HOW TO BE THE BEST(SELLER)

Often when you see new books hitting the charts, or see the hype around big breakout debuts, it’s easy to assume that the author has had some sort of golden luck, that they are somehow more talented, more gifted, or have better connections than you. But the truth is almost always very different.

I am that bestseller with the runaway breakout debut, and a string of successes, including two shortlistings for Irish Crime Novel of the Year – and luck does come into the picture, but so does hard work, and finding ways to create opportunity, to make the ‘luck’ happen.

In 1999 my husband went sailing across the Atlantic for eight weeks and I had an idea for a book. It was November, just me and the cats, long dark evenings and wet weekends in our cottage on the edge of the Wicklow mountains.

It seemed like the perfect time to start writing.

I’m a huge reader, and I’m one of those people who always