Abigail crawled into my head when I was writing Memories and demanded to be heard. Until then, I hadn’t realised characters actually did that. I’ll admit to having a weakness for angsty-writer-type narrators, people who are on the outside and say little but think a lot. For Abi there’s this conflict between wanting to be different and not wanting to be weird, wanting to be a part of things without wanting to conform, and wanting to be happy without wanting to work at it or knowing how to. I think it’s an accurate portrayal of teenage angst, the self-awareness and the pain, which is probably why a friend of mine read it and liked it, but said that it made her feel like she wanted to go and slit her wrists. Compliments are wonderful things, really…

This was the first book I published where you only hear one side of the story – Abigail’s. There are pros and cons to this, and I contemplated writing something from Sarah’s POV, or Fiona’s, or Caroline’s (and ended up writing a whole book about Emily), but I’m happy with this as it is. I won’t say it’s my favourite – writers, like mothers, are not supposed to pick favourites – but it is the one I would probably return to if contemplating a sequel.