When Olivia Berrington gets the call to tell her that her best friend from college has been killed in a car crash in New York, her life is turned upside down. Her relationship with Sally was an exhilarating roller coaster, until a shocking betrayal drove them apart. But if Sally really had turned her back, why is her little girl named after Olivia?
As questions mount about the fatal accident, Olivia is forced to go back and unravel their tangled history. But as Sally’s secrets start to spill out, Olivia’s left asking herself if the past is best kept buried.
1. When did you pick up the pencil or start typing out a story for the first time?
I had a few failed attempts in my 20s, but I didn’t know what I wanted to say. It was when I was meant to be getting married in my early 30s, but I knew in my heart it was wrong, that I began to write. A friend dropped out of a week long course, and I took her place and it all started pouring out. That sense of something being right on paper, and being at the age when you feel like you need to do the grown up thing, but somehow wanting to run away. That was my first novel, Stick or Twist. I was thrilled when it got picked up, and after that I was under contract and on my way.
2. Besides writing what is your dream job?
I have a parallel career as a TV drama executive. I develop and pitch new ideas to the networks, and then hopefully get them made. I had a long career at the BBC, working on a whole raft of shows, including MI5 and Rome.
3. Who is your most favorite character to have written?
I loved writing Livvy, in The Last Time I Saw You. A lot of her concerns were things I think about. I wanted to write about dating later - how it can be hard for both parties not to be haunted by the relationships that have gone before. Obviously it’s extreme in her case, as William’s dead wife is her one time best friend. Does she know Sally better than he did? And what was she hiding from him?
4. Are you afraid to kill off a major character in one of your stories? Are you worried about fan retaliation?
I often have some death in my books. Deaths remind us we’re alive I think, and that we’re only here for a little while. I’ve experienced bereavement in my own life, and it moves the pieces around inside. I haven’t killed a major character yet, although Sally is very much a major player in this book, and she exists alive in the flashbacks and as a haunting presence in the present day.
5. What are you reading at the moment?
I just read the new Elizabeth Gilbert novel, The Signature of All Things, and very much enjoyed it. It’s very thoughtful, not a quick read. I love her memoirs Eat, Pray, Love and Committed so I was interested to read her fiction.
I adored the new Jojo Moyes novel, The One Plus One. I will always return to Melissa Bank’s The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing and also The Time Traveller’s Wife. Both books are so wonderful about love. Depth and lightness of touch all at once.
Eleanor Moran is the author of three previous novels: Stick or Twist, Mr Almost Right and Breakfast in Bed, which is currently being developed for television. Eleanor also works as a television drama executive and her TV credits includeRome, MI5, Spooks, Being Human and a biopic of Enid Blyton, Enid, starring Helena Bonham Carter. Eleanor grew up in North London, where she still lives.
Twitter: @EleanorKMoran
Eleanor Moran’s Website: http://www.eleanormoran.co.uk/
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