Sunday morning and saw the review and thought, oh, that could be interesting. And he bought a copy of the book. And then a few months later, I got an email that uh they want Carnival wanted to meet to talk about buying the option. So we did that. My TV agent set all of that up, and then I knew that you your best bet is to just forget all about it because most options don't actually ever turn into a TV show. And in in an ideal world, you would want all your books optioned, but you would also be very realistic that most of them, you know, the option will run out after three years, and then that's probably it. And I would get updates every now and then. I heard they were in talks with Peacock, and I didn't, I didn't even know who Peacock were. They're the NBC streamer in the US, but we don't have them here. And then about a year and a half later, I think I lose track of all these dates. I got an email to tell me that I got a call from my agent one night saying, look at your email, look at your email. And I didn't know what was going on. And I clicked into my email and it was from my TV agent with a link to Hollywood reporter saying that Peacock had ordered all her fault to be, they had green lit it, so it was going to be made. So that was a crazy, crazy, crazy moment. And then a few months after that, I got another email to say that Sarah Snook of Succession was going to be playing the lead character Marissa. So like that was unreal. And yeah, I had when I was writing Such a Nice Girl, much before I knew any of this, I called we were watching season five of Succession at the time. So I called the main character Siobhan after Shiv, because I mean I love Shiv. We all love Shiv. And some people go, Oh my god, she's terrible. I'm like, I know, but that's why we love her. She's an amazing character played by an amazing actress. So yeah, and then Dakota Fanning, Michael Pena, Sophia Lillis, Abby Elliott all signed up, and it was amazing. I got to go visit Set in autumn of 2024, and then I got to go to the premiere in November 2025, and it came out on our TV here last November on Sky. So yeah, it was really truly one of the highlights of my career and life.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

Yeah, it's a proper pinch me. I mean, if they don't get bigger than that, those pinch me moments, do they?

SPEAKER_00 53:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I'm still kind of every now and then going, did that actually happen?

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Because crazy. I know, I think you were involved in the scripting as well, right? Of the series? Were you?

SPEAKER_00 53:18

I know.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

They sent me scripts.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

That's as far as we can go. Okay. Yeah, so like they sent me the script. So I knew it was great because I was able to read, and I knew they were gonna have to add in a lot of extra sort of subplots and storylines to bring it out to eight episodes. There wouldn't be enough material in uh in any given book to make eight episodes. So that was good because I was able to know in advance what the new things were, and then I I think I must have sort of glossed over all the elements of the script where it was really taken from the book. So when I was watching it with my family then last November, it was really nice to see how many elements, how many scenes really were in the book and in the screen adaptation too.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

Yeah, because the reason I asked about being involved in the screenwriting, which I now know you weren't, but was it hard to let go of your story and give it to these people and let them flesh it out and build it up further? Or were you quite okay with that? Because what a cool opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

The second thing. So again, luckily, a bit like knowing options mostly don't come to anything. I also knew that when you sign the contract for the option, you are leaving it to them to do whatever they want. And so they can change everything. I mean, I don't know why anyone would do that. It wouldn't make sense to pay for the auction and then do something completely different. But I knew that they could change the beginning, the middle, the end, the whole lot. And you you just you have to be okay with that. And also, I did not want to be that super precious author who is like, no, you can't do that with my book, knowing they can, and I would just be making their lives awkward by trying to weigh in on it. So I just fully left them to it.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

Yeah, and amazing because if people haven't already discovered you, which is like, where are they living if they haven't discovered you yet? They will get to discover you through that TV series and then want to read more of the stories and worlds you've created as well. What do your family think of this amazing, you know, chapter you built for yourself?

SPEAKER_00 55:26

Like they enjoy it, it's fun. Every now and then my kids will be like, Oh, I saw this TikTok and someone was recommending your book. Or it's really nice, you know, if I bump into one of their friends and their friends will be like, Oh, I got your book, or I saw your book on TikTok or whatever. And that's really nice. But mostly my kids just want to know what's for dinner, or can they have a lift somewhere? So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:51

They're just kids at the end of the day. Mom is kind of cool, but also she's mom.

A Tease Of The Next Book

SPEAKER_01 55:57

Before we wrap up, what are you working on next? What is what can we expect of your next book, or can you not say just yet?

SPEAKER_00 56:04

Yeah, it's it's very deep in very muddy, murky edits right now. I mean, I think it is about a mom who is at home in her house on a very rainy, stormy night, and her husband's gone to collect her daughter, and he's been gone longer than she thinks, and she's getting more and more anxious about it. And then there is a knock on the door, and she can see through the glass that it's two police officers, two Gardee. And so she her heart is in her mouth then because she's like, Oh god, oh god, this is it, and she opens the door, but then what they say to her is something else entirely.

SPEAKER_01 56:47

Oh, oh, look, you're doing it again. I want to know more. I love that you're like, I think that's what it's about.

SPEAKER_00 56:54

I was testing that out on you because uh yeah, like this is very murky and muddy right now.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

Whoa, I want to know. I want to know, I want to know. Listen, we could talk for absolute hours, but I know that you have another interview to go and do. So thank you so much for your time. And honestly, never stop writing because me and your legions of fans are obsessed and we love you, and it's lovely to see that you're such a nice person, such a nice girl as well.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

Thank you so much, Andrea. Thank you.

Final Thoughts And Next Week

SPEAKER_01 57:30

If you've yet to watch all her faults on Sky, honestly, go do it. You will not regret it. You'll probably do what I did, which is go in with curiosity watching one episode, and hours and hours later, you'll you'll still be on the couch determined to get through the full series in one night because it's genuinely that good, and she is just an epic, epic author, a brilliant writer, a master of suspense, and I just fly through her books, and anytime I see a new one, I'm like, I gotta get it. It also helps that she's just such a lovely person, so generous, and giving up her time, and I was very, very grateful to have had the chance to sit down with her because she is a true gem, and I know that her career is just going to skyrocket further and further. I hope you enjoyed the episode. I'll be back again next week. My guest, Louie Walt. Yep, I promise it's going to be a very entertaining and interesting conversation. Let's see you then.