If you are anything like me — a thriller reader (or indeed writer) — your Instagram has probably been stuffed with Harrogate posts. I am talking, of course, about the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival; the world's longest-running and most prestigious celebration of crime writing. I went for the first time last year and wrote a post about it here on Fact to Fiction, being honest about the social anxiety I felt but also the awe at this new world that I’ve stepped into.

I’ve had a few health issues lately, mainly gynaecological, that have taken the wind out of my sails a bit. Basically I have uterine fibroids and they’ve been causing havoc. It’s maddening really because it has slowed me down with the book just as I enter the most twisted part of the story. It has also made the juggling act harder. It is damn hard being a woman sometimes. I definitely am not scouting for sympathy and I’ll be totally fine, these are all things that can be addressed and solved. I just get upset when pain derails my plans or robs me of my clarity and energy. The type of pain you can’t really talk about without possibly making other people awkward. But I can’t see your face right now, so it’s fine ;-)

So! The full diary of my second year at Harrogate will be a little truncated and more picture-based. I nearly deleted all of the above paragraphs but to hell with it, it would be fake to pretend that everything is always utterly fabulous. But what was fabulous were my four days in Harrogate. Let’s go!

Day One: Thursday

I hopped on a bus to the airport for a late afternoon flight. I LOVE a late afternoon flight. No early morning panicking while searching for a passport and yet not too late that you can’t make evening plans. I had big ambitions to write a chapter over a coffee in the airport. I did not write a chapter but I did have a coffee and figured some plot details out, so it’s a win.

The flight was delayed by an hour but I had Jo Spain’s Never To Be Found — highly recommended by the way — on my Books App. I have also just finished Catherine Ryan Howard’s Buyer Beware. SO creepy; I loved it.

It was only 40 minutes to Leeds and then straight onto the A2 flyer into Harrogate, which is a very pretty and quite fancy town. By the time I got to my hotel room (which had this cute bath in the corner — a lifesaver when I found myself in pain on the second day) I was feckin starvin’. I dumped my stuff on the bed and went for some Italian food with the lovely Gill Perdue, author of All Of Them Lied (which was in the bestseller charts for weeks! Great book) and Fiona Gartland, author of Under Her Care, a brilliant, tense thriller. This year I tried to pace myself over the four days so I had one Peroni Zero and was rightly admonished by Edel Coffey for being a bore.

Here’s the bath.

And here’s Gill, holding a picture of Vicki Notaro’s Anywhere But Here because we wanted to bring her on the adventure too. I interviewed Vicki in the new Waterstones in Blanchardstown this week right after she found out that she’ll be in this weekend’s BESTSELLERS charts. Brava Vicki, so deserved.

I went back to my hotel after dinner and did in fact write a chapter of the book and then closed my laptop ready for a great night’s sleep. Nope. Insomnia central.

Day Two: Friday

I woke up in pain and thought NO DAMN WAY is this trip being ruined. So I got up early, took two Nurofen Plus and went for a walk in The Stray, amongst 200 acres of grass parkland.

I went back to the hotel, had breakfast and made my way to the Old Swan Hotel and the famous Harrogate tent.

I went to see a panel — From Poirot to Podcasts — where Lucy Foley talked about her new novel, Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel, an official Miss Marple mystery. Former Christie translator Ragnar Jónasson spoke about The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer and Ross Montgomery spoke about his book The Murder at World’s End. I met Ross later at a dinner. He’s very sound. Ruth Ware also talked about her novel The Woman in Suite 11. It was chaired by the legendary Val McDermid. I arrived four minutes late and was told to sit at the back where these signs were laid out. Ha.

Then I went and did some more book work and OK OK I did some shopping too. Harrogate shopping is expensive but FUN. Then I went and glammed myself up for the Penguin dinner, which was in the very swish Ivy Restaurant. Here I am with a bit of make up and lots of concealer to cover up the previous night’s sleeplessness.

I have no pictures of the dinner because I spent the whole time yapping away and getting to know the wider Penguin team. I was also regaling the legend that is Liz Nugent with my mad lockdown purchases (Liz is ultra talented, yes, but she’s also a real supporter of other authors, which as a newbie I am so grateful for) and catching up with my editor Patricia Deevy who always manages to get the goss out of everyone and who I then try, unsuccessfully, to get the gossip out of in turn. That sentence isn’t grammatically great but I’m too tired to fix it. Ok rolling on. Gill was also at the dinner although at a different table. We headed into the beer tent again to catch up with some other Irish authors which joyously included Michelle Teahan and Amy Jordan and, way too briefly, Liv Matthews. I also met Claire Coughlan for the first time. And it was her birthday! Here she is on the steps of the Old Swan.

Back to the hotel I went, sickeningly well behaved again, with some of those eye masks that all the women in their 20’s are rocking on planes. I thought after hours and hours of talking I would surely collapse into sleep. Incorrect. My brain was fizzy. I think I got asleep around 4:30am.

Day Three: Saturday

There was no energy for walks but I got caffeinated and went over to the Old Swan for an event I was asked to take to part in (I grabbed the opportunity with both hands of course) where readers come into the Library Room with five or six authors, we stamp their cards (the stamps have our book name on them! And little pictures linked to the novels. Mine was a cracked mirror. I took that stamp with me, I mean of course I did) and then the reader can sign up for the Penguin newsletter and win prizes. There were links to all of our books but most people who came up asked what our books are about, so there was a lot of pitching. When I first walked into the hotel there was a queue all the way through the building I had to squeeze past. I thought what on earth is this big event? It was in fact ours! I am putting that down to Liz, Gill, Tracy Sierra and Jane Corry being there.

The queue, the stamp and myself (buzzing. Sweating. A lovely woman called Lynn Sorsby loaned me her fan. THANK YOU Lynn.)

Substack just notified me that I am now over length for a post thanks to all these pictures. I’ll sum up briefly by saying I then went to a panel that Liz was on, it was really fascinating and great to see her flying the Irish flag, then went for dinner with the Irish Murderesses. I was NOT well behaved. Not at the dinner nor in the tent. My last memory is of wandering back to the hotel with a rosé in my hand. It was an EPIC weekend full of chat and stories and catch-ups and sharing experiences of what it’s like to work in this strange, weird, amazing world. I met loads of amazing writers, some who are new like me, some at the top of their game, lots of readers and reviewers and publishers and editors and agents. On Monday, I was non-verbal. Might have had something to do with the airport gins on Sunday? And the lack of sleep over one of the best weekends of the year. Ok that’s enough from me. Hope you enjoyed. xxx

It’s been a little while since my last post but today I have a cracker for you. In early 2024, I signed with Florence Rees who works with AM Heath, Britain’s oldest independent literary agency. Well-known authors with the agency include Maggie O’Farrell, Samantha Harvey and David Szalay.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Florence has changed my life. She is astute, hard-working, strategic and ambitious for her authors. She’s also great fun and very patient (suffice to say I had a lot of questions the year we went on submission such as: SO, ANY NEWS? Ha). I have wanted to interview her for Fact to Fiction since I set it up, so I bit the bullet a few weeks ago and asked her to lift the lid on her work as an agent and to tell us some of the dos and don’ts of submitting your book.

Florence represents incredible authors like Salma El-Wardany, Nussaibah Younis, Jaspreet Kaur, Annie Lord, Rachel Thompson and Philip Ellis. She began her career doing work experience and interning at Orion, Short Books, PFD, and then Greene & Heaton before moving over to AM Heath where she rose quickly through the ranks from assistant to agent.

Before we get into it, just a little update from me. I have been very quiet because I’ve had my head down working on my next book. I’m juggling the job of political editor with dreaming up an entirely new world so the days are passing in a blur. I’ve also done my first few festivals and events; the Dubray Read Women Event, then a truly amazing evening in Dunmore East organised by Waterford Libraries, and the Dalkey Book Festival. I’ll have more coming up soon and will post about those here.

The Lies Between Us has also gone international :) It was published earlier this month in Poland with Muza and it looks like she’s absolutely flying. Every time I get tagged in a review (I am seriously impressed with how detailed the Polish reviews are and how imaginative the accompanying posts are) I pinch myself. The Lies Between Us will be published by Pegasus in the US in December, and then with Penguin Germany next Spring. Paperback publication in Ireland and the UK is also coming up — the new (slightly new) cover is fire. There’s still so much ahead.

