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Making a splash next year

Today marks five years since the publication of my first novel, The Lido. So it feels like a fitting day to announce some exciting news… I have been working on a follow-up novel. The Lifeline will be published in April 2024.

Writing The Lido changed my life. I wrote it while working in marketing and dreaming of being an author. One day the characters arrived in my head and wouldn’t leave. I started grabbing any time I could in order to write: before work, on my lunch breaks, and late into the evening.

The Lido was inspired by my love of outdoor swimming and my experiences of struggling to find my feet in my early twenties. I wrote about a friendship that I wished might have happened to me when I was feeling my most lost and anxious. I drew on my background as a journalist and as a campaigner (for the rights of interns).

It took me about a year to write The Lido and another year to find representation from a literary agent. I faced a lot of rejection and had moments when I felt close to giving up. But eventually, I found an agent who wanted to work with me and together we polished the novel and sent it out to publishers. It wasn’t long until I was offered a publishing deal that enabled me to quit my job and focus on writing full-time.

It really was a dream come true. Ask anyone who has known me for a long time and they will tell you that I’ve always wanted to be an author. It’s all I’ve ever really wanted to do.

Promoting The Lido took me on a wonderful adventure: appearing on TV and Woman’s Hour, doing events around the country including on the poolside of several lidos, meeting authors I admired and chatting with lots of lovely readers.

The characters and story of The Lido have always held a special place in my heart. But when I finished writing The Lido I thought that the story was finished. I never saw myself writing a follow-up.

But last year (and three novels later) I found myself drawn back to the story, thinking about the characters again. Going through big changes in my own life - getting married, moving house, becoming a mother - got me wondering where Kate would be now. What might have changed in her life over the past five years?

Some of my highlights from the publication of The Lido

It’s this that really inspired me to return to Kate’s story. I thought she had found her ending in The Lido, but I realise now that it was only the beginning.

I’ll be revealing more about the book over the coming months. There’s a certain amount of anxiety that comes with returning to the place that launched my career. I feel a responsibility to all the readers who have reached out over the years to tell me they enjoyed Kate and Rosemary’s story. I don’t want to let anyone down.

But I think that this is simply the story I need to tell at this moment in my life. I hope that it might be the story that some people need to read too. That the characters and their journeys might remind people of the things that connect us, the things that are important and ultimately, the fact that even in life’s toughest moments, there is always a lifeline.

(P.S. Pre-orders make a big difference to authors so a big thank you in advance if you do choose to pre-order!)