Comment from the book world in February 2025

‘I've been phenomenally lucky to have that book (I Let You Go) published, and also lucky in the way that readers responded to it. To be able to sustain a career as a full time writer from my debut for more than a decade is something I will never take for granted. There are so many brilliant writers who aren't able to write full time, and who are really struggling to get the recognition they deserve...

I looked at authors who wrote series, and I privately thought they had it easy - they didn't have to create anything new, they had the characters, they had the world, all they had to do was throw another story at them. But it's not like that at all. Although you've got your core characters, you're creating new characters, and you create a new world and universe in each particular book. I boxed myself into a few corners with previous stories - for instance, I might want Ffion to go back to the station, but then I'd realise she couldn't, because I'd put it miles away and she couldn't physically get there. There were all these constraints - I found it really challenging...

The beautiful thing about writing a series is that you get more of a chance to dive into characterisation than you do in a standalone. Not just because you've got more books to explore it, but because readers expect and want a little more depth. In a different world, if I were a different sort of writer, I would write romance - I'm a sucker for a love story, particularly if it's not conventional.'

Clare Mackintosh, author of 9 novels, including I Let You Go, Hostage and Other People's Houses, which have sold more than 2 million copies across 40 countries, in Bookbrunch