I will tell the story of Book Two when I get to the finish line but until that point I am keeping the magic, mystery and mayhem of it all to myself. I have put my heart and soul into it though, I will say that. I also plan to write a post on what the months after publication have been like but I think the next time you’ll hear from me will be in a couple of weeks after I return from the crime writers’ Glastonbury AKA the Harrogate Crime Festival in Leeds. CANNOT. WAIT. Ok that’s enough from me. Let’s head over to Florence!

1. For aspiring authors entering the world of querying, what initial tips would you have when it comes to sending submissions to agents?

I always say you only get one chance to make a first impression! Double and triple check everything before you send it. You’d be surprised to hear how many submissions I receive with the wrong name or addressed ‘Dear sir’! It’s not the best start. Make sure your pitch is as good as you can get it. Test-drive it on friends, family. Make sure you’ve finished your manuscript and done as much editorial work as you can, making use of trusted beta readers. Those first three chapters should be as good as you can make them, to grab an agent’s attention.

But other than the basics, I think the best tone to strike is courteous, clear and professional. I remember a colleague being told to be ‘a good girl and pass on the manuscript’ in a query letter. Needless to say, that’s not the best idea!

2. What is the one thing that querying authors forget when sending their submissions to agents, and what makes a submission stand out above all others for you?

That our job really is driven by our own personal taste in what we enjoy reading. That means rejections aren’t personal, although I know they feel like it. I often read submissions and think the writing is great but it’s just not for me. A submission stands out to me when an author has clearly spent time understanding my list and has submitted to me in a genuinely tailored submission letter. Their research and understanding normally shines through. I know it’s time-consuming but I do think it’s worth it.

3. The life of an agent is a very busy and full one: what does your average week look like?

I go into the office 3-4 days a week (except right now when we are all working from home sheltering from the heatwave!) which I really enjoy. Part of the joy of working for a medium sized agency is having great colleagues and hearing about what they’re up to. My week tends to be a mixture of the essential admin that comes with this job (emails, contracts, setting up meetings, chasing payments etc), reading and meetings. The reading is both authors I already represent. Perhaps they’re sending in a second draft of a novel we’re working on and I’m seeing how they have implemented the changes we discussed. Or it may be a submission I’ve called in. Meetings are with both publishers with authors under contract, eg a publicity/marketing catch up, or it could be with an editor whom I share taste with, to pitch a novel or hear about what they’re looking for.

4. What is your most favourite and least favourite part of the job?

This one is easy! My favourite part is telling an author that a publisher wants to make an offer on their book. That amazing feeling never gets old. My least favourite is the opposite: telling an author we haven’t had any offers. It’s deflating to say the least.

5. Finally: are you accepting queries right now and what are you looking for?

Yes, I am! In a nutshell, I think of my list as books you might take to the beach but you certainly wouldn’t leave there. I love novels with great characters, warmth and heart, and a cracking story.

(Sorry but how glam is this woman? Not me lol. Florence. Chic! This was taken at the book launch in Feb.)

That’s it from me! I’ll be back in a few weeks. Jen. xxx

It has been nearly a year since I set up Fact to Fiction. What a joy it’s been, writing these posts. I knew what I wanted to achieve when I set it up: to share what the path to publication was really like, to offer a peek behind the curtain. I never put too rigid a deadline on the updates, aiming for roughly one post a month last year.

This year, in the lead-up to the publication of The Lies Between Us in late February, the updates were much more frequent, reflecting how busy things were, how exciting, how terrifying, how baffling and new. After the launch, I posted a detailed diary of the day, then I wrote about the sales figures and the performance of the book as it made its way out into the world. In the last post I mentioned that the rhythm of normal life was returning. I thought I had pushed through the post-launch tiredness. Not quite. I hadn’t underestimated how up to here I had been about pretty much everything.

There was a crash that came when things fully quietened down, one that was part physical (low iron count, low immunity, migraines) and part psychological. There is such a long build-up towards getting a novel published involving a lot of work by a lot of people. The truth is, when it’s all done, and when it’s out of your hands and on the shelves, you can feel a little… helpless. And the quiet can feel odd. But just when you think you imagined the whole thing, you get a message from a new reader, someone who happened to come across the novel in their local bookshop. They have lots of thoughts and sometimes surprising insights. These are connections that I’m nurturing, and I feel like maybe something else is being built now. I have lots of things coming up: my first book club visit, an exciting event in Dunmore East (details soon), my first festivals (buy tickets for the Dalkey Book Festival here, I’ll be talking to Martina Devlin at 5:30pm on Saturday June 20th) and for the second time, a trip to Harrogate for the crime writer’s equivalent of Glastonbury.

For me, the month of April has been about recalibrating. I have realised that if I want to get Book 2 finished, I have to get serious about prioritising this writing. Just snatching random spare hours is not going to cut it. And so I am experimenting with getting up early and making this my non-negotiable time with the book. I am one month in and enjoying it way more than I expected — although there’s been mornings when all I wanted to do was press snooze.

I am really pushing myself with this book. I want to be able to stand over it and say: this, 100 per cent, is better than my debut. I’m challenging myself with the subject matter, the plot, the research, everything. At the same time, the day job is really busy. The days are passing in a blur of words.

Meanwhile, here are some books I have loved lately, and also, with my apologies, the answers to the questions I put out on Insta a few weeks ago.

1. A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello

   This. Book. It made my heart ache! The beautiful writing, the insight, the depth. From the outset, Anna tells us she wants to account for herself and her life. The story begins as she seeks out love, meeting Peter, an older man who kind of does whatever he wants and disappears off up the mountains at will. It is about so much more than that, though. It is about Anna’s discovery of herself, her journey towards setting the terms of her own life. I really did will Anna on. I cheered for her when she found the strength to challenge not only those who treated her badly, but her own shortcomings too. I will be going in for a re-read soon.

2. Bad Words by Riognach Robinson

   How feckin lucky was I to nab a copy of this novel, out in October, by Riognach Robinson? I can confirm it is AMAZING. Here’s the blurb.

   “Parker Navarro’s debut novel was meant to define his career - until critic Selina Chan’s blistering review made it the flop of the decade. Four years later, his new book is his shot at redemption; for Selina, reviewing him again is a professional risk she can’t refuse. When her second takedown ignites a viral feud, both their fortunes shift overnight. But as the literary world feeds on their public sparring, a quieter dialogue begins - one that challenges everything they thought they knew about success, sincerity, and each other.” It is even better than it sounds. Parker and Selina are two of the most memorable characters I have ever read in a novel. The book is witty and tense and romantic and addictive. I think it’ll be huge.

3. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

   I picked this book up in the iconic Book Club Bar in NYC before I went to the airport after the St Patrick’s Day trip, and thought, ah yeah, I might read a few chapters before I crash out on the plane. Nope. No sleep would be had. By the time I landed in Dublin, it had been devoured. The blurb: “One evening Alicia Berenson’s husband Gabriel returns home late, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Theo Faber, a criminal psychotherapist, is determined to get her to talk.” Whew, the twists! The tension! If you like a tangled mystery that keeps you guessing, you can’t go wrong here.

4. Strangers by Belle Burden

   This memoir is getting a lot of attention. Examining the abrupt ending of a marriage, this one hit me in the heart. As the world goes into lockdown during the pandemic, Belle Burden’s husband announces without warning that he is leaving her and their kids. His exit is sudden and shocking and without explanation. I don’t cry often when reading, but parts of this made me sob. It’s so unthinkable, really, your best friend turning into a complete stranger. Unthinkable, but in the case of this memoir, utterly compelling too.

5. The Truth About Ruby Cooper by Liz Nugent

   Liz Nugent, the living legend, has written another absolute banger. This book, holy god. It had me not only questioning Ruby’s morals, but my own too. The book: “Ruby Cooper and her sister, Erin, live an idyllic life in their close-knit church community in Boston. But when Ruby is sixteen, she is involved in an incident that causes her family’s world to implode. Across decades, the fallout leaves a wake of destruction behind Ruby in Dublin and Erin in Boston.” It is dark and gripping. You might flinch but you won’t be able to look away. Liz is also so supportive of other Irish authors and I really admire her for that.

Next on the to be read pile: I am nearly finished Under Her Care by Fiona Gartland (loving it) and then I’ll be straight onto Dirty Dancing by Ellen Coyne, Everything That is Beautiful by Louise Nealon, Whatever Happened to Madeline Stone by Louise O’Neill, Other People’s Lives by Kathleen MacMahon and The Island Retreat by Cathy Kelly. Other books I want to read: The Visit by Neil Tully, Secrets Between Friends by Sheila O’Flanagan. Launches and new titles I’m looking forward to: Andrea Mara’s Such a Nice Girl (can’t wait for this one, pre order here) Vicki Notaro’s Anywhere But Here (it is absolutely brilliant. Preorder it here), Gill Perdue’s All Of Them Lied (that plot! Pre order here) Anna Carey’s Love Scene (preorder here) and Patrick Freyne’s Experts in a Dying Field (preorder here).

PS: Ellen Coyne’s Dirty Dancing launched last week in Dublin. I couldn’t resist sneaking a few chapters in last night and I had to force myself to put it down. It is a high-stakes story that will shock you, and I couldn’t be prouder of Ellen for getting the original scoop and now penning this incredible book. Buy it here.

Q&A

Q: What did you learn from being a journalist that helped you be a writer?

A: That you can think about writing all you like, but if you don’t get those words down, there won’t be any parsnips buttered! Working under intense deadlines helped me learn to focus.

Q: How are you feeling post book launch?

A: As above, I was a little unmoored and quite tired. But mainly I am very grateful to everyone who has bought it, and I’m so joyful every time I see it popping up on its adventures throughout the world (and it is travelling the world: on the Camino, in Venice, in Boston, by various poolsides).

Q: Why choose this career?

A: God, I just love writing so much! I love reading, too, and being immersed in other worlds. Stories are everything to me, both fictional and factual. I was also asked a second question here, which was: why political journalism? The answer is that I am fascinated by the people who pursue power, and I’m invested in the decisions they make, whether they affect me directly or not.

Q: Are there any resources for young journalists?

A: The best resource you can ever tap into is the experience and knowledge of the journalists you admire. Most journalists are generous and sound, and if you reach out to ask for advice or help they will usually respond. Almost all of us are easily accessible. Don’t be afraid to ask us about internship opportunities or for advice about pitching to news desks :)

Ok, over and out! More to come soon, including news about The Lies Between Us. If you’d like me to explore a certain topic or idea, let me know. Always feel free to let me know how you are, and if you have any questions.

Jen XXX

PS: Myself and Liz Nugent were asked to stand in for the lovely Edel Coffey and Charleen Hurtubise at the Dubray Read Irish Women event (they couldn’t make it because of the fuel blockades). It was fun but of course Edel and Charleen were missed. x

I am writing this on a plane from Dublin to Philadelphia ahead of a most interesting trip. Every year, the Irish government decamps en masse across the globe on a St Patrick’s Day diplomatic offensive. The Taoiseach heads to the US, where, amongst other engagements, he visits the White House and the US President of the day. I will have coverage of the trip in this weekend’s edition of The Sunday Times, and the weekend after, so I’ll keep shtum until then.

In the airport, as I rushed through departures (I am one of those people who needs to physically see the gate before I can relax, even if I am three hours early) I realised that I forgot make-up remover. So I flew into Boots and as I hurried out, I saw it across from me. WH Smith. I wrote in my last Substack that I first saw The Lies Between Us on a bookshelf by chance while doing the weekly grocery shop. I was totally unfazed, though I was of course chuffed.

This morning, I stood across from the airport book shop and held my breath. For me, one of the most joyous parts of going on holiday — apart from the being away part and the anticipation and the adventure — is the airport books haul. That book will travel the world with me and isn’t that a real message of trust and faith in what the author has produced, that you will make it your companion on your hard earned trip? So I guess it’s no surprise that when I saw it on the shelf I became so emotional I nearly burst into tears. Now look, part of it might definitely be the happy exhaustion of the last few weeks. But I knew, too, that this was my own personal milestone.

Someone will take my novel abroad on their much-anticipated trip. I am slightly confident of this, because it was sitting in the number 12 spot. (PS: I signed all those copies! One of the messages makes no sense because in my tiredness I got confused about what I was writing. If you pick that one up, you’ll know lol.) Which brings me nicely to the topic of book sales.

Anyone who has read this Substack over the last few months will know that the part that scared me the most was putting myself out there and doing interviews. I thought that would be the hardest part. Oh, how wrong I was. I have never been as unhinged in my life (well, rarely) as I was waiting for those first set of sales figures to come through. It is a unique form of torture. I am, I realise, a bit of a control freak. Imagine being a control freak and having to reckon with the knowledge that this huge part of your life is now... out of your hands. You’ve spent years writing the book, editing it, finding an agent, going on submission, getting a publishing deal, preparing for publication, publicising the book and yourself… then it’s out there.

I told myself that I was cool with that, it’ll be what it’ll be! Then the real worrying began. Was it selling well? Had I done a good enough job in the lead-up to publication? Had I explained the book properly, or had I fluffed it? Did anyone care? There were some early signs of encouragement that I clung on to for dear life: a bookseller who tagged me in a post saying it was in their top five locally, a few window displays appearing, the knowledge that the Penguin Sandycove sales team (shout out to Carrie Anderson) were absolute pros making all these things happen.

On the Monday before last I had one major distraction from the sales-related overthinking in the form of a live TV appearance on Ireland AM. Something I haven’t admitted in my years of being a journalist is that I have a phobia of live TV.

I had two major fears, which I cannot believe I am about to admit, but here we are: the first was that I would get sick live on telly and the clip would go viral and I’d never be able to show my face in Dublin again. Or the wider world. The second was that I would have a panic attack / faint with similarly awkward results. If there are any Irish TV producers reading this right now they might be thinking: aha. I have made up some seriously elaborate excuses to get out TV requests to talk about big political stories. The phobia was just too overwhelming. Around ten times I contemplated cancelling Ireland AM, even if it made me look unprofessional.

In the end, I came back to one thought, over and over. This was a brilliant opportunity to put my hard work out there, and some authors would only love to have such a chance. I just didn’t want to let the book down. I didn’t want to let fear impact the book’s prospects. So I did it… and it was totally fine. Well, not totally fine. Little anxious thoughts kept trying to butt in. But the show was hosted by Muireann O’Connell and Tommy Bowe and dare I say it, we had a laugh. It was over in minutes. I had faced one of my biggest professional phobias. I was in a daze in the taxi home. Is it something I would consider doing again this year? Very possibly.

And then it was back to worrying about sales figures, ha. I promise I am having a lot of fun with the book being out, but also, I really do want to be honest and upfront about this process, so forgive all the fretting. In the book world, the sales figures for the week, which run up until that Saturday, are compiled and given to publishers the following Tuesday afternoon. I had been forewarned by an author pal that I might be getting a message on Tuesday afternoon with my sales figures for the previous Thursday 26th Feb, Friday 27th and Saturday 28th, the first three days that the book was out. In fact, copies had appeared in book shops days earlier, but these figures are still referred to as week 0 or partial week sales.

I did my absolute best to stay busy that Tuesday morning, and in fairness I was back to work and had news conference and lots of calls to return and things to arrange.

I was standing in a street in the docklands, crossing the road, when I got the WhatsApp from my publisher with the sales figures. I would be number three in original fiction, up beside Queen Cathy Kelly and powerhouse Edel Coffey, with 549 copies sold. The pure relief that washed through me… it was indescribable. I kind of hunched over as if I was pain, but it was the opposite. Just pure, visceral relief. I zipped across the road and ordered a prosecco in the Gibson Hotel, and then went to Dundrum to sign copies of the book and have a lovely meal. I did get to thinking, in the days after, about our varying definitions of success. Would the book only have been successful if it made the charts? I don’t believe that, truly I don’t. Is a book successful only when it gets nominated for an award? I don’t believe that either. Is it successful only if critics hail it as a masterpiece? Hardly. Do I finish reading a stunning book and ask: but where did it come in the charts? No.

I think I saw my ultimate metric of success today in the airport, or a vision of it. Someone picking up my book and saying: I think this might be good enough to bring with me on my adventure through the world.

Now don’t get me wrong. We all want to sell billions of copies, we all want to be number one. What an incredible achievement that is, and I hope one day in the future I can make it there. Most of us want to keep writing and good figures can help pave the way for that. But the joy is in that connection with the reader, wanky and all as that sounds. The latest charts come out tomorrow, by the way, and the news is good again. Double relief.

Other than that, I have learned some other interesting bits. I used to think authors just signed books because it was a nice thing for them to do. I have since learned that signed copies sell more than unsigned copies, and that people love to give signed copies as gifts. “A signed copy is a sold copy,” I’ve been told. So you best believe I have been scribbling on every copy I could get my hands on around the country. After the launch and the live TV panic and the sales spiralling, things started to (blissfully) return to some semblance of normality. The black bags under my eyes are a little bit less obvious. I finally got around to deep cleaning the bathroom. I put a few washes on. Filed some articles and features. Checked in with friends and family and celebrated birthdays.

And had a little weep at the airport.

If you’ve made it this far, fair play to you! My next Substack will be a Q&A. I’ll put a questions box on my Insta stories next week, but if you have any, please leave them below.

Until then,

Jen xxx

My eyes fly open. It’s publication day! To my great relief I slept through the night after waking at 4am the previous night and thinking: can we cancel everything?! No such panic this morning. I race to the Irish Independent entertainment section and get the best surprise. A lengthy review by Aisling Maria Cronin. “An emotional thriller that will keep readers engaged from beginning to end. The Lies Between Us looks set to be a triumphant debut for Bray.” I can’t believe it. She has gone into real detail in the review and she has found the heart of the novel. Joy of joys. My mind slips, as it does a lot lately, to book two, sitting in a drawer waiting for me to breathe new life into it. Today is not the day! With butterflies and gulping down happy jitters, I post a video on social media about the years in the lead up to this. I’ve been working on the video for ages. Time to get up. I wonder should I take a motillium because my stomach is suddenly like a washing machine.

***

It seems fitting that the first WhatsApp messages I saw this morning were from my fabulous sisters. I am blessed with the sassiest, funniest, kindest sisters. Even though I woke up early I somehow still managed to be late for my taxi to the Oliver Callan show on RTÉ radio. In the taxi now. Am hungry but am worried if I eat I’ll be nauseous. The overthinking never stops lol. But am EXCITED. Hope Oliver doesn’t grill me on anything political. Haven’t a clue what’s going on in the world right now.

***

Just pulling up to RTÉ. One thing I have been working on is that instead of visualising the worst thing that can happen, which is something I’ve slipped into over a period of years, is asking: what is the very best thing that could happen? The best thing is that we have a bit of a laugh and a really nice chat about the book. Note to self: don’t forget to close top button of trousers when I get out of cab. Ha. Flashing RTÉ staff was not on the agenda.

***

Feck! I said FECK live on air! I am assured it’s not a big deal but my god, you would think that after years and years of doing radio I would know the score?! Full disclosure: I had a very panicky moment at the start of the interview when the nerves nearly got the better of me. For a brief, horrifying moment I wondered if I could go ahead with it. Pushed through it and we did more than a half an hour and covered a lot of ground. I did relax and start to enjoy it (that’s probably where the “feck” came from!) Oliver was lovely, he read the book and really seemed to like it. Anxiety is a strange beast. Also, I think I asked my newspaper editor for another week off next week live on air? Must drop him a text now lol. I got out of a taxi here in Blackrock where I’m getting my hair and make up done and the first thing I saw… was the book! In the window of Raven Books. I ran in and signed it. Had a lovely long call with Alan where he assured me that a) “feck” is in the acceptable day time lexicon and b) everything sounded great. Voice noted my friend Ellen and she said the same thing. All systems go. Headache brewing. Sneaky glass of wine and then to get transformed from exhausted gremlin to something less gremlin-y.

**

Hair done by the lovely people in Brown Sugar Blackrock. I thought all the nerves would be gone after the radio show. Apparently I have zero chill. Give myself metaphorical slap across the head.

***

Staying in a hotel near Grafton Street and just landed in, stomach doing flip flops so bad that I had to take a motillium. How can the best day ever also be so… mind boggling? In the hotel room just a few minutes now and the “I can’t come to the launch” messages are coming in thick and fast and from some unexpected quarters. Alan sees my growing anxiety that perhaps no one will show up. He tells me to focus on the positive and that’s what I’ll do.

***

I meant to write immediately after the launch in the bookshop but things just took on a life of their own. Am in my hotel room now and it’s 1:30am. Firstly, I have just had one of the best nights of my life. I don’t know if I have ever, except for my wedding day, felt so truly supported and minded by a gang of people. Am so emotional. We sold every copy of the novel that was in the shop, and raided the display. The place was packed. My niece Rose stole the show. My in-laws and wider family were there early and sitting right at the front. I saw colleagues from different publications I have worked in, old friends, even young journalism students. We all went over to Hyde for drinks after - what a party. I feel like I got to talk to people only very briefly and I hope they know how much I appreciate them coming. Starving now because I forgot to eat, and it is too late for room service. Alan has gone out to get an Apache pizza because that’s all that is open. Tired! So happy.

***

Friday morning. Up out of the bed at 9am for a briefing call with Ireland AM ahead of an interview next week. Voice is so croaky!! Going to fling myself in the shower and then go for breakfast in Balfes with Florence, my agent. It was my first time meeting her in person last night! She’s even more beautiful and cool in real life. Not too hungover. Yet.

***

Straight after breakfast I went back to the hotel to pack my bag, and then I went out with Leonor, the fabulous publicity manager in Penguin, to sign books across the city centre. How cool? When we got to Dubray on Grafton Street, the window display had been restocked. Turns out Leonor was up bright and early to make sure there were fresh copies. Once again feel very grateful to the Penguin pros. Inside the shop, I thought it was a joke when I saw The Lies Between Us in the number one spot. It’s not a joke, Leonor said. We sold all the copies and so we are number one in this particular shop. Holding onto that feeling and already starting to really hope for decent sales. Earlier I sat in a sunny bar with a pint in front of me, signing ten copies (TEN!) that my friend Mark bought for his friends and family. He flew all the way from a snowed-in NYC. There were many laughs and recounting of stories from the launch over the drinks. I am not sure I have ever enjoyed a pint more.

***

Friday night. Finally home with my bags and with some beautiful gifts that I did not expect. Flowers from Penguin. A beautiful bracelet from my sister. A bottle of champagne from Alan. A framed photo from Ellen that made me bawl. A stunning notebook. A brooch from Rosita. On the mantlepiece is a framed photo of a €20 note. Written on it is: “on your first book sale.” Alan wrote it and framed it in early 2024 when he finished reading the book, before I got an agent or publisher. He said, at the time, that it was a show of faith in how much he believed that it would be published one day. I married a good one, didn’t I? And now, sleep.

It’s Sunday, the start of a whole week off work ahead of the publication of The Lies Between Us on Thursday, which is just mad. One thing I’ve learned about the path to getting a novel published is that it is long. The whole process takes a crazy amount of time, and that’s not even including how long it takes to actually feckin write the thing.

There are loads of reasons for this, but the main one is that yours is just one of many, many books that your publisher is working on and it takes a huge effort from a big gang of people to get it shelf-ready. Sometimes it feels like it will never happen, as though launch day is just a dreamy concept buried somewhere in the hazy future.

Then, all of a sudden, it’s a few days away. And you would think with all that time in the bag, I’d be ultra prepared. Little launch speech written. Outfit hanging in the wardrobe for months. Guest list fully organised. Vitamins taken and body hydrated. Eh, no! But hey, that’s OK — it’s a big day yes, but it’s also a fun day. It’s also just another day in the grand scheme of life. Wanting everything to be a very specific perfect way feels like a sure-fire way to suck the joy out of it. Life is messy and chaotic no matter how hard we fight against it.

It’s in that spirit that I want to share what the lead up to publication day has really been like, which might be of interest to anyone writing a novel, on submission, or who has signed a deal and is wondering what lies ahead. Or you might be like me; really nosy and want to know everyone’s secrets.

It has been bats! Queitly, I have been recording podcasts and doing interviews. A lot of thought goes into how I want to present myself and what I’d like to say. But then all that thought flies out the window when I start rambling away without a care in the world, only to sit there after and wonder… what did I just say, lol. I do find it hard, as a woman, to stop caring about how I look as well. I don’t think the answer lies in not caring, actually. I think the key here is dropping all the unrealistic pressures we put on ourselves as women. If we have our health, we are so, so lucky. I remind myself: I am a writer. Who cares whether I look tired in that picture? Just buy my book and have a good time!

It’s also fascinating seeing different interviewer’s styles. I had a lovely on-camera chat with Kat O’Connor from Her.ie and there was something about this interaction with Kat that stayed with me long after I left the Her.ie studio. She has a lovely, gentle way of talking and she radiates calm and poise. I actually felt her calm wash over me and then I really relaxed into it. It reminded me, quite intensely actually, that it really does matter what energy you bring as an interviewer. As a journalist, I took note. That interview will be out after publication btw.

Little exciting random things also happen in the days leading up to publication. A book shop that I adore emailed to let me know that The Lies Between Us will be their book of the month in March. One of my favourite broadcasters, Claire Byrne, posted a picture of the novel on Instagram because (!!!) the pre-orders arrived a week early. Then my friends began tagging me with their pre-orders, and so did colleagues, and even old school friends. The novel popped up in Irish Country Magazine. The unbelievably positive Bookstagram tour came to an end. And then, when I was out getting the weekly grocery shop, looking like a goblin in my Tesco shopping clothes, I saw the book just sitting there on the edge of a bookshelf, a week early. I got a fright.

I always thought I’d cry when I saw it on the shelf for the first time. Spoiler: I did not. I sort of said: “ah there it is! Right so. Better get the shopping done.”

Then came Friday. I may have mentioned that us political journalists are competitive. We all look after each other and there is a huge sense of collegiality amongst pol corrs. But we’re also all on the hunt for the best story. So it wouldn’t be unusual for me to be awake at 1am reading the epapers of the other news outlets, having a gander at what the competition are doing. That’s how I happen to know exactly when all the newspapers are available, almost to the exact minute, in the E-paper apps in the small hours before they hit newsstands.

I knew my first print interview would come out on Saturday morning, in The Irish Times. I also knew that the epaper goes up around 12:45am (on a Saturday anyway, it’s earlier during the week). I was fretting about this one, because it was my first, and because we covered a lot of ground, personally and professionally. Look I might as well be honest, I felt a little deranged on Friday in the lead-up to being able to read it. I just so badly wanted the publication campaign to start well and I wanted everyone to be happy with it, including the publishing team. Two weeks previously I sat down with Nadine O’Regan for the chat, and just like Kat, she had a lovely way of asking questions and putting you at ease. But back to Friday night. With a few glasses of white wine on board, I read the piece and felt a huge wave of relief.

Nadine was so kind and she wrote the piece so beautifully. Also, my oversize blazer looked fab. Alan read it and agreed: this is great. You don’t seem insane. (Even though he knows the truth; I am.) You can read it here. We spoke about lots of things: rebuilding confidence after an attack that changed my life when I was in my early 20s. The loss of my brother. Taking a risk and switching jobs. What it took to get this book over the line.

Then, today, my written piece, touching on many of the same topics, appeared in The Sunday Times (thanks, crew!) and between the two articles, my phone has been hopping with just the kindest messages including from people I haven't heard from in years. I slept through to 11am this morning, the exhausted relief catching up with me, then went and got my nails done and sat down in my highly caffeinated state to write this.

I have three more interviews coming up this week. I am really buzzing for all of them; one is a podcast that I love, and two are big radio interviews. I think I have officially moved from the feeling terrified about it stage of book publicity, to the embrace it and have fun stage. Didn't see that coming.

I have a special Substack post planned for the morning after publication: watch this space. In the meantime, thank you for reading. Thanks for coming along for this strangest of experiences, one that has given me indescribable joy. I hope that, so far, it has been informative. I hope it’s interesting! If you would like to, please do consider buying a copy of the book here. I really want her to do well when I send her off into the world on Thursday.

PS: if you’re around, please feel free to pop into the launch. Dubray Grafton Street, 6:30pm, Thursday 26th.

PPS: I woke up this morning and the sun was sitting low in a blue sky after around 55 days of rain. The temperature on the car thermometer was above ten degrees for the first time all year as I drove through the dappled light between bare trees. Folks, I think we’ve made it out the other side. Well done all.

Jen xxx

(I cleaned the book shelf especially for the arrival of author copies. And there’s Gill! She will launch the book on Thursday, how lucky am I! Ok going away now.)

The truth is, and I think this might be the case for any big change in life, we are never really prepared for it. Not in the way we would like to be. So much of trying something new seems to be just accepting that you’ll never feel ready, and if you wait until you feel ready you might be waiting forever.

I had vague anxieties (what if I say something stupid or mix up my facts? What if I suddenly draw a blank?) and very specific fears (what if I faint on live TV and go viral and everyone laughs and remembers me as that feckin eejit who made a show of herself?)

Well, we are two weeks from publication day and the media campaign for The Lies Between Us is fully underway. I have done my first proper sit down interview, first podcast, first photo shoot, first written piece. All of these things are timed to come out on certain dates closer to publication, so they are all in the works.

Here are my honest thoughts about it so far. Firstly: the nerves can be acute, but usually only for the first ten minutes. It’s like your body realises that the danger you feared is not really there. It is very odd, though, being on the other side of the microphone after a career where I asked the questions. It feels exposing, and in the hours after an interview I have to stop myself ruminating or worrying about answers I’ve given. Metaphors have been mixed and awkward poses have been struck before cameras, lol.

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But! It is also fun! It is so lovely to chat about the years of work that went into The Lies Between Us, to hear about other people’s creative processes, to connect with new readers and booksellers and reviewers. I am also unbelievably grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given in different parts of the media to talk about it all.

I am nearly two weeks into a five-week period where I have something on nearly every single day between my normal job covering politics and this new world. But I have been advised that things sometimes happen for a debut that may not happen again. Much like the day I got married, I’ve been told to pause and enjoy the experience. So far it’s been nerve-wracking and exciting and scary and surreal. I CANNOT WAIT to walk into a book shop and see the book in its new home, on its own adventures away from me. If you pick up a copy, please tag me online!

I am really trying not to fret about things like the bestsellers charts or the official media reviews that are coming (the Bookstagram tour has been a complete joy) but I set up this Substack to be honest about it all, so I can tell you the truth, strictly between us of course, tell no one… of course I think about these things! I want the book to do well, I want to look back and say: I gave that my all. So if you want to preorder the book, you can do so here.

I will do another piece next week, and one just before publication day. I have something planned for you, on here, for immediately after publication day. I just hope I can pull it off. Very mysterious I know. As ever, if anyone would like to hear about a certain element of the path to publication, or would like to share any thoughts, I am a listening ear now and always. Please forgive any typos in this post, my eyes are itchy.

Jen xxx

PS: Here is the proof copy table at the Penguin Meet The Authors event. Surreal.

PPS: If you enjoyed this update, please do subscribe to this newsletter, Fact to Fiction!

We are mid-way through one of the longest months of the year — I hope you’re finding ways to push through the January blues. May I recommend The Traitors on TV, Katherine May’s beautiful book Wintering, a slow cooker meal and ignoring all the social media posts about weight loss?

I am coming to you this morning with some exciting news that I’ve been dying to share. My amazing agent Florence has secured a US book deal for The Lies Between Us. I can’t believe I am writing this, but my debut will come out in the US later this year, in October or November.

I found out early on a Monday morning, exactly a month ago, and I couldn’t believe it. I genuinely thought that an American deal might only be a runner a few books down the line, should I succeed in getting published beyond the first novel. I’ll post more about the specifics in a few weeks, but I said I would write about this morning as the US deal has been mentioned this morning in a piece in The Irish Times about 2026 debuts to look forward to which you can read here. Really grateful to Martin Doyle and Nadine O’Regan for running a Q&A as part of the article on 2026 debuts. Also: check out those other novels! Some have even inked film deals already — incredible.

The last time I posted here, it was just before Christmas, a hectic time for everyone. I worked on the Christmas edition of The Sunday Times, took a few days off, and then in New Year’s week I finished draft two of what I hope and pray will be my second book. I looked like a pale feral goblin for that entire week.

Then something magical happened! The Lies Between Us started appearing on different lists of books to look forward to in 2026. Utterly surreal. So grateful to the Sunday Independent, Evoke, Her.ie, The Irish Times, the Farmers Journal and Image Mag for the shout-outs.

In tandem, I have been working with an amazing publicist, Leonor at Penguin Sandycove, as we move into the final stretch before publication. Leonor has masterminded a Bookstagram tour which kicked off on Monday just gone. Here’s a pic of the first part…

What the hell is a Bookstagram tour? I too was wondering this last year and I found myself, once again, hopping into Vicki Notaro’s DMs (she’s just as sound as she seems online. Irish authors are the best) to find out what it’s all about.

There is a whole community of book reviewers on Instagram. These are smart, engaged, passionate readers who make it their business to stay on top of new releases and root out hidden gems. Hence the Bookstagram moniker, a whole subculture on the app. Since Twitter has become a total dumpster fire, I find myself on Instagram a lot, and it’s been fun to follow the reviewers and see what they’re reading. For the online book tour, a list of reviewers have signed up to read The Lies Between Us, and have been given advance copies. After reading, they put up their thoughts about the book on a date agreed with Penguin.

I don’t see the reviews before they go up, and I have no idea if they’ll be good or bad. Thankfully, three days in, it’s been super positive. I am really, really grateful to everyone who has signed up for it.

I am also really pushing myself into a place I am super uncomfortable with: complete self promotion. I feel the urge to constantly apologise for harping on. So much of it feels cringe. Please forgive me for the constant posts and know that I am not walking around with a head the size of the sun, I am instead posting and saying gah, this is exciting, gah, sorry sorry sorry. The only thing giving some relief from the anxiety is knowing that when I see other authors posting amazing things that are happening to them, I have never thought: how unbearable. In fact, I am bet into it. So hopefully it’s the same for me. She says wishfully.

The next step, and possibly my next post, will be doing actual interviews for the book. It’s scary. I’m doing a lot of work to make sure I enjoy all of it, instead of letting anxiety in. But leave that topic with me for now!

I hope you’re enjoying these Substacks, and as ever, I am happy to chat about any aspect of it with whoever is interested.

PS if you need a laugh, watch the 2024 film Friendships about a reclusive man who becomes obsessed with his neighbour. It’s unhinged. I cried laughing.

Jen XXX

PPS. That’s part two of the online tour below.

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Ahead of the festive period next week, I wanted to wish you a happy Christmas whatever way you celebrate it, and I also wanted to say thank you.

Thank you for following this Substack and for allowing me the space to talk at length about the path to publication. I’m so glad I set up Fact to Fiction. Watching it grow slowly but surely has been so rewarding, and great fun too.

It’s been a year of change for me, and having this Substack has allowed me to share that process along the way: moving jobs, balancing journalism and fiction, seeing the novel come together from the cover to the blurbs, getting my head around publicity, and grappling with book two. I have now finished the first draft of the second book. More on that in the New Year!

But for now, I wanted to write a post that was for you, if you’re someone who wants to write a novel next year, or a novella or screenplay or poem or short story. I’m very aware that me me me newsletters landing in your inbox can become grating when it feels like a one-way conversation. Or worse, boasting.

(Here is where I apologise in advance for how often I’m gonna be banging on about The Lies Between Us next year. Don’t judge me. A girl’s gotta hustle.)

I was asked the other day to detail the best writing advice I have received, and it really got me thinking. I’ve learned lots and I wanted to share it with you, if you need it. So buckle up, grab a Baileys, here’s a few gems I picked up about how to light that creative fire.

1. What’s a workman without tools?

If you’re the kind of person who can scribble in a notebook and that’s enough for you to write at length: I’m jealous. That’s not the case for me. For years, I struggled with writing in Microsoft Word. The scrolling back and forth and trying to format the complicated time-jumps I had in my head… it just never worked. I genuinely believe I would not have been able to write The Lies Between Us without Scrivener. It’s a word processing programme deliberately tailored towards writers. On the left hand side, you can see your chapters and scenes in a really easily accessible way. In the middle, that’s where you write. On the right, you have your notes and synopsis section. Something about the layout… everything just clicked into place, eventually, for me. I can’t remember how much it cost but it has paid for itself times a thousand. It will also then format the whole manuscript into a novel format for you, easily exported into a PDF. When you’re sending your finished manuscript to agents, it will look the part without you having to pull your hair out in the process. If there’s someone still panicking about what to get you for Christmas, and you want to write a novel in 2026, it might be time to drop a serious hint.

2. Find your writing space

This one takes a little experimentation. I have tinnitus, so writing in silence is an absolute no for me. To my great surprise, I have found that I write well in busy spaces like coffee shops, as long as no one is trying to speak to me, obviously. This is not a jab at my husband who keeps trying to talk to me as I write this, promise. Take your laptop out and try out your local coffee shop (bonus: caffeine everywhere) your local pub (this does not work for me. I’ve tried writing tipsy before, with mortifying results) your local library, etc. Maybe it’s a corner of the kitchen where there’s a nice view of the garden. Maybe it’s the attic, which is where I wrote a previous book that didn't work out. You’ll know it’s the right place when you enter that “flow state” of being able to type easily without feeling like you’re pulling teeth or getting distracted. It is so important to find it, and to find the time for yourself to exist within it.

3. Listen to the greats, but not too carefully, ok?

I always think of my book as being like an onion; lots of layers that all need to be peeled back to get to the heart of what is happening. Naturally, this took a lot of plotting. I was mid-way through said plotting when I started to read Stephen King’s On Writing. It is an absolutely fantastic resource for writers. Except. Except for the part where King says, and I’m paraphrasing a little, that only dullards plot books. I remember freezing while reading that and thinking oh my god I am a dullard. There has never been anyone as dull as I. Dishwater sparkles brighter than me. I genuinely spiralled a little, and tried to write the next few chapters without any idea where I was going with it. I ended up wasting loads of time. It took way too long to realise that actually, everyone does this differently. Just because you heard bestselling author Clever McCleverson saying that this and that is how you write a book, doesn’t mean that will be true for you. The only way you will know what kind of writer you are is by writing. Maybe you want to plot in detail, maybe you’re a freewheeling legend who flies by the seat of your pants, that’s all up to you. And that is the joy of it. No one can write what you write, the way you write it. And I for one can’t wait to read what you have up your sleeve.

4. Keep it a secret for a little while

As soon as I start writing something new I feel the urge to say “hey everyone I’m writing a new book and it’s about X, Y, Z, woohoo!”. Taking point three above, maybe that’s the kind of thing you might need to keep yourself accountable. You do you. But I have found that this can be a dangerous time to let other people in on your big plans. Your idea might be just a little seed that you need to nurture, it might be in a really early stage. Imagine this: you really believe it in, it excites you. Then you tell someone what it’s about and they… frown. Or worse, they say: I think I’ve read that kind of thing already. Folks, everything has been written already, in some shape or form. But not by you. Don’t let anyone burst your bubble, ok? Because sometimes other people might be… whisper it… a bit jealous that you’re going for it.

5. Be ballsy

Now that I have single handedly trashed Stephen King’s reputation, let me quote a piece of advice he gives that I think is invaluable. Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door opened. When you’re writing your first draft do not think about what x person will think of this sex scene or y person will think of how you describe emotion or feeling. Pretend it’s just for you. You are writing the book you want to read. Don’t censor yourself. I want to hear all your deranged thoughts, actually! Then, if you really need to make tweaks after, consider that when it’s done. But please: leave the madness in there. I’m here for the unhinged in 2026.

Ok, with that, I’ll go away, but before I do! I did get some very exciting news on Monday about the book, but I am not allowed to share it until the new year. Sorry, I’ve now become one of those people with their secret boasts, please don’t voodoo doll me, I come in peace.

Some early reviews have also come in on Netgalley (where dedicated readers request advance copies of books from publishers in exchange for honest reviews) and Goodreads.

Here’s a few below. If you couldn’t be arsed reading those, don’t worry, I’ll be back in the New Year with more! Next year gives me butterflies. Publication day is February 26th, and I’ll have lots of posts in the lead-up to it, if you fancy sticking around as things ramp up in mysterious and scary ways. And if you want to pre-order, you can do so here.

Early reviews for The Lies Between Us

“This book has bestseller written all over it. I had to remind myself to breathe as packed a punch and kept me breathless from beginning to end! I finished it within 24 hours the characters are so well described you actually feel as if they are real people.”

“The atmosphere is taut and immersive: moments of tenderness sit uneasily beside suspicion, and the past casts long shadows over the present. The sisters at the center of the novel feel vividly real—flawed, vulnerable, and achingly human—making their choices all the more compelling. The Lies Between Us is not just a thriller, but a deeply resonant tale about identity, trust, and the secrets families carry. Elegant, unsettling, and emotionally charged, it lingers long after the final page.”

“A pacy and gripping thriller dripping with revenge, hatred, family secrets and lies - full of twists and turns until the very last page. A recommended read.”

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone. Eat all the cheese, drink all the wine, and see you back here next year. I’ll leave you with a picture from last month of Dunmore East, the place that inspires me the most, and I hope you find your place in 2026. Jen XXX

I hope you’re out celebrating and giving zero thoughts to work tomorrow. I was headed home from work last night and got an alert on my countdown app (don’t slag me lol) saying it’s now 100 days until The Lies Between Us, my debut novel, is published.

I can’t believe it? All this waiting for years and years and now it’s just around the corner. As I’ve been turning my mind towards potential publicity gigs, a completely unsurprising thing has happened. I’ve started letting all this bullshit get into my head that I have 100 days to fix myself in order to make myself presentable to the world. It’s the most bizarre thing, I can only assume it comes from the societal expectations we put on women and the booming beauty industry which sort of makes us hate ourselves through the fake prism of loving ourselves.

Thoughts go something like this: you have 100 days to lose 20 pounds in case you need to get pictures taken. Never mind that I’m quite happy at my current weight, there’s a message coming at me from somewhere telling me I simply must get skinnier if I am to successfully sell my book. WHAT? It was only when I sat down to write this post about all my plans for the next 100 days that I had this bizarre moment of.. awakening? A realisation about how utterly nonsensical these expectations are, and how laced with self-punishment they are too. It doesn’t stop at the number on the scales though.

In my mind I had been making all sorts of lists. Get whiter teeth. Go on skin journey. GLOW. Make multiple hair appointments. Start looking for a dress to wear NOW. Have fabulous air of confidence. Be perfect and sell books while gliding effortlessly through the world. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s normal and healthy to want to improve different things if they genuinely make you feel better and enhance your life. But this idea that inveigled its way into my psyche sort of convinced me I needed to “fix” myself urgently and intensively. So I’m going to embrace a more realistic plan for the next 100 days. It goes something like this:

1. Get excited! Be excited! Shout about it!

2. Exercise because it feels good mentally.

3. See friends, see family, see colleagues, eat well, finish the first draft of the second book. Do publicity and instead of worrying about appearances, be prepared.

Foreign rights deals and the money question

I browse a lot of writers’ forums and discord groups and I see a lot of questions about foreign rights deals. So far, The Lies Between Us has also sold in Germany and in Poland, and my agent recently brought it to the Frankfurt Book Fair. Here’s how it all happened…

One day last year, I was lying in bed with a mid-size hangover, scrolling through the Burger King menu. “Did you know”, I said to my husband, “there are 40 burgers on the Burger King menu?”

This is the kind of searing conversation I bring to the table. At the top of my screen an email popped up. I just saw the first two words: German Offer. Confused, I opened the email to see a message from the head of the translations team in my agency. The email said that my novel had been submitted to German publishers, and four publishers had offered. It detailed their initial offers. So it was taken to auction, and all four publishers had submitted their best and final offers. The publishers had also written letters outlining why they felt they were best placed to publish the book. It took around six or seven re-reads of the email to really grasp what had happened.

Honestly, it was one of the highlights of 2024, and a moment I’ll never forget. I’ll also never look at a Burger King menu the same way. If you sign with an agent, and that agency has a translation rights team, they will submit your novel to international publishers they feel are a good fit. Note: this only applies if you haven’t sold world rights to your publisher — if you have, the publisher will shop it around and any money made through those deals will likely work towards earning out your advance. AM Heath, my agency, have an amazing translations team, and given the fact I didn’t sell world rights, they are in a position to sell the novel in territories around the world.

There is an entirely separate process around film representation, which I hope to write about in future.

Now all of this sounds amazing — and it truly is — but naturally when I get chatting to people about it, the conversation turns towards money. There’s a perception that authors are secretive about money — but there’s not many of us who go around chatting openly about our salaries, are there? A few people, recently, have asked me directly about the financial side of things: are you making money? What are your plans? I’ll put it this way, a really well-known and bestselling author of many books told me straight up that it takes five books (that do well) to make a reliable living off writing fiction. Not everyone’s path will be the same, and circumstances can differ wildly, but I have a feeling she’s right.

Author’s advances usually get split into four parts payable over different years, and which are then subject to the agent’s (well earned!!) commission of between 15 pc to 20pc, and then tax. Then you have to sell enough books before you “earn out” that advance. Royalties only get paid after this point.

The whole thing is fascinating, really. While we do it for the joy of writing, the financial side is really important too. I’m happy to answer any questions on it, and thankful if you’ve read this far. And relieved, too, if you found it insightful.

Please let me know if there’s a topic about writing that you would like to see covered, and if I’m in any way qualified, I’ll give it a whirl. Any questions about the Burger King menu, just let me know! Jen XXX

Some Substack posts come easier than others. This one, however, I’ve mulled over for a few weeks, unsure about how much I can or should share. But I set up this Substack to be honest about the process of getting a book published, to offer a bit of insight, and also because writing is my therapy. So let’s get into it: book publicity!

The Lies Between Us will be published in four months time. I can’t quite believe that I’ll see it in bookshops so soon. Just 16 short weeks. I’m so grateful, just absolutely buzzing. Because we are now within six months of publication day, the publicity chats have started with the lovely team at Penguin Sandycove. They are complete pros, and I do genuinely feel like I’m in the safest of hands.

But! I have spent the last 18 years asking other people questions. Up until the last few years, I deliberately suppressed my personality because I so strongly believed in being impartial in journalism and somehow, for me, that meant keeping who I was out of everything I wrote. It sounds obvious because it is. You report on things that happen to other people, not yourself. Only once have I really written about something I was deeply affected by, and that was when I wrote a first person piece about being stabbed on O’Connell Street. I went on the Late Late Show to talk about it and nearly fainted with the nerves of it all. It took around ten years for me to open up again, and that was on the Inside Politics podcast for The Irish Times, and that only really happened because I was so tired covering the pandemic that I stopped giving a damn about saying something wrong.

The aim of the game now, for me, is to try my best to make this book a success. I want to write until the day I die, so it’s really important for me to get this right and to give it everything I have. So I want to throw myself into publicity, to say yes to any interview request, to completely put myself out there. But it’s really scary, too. I’m worried about messing it up, I’m worried that I’m kind of exposing part of my soul. First world problems, right? Plus: what if no one wants to interview me? Lol.

This has turned my mind towards ways to manage that anxiety. I decided to take a month off alcohol, which might be normal for most people but let me tell you… people say drinking in journalism doesn't really happen any more. Well they’d be wrong. I often meet contacts for a pint, and other journalists are truly great craic over a glass of wine. Taking the month off was eye-opening. I didn’t miss drinking at all, except for in stressful moments. I loved being able to drive home from birthday parties and work events. Yet. I found myself feeling really awkward without it as a crutch. Contrary to my expectations, I did not spring out of the bed at 6am and power my way to the gym. Turns out I am just tired and cranky with headaches, regardless. But I did have a clearer head and it helped with balancing things: work, publicity plans for The Lies Between Us, and writing Book 2.

Book 2 has been… interesting. It just feels very different to the process of writing the first. I’m writing it thinking: but someone really might read this. Are you sure you want to go there? Etc etc. The challenge for me here is to remember the joy of it all. To just write and enjoy it and keep that space sacred.

Which is all well and good when there isn’t a presidential election ongoing. For anyone reading outside of Ireland, we are coming up to the end of an election campaign for Ireland’s tenth president. There are three candidates on the ballot paper, but one has effectively pulled out of the race, Fianna Fail’s Jim Gavin. Duking it out are the Independent candidate Catherine Connolly, who has the backing of the left-leaning parties, and Heather Humphreys, who has the backing of the centrist parties. More or less. (Fianna Fáil are still smarting over Gavin’s campaign implosion, and Fine Gael honestly don’t seem overwhelmingly enthused by their candidate. I know they would disagree with me but honestly, this is the vibe I am getting.)

It’s my first election as a political editor at a Sunday newspaper. It feels a bit like rewiring your brain, trying to figure out what people will want to read on Sunday instead of today. There’s also a lot more organising in the role. I’m really enjoying it, and it’s a learning curve. I have a lot of thoughts about what happened during the campaign and what it says about the state of both Irish politics, but I’m pretty sure you don’t want to hear that here, right?!

So basically the situation is right now that I am spending my day writing about the presidential election, my nights committing imaginary murders and typing typing typing, the small hours of the morning reading other authors’ books, and my dreams hoping that everything goes well in the lead-up to publication. It’s definitely an intense workload but I know how lucky I am. Sometimes when I wake up, it is to a notification on Instagram that a book reviewer has received the novel. I can’t tell you the joy this gives me. I think I’m about to hit 200 subscribers on here, and the readership figures for the posts are many multiples higher. So thanks to you for reading and for being part of this, a most exciting and challenging time. As ever, if you have any questions I would be so happy to answer them.

Much love, Jen xxcx

This is the post I have been dreaming about writing for longer than I can remember: the cover reveal!

The team at Penguin have knocked it out of the park, because even now, months after seeing the cover for the first time, I am still so in love. Here she is…

The novel is a mystery and thriller about warring sisters, set by the picturesque Irish coastal village of Dunmore East. When novelist Susannah goes missing on a weekend away, and a woman’s body is found washed up in a nearby cove, her sisters must ditch their old rivalries to find her before it is too late. It tells the story of the sisters Lucy, an ex-garda with a particular form of synesthesia, and Tara, a hotel manager who is estranged from Susannah.

As they dig into Susannah’s mysterious behaviour, they discover long-buried secrets which make them question everything they thought they knew about their family - and themselves.

For me, the cover encapsulates all of this so beautifully: the old style of wallpaper in the cottage, the crack across the wall, the view out over the stormy sea, and just that shock of colour too.

The book comes out on February 26th, 2026 and the other exciting piece of news is that it is now available for pre-order. Here is my linktree which we’ll be adding to as we go along: https://linktr.ee/TheLiesBetweenUs

On my Penguin page, you’ll also find preorder links for Amazon, Waterstones and other major retailers: https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/276364/jen-bray

It’s also up on the Apple Books app, totally surreal given how much time I spend on there late at night buying everyone else’s books!

I’ve been really, really lucky to get some fantastic early reviews for the novel from authors who I have read and admired all my adult life. It has helped to generate what I hope is a bit of early buzz and has been a real confidence-booster too. Here’s what some of these authors have been saying.

Pre-orders are really important for authors, as they can show what kind of demand the book might have and be a possible indicator of success. That’s why the pre-order campaign starts a few months out from publication.

I am just a handful of subscribers short of hitting the 200 mark, and I’m really grateful to everyone who has hopped on board this journey on the path to publication. I am always open to hearing questions or thoughts or requests for specific posts too. For now though I will be found buzzing with excitement!!!

Jen xxx

In particular, I held off on writing about Book 2, beyond a post about the time I spent in Cork getting started on it. That’s because just before Cork, I was trying to figure something out. What I had been hoping to turn into Book 2 was not working and I didn’t know where I was going to end up with any of it. I’m talking tens of thousands of words on an idea I spent a long time on.

So I put that idea aside, and started on the new novel in Cork. So far, so exciting! But my god, I am the expert at getting in my own way. As I went about plotting it out this summer, there was this insidious little voice in my head (I am aware I sound bats!) that would chime in with super helpful comments like “well that’s utter shite” or “oh yeah, now that’s an idea no one has ever thought of before, eyeroll” and even “why don’t you go paint the kitchen ceiling instead, way more productive.”

What I have found most terrifying about starting a brand new novel is the Not Knowing. You don’t know your characters yet except for their vague outline. I know how it will probably start, I have a shadow of an idea about the end, but oh, the middle. I spent way too long staring at the empty post-it notes in the place where the middle of the book should be. And for a while, I let the terror of not knowing what was going to happen stop me from actually starting to write the thing.

I think this is one of the most interesting things about being a writer; we all do it differently and we all have to find out exactly how we do it differently by actually… doing the work.

I am following this truly cool woman on Instagram called Florence Given, she’s an author and an artist, and she had this reel up which began with her saying “self doubt is just boring.” She talks about tapping into the frequency of fun and often has posts up about believing in your own ideas. Honestly, she’s a balm for the soul and any time I feel like “oh these words were written by a three year old”, I watch her reels.

So anyway, I am sitting down and writing the story as it comes into my head. I am letting it be threadbare in parts and exciting in others. I’m watching the word count rise and getting new ideas in the act of winding my way through it. It got me thinking about how one day, all going to plan, this will be a fully formed novel. And I will have to send it into the world and experience one of the very worst parts of the publishing process: waiting!!

What I wish I knew in a deeper way before I got started was genuinely how much waiting there is. When you’re a journalist used to filing an article as fast as your fingers will allow and seeing it online 20 minutes later, the pace of the publishing world seems positively glacial. And there’s good reason for it! It takes a lot to get a book out into the world, plus editors and agents are floored with work.

So that brings me back to the original question on the post from a few months back: the process of getting a book deal, which begins by going “on submission.” Here’s how it worked for me: I spent a good few months with Florence, my agent, editing and polishing the drafts of The Lies Between Us (it had a different name back then, though!) and when she felt it was ready, she compiled a list of editors in publishing houses who she felt might be on the lookout for a novel like mine. She asked me a crucial question at the outset: what level of communication do you think you’d work best with?

I thought ALL OF IT and then asked what she meant specifically. Basically, she was wondering whether I wanted to know every single update including the rejections, or whether I only wanted to hear when there was a significant update. I said I didn’t want to hear the rejections, I thought I would end up getting obsessed with them and putting myself into a negative headspace. Then I went to Portugal and tried not to obsess, by which I mean I thought of nothing else. I kept having to fight the urge to email Florence with ANY NEWS? in caps in the subject bar.

One of the afternoons, around a week after we went “on submission”, I got an email from her that I still get butterflies about. I saw “update” pop up on the phone screen and I dropped the flip-flops I was holding and felt the breath leave my body when she said an editor wanted to take the novel “to acquisitions”.

The acquisitions meeting is basically when the wider team within a publishing house sit down and discuss a novel from different angles: marketability, sales potential, the author, the writing. I did know from my extensive scouring of the internet that things can fall apart in acquisitions, which is soul destroying. So I tried not to get ahead of myself, but of course I got fully ahead of myself and immediately had a drink. Here I am a few minutes after getting that email in Portugal, walking down the street in a happy daze.

Five days later, when I was home and anxiously awaiting news from the acquisitions meeting, I got an email saying a second editor was bringing it to their acquisitions meeting.

Now, before I sound like I’m boasting or anything, there were turndowns in this period too, but with some momentum behind the novel it was easier not to let it affect me. Later that same day, I heard a third editor was interested but was heading on holidays and needed a little bit of time. This is the thing about going on submission in the summer, a lot of people are heading away or already on hols. Though from what I hear, there is no right or wrong time to go on submission, except maybe on the days when the industry decamps to the big novel fairs in London and Frankfurt.

Because of the holiday situation, we put a slightly longer deadline on the process of around two weeks. By early July, the third editor said they too were taking it to acquisitions. We made it through all three acquisitions processes, and were officially at auction! No, there’s no gavel! It all happens over email, ably handled by Florence.

We set a final deadline day for best offers in early July, and that’s a Friday I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. I was in Galway, trying to keep busy. On the Friday morning, I woke up and the final offers were in my inbox. It was surreal beyond words, and I had a lot to consider, which I’ll write about separately another time. But while I was given plenty of food for thought, the team at Penguin Sandycove just blew me away with their enthusiasm and vision for the novel, and their plans for launching it. I really am very lucky to be working with them. I accepted the offer from Penguin, and I celebrated the only way I know how: with a pint of Bulmers!

If anyone has any questions about the process, whether it’s about the process of going on submission, acquisitions, what happens after (waiting, of course! Me and my impatient soul), let me know. I’d love to know what other kind of topics you’d like to read about, too. I hope that one of my next posts will also be the cover reveal for The Lies Between Us!! I am wholesale obsessed with it.

Bye for now! xxx

Last Thursday, I headed off for my first Theakston Old Peculier writing festival in Harrogate, which is just outside of Leeds. I’ve heard it described as the crime writer’s version of Glastonbury, which I love.

Lee Child labelled it one of the best writing festivals in the world, but he also once said that there was a time even he felt you “needed a passport to get in.”

I relate to this a lot. I’ve been reading crime fiction since I picked up my first thriller in my early teens — it was The Empty Chair by Jeffery Deaver — and I remember thinking: how did he do that? I was hooked on the genre from that point onwards, so I’ve been aware of the Harrogate festival for a really long time. To be honest, though, I always felt it would be out of my reach. I also thought you needed some kind of special passport to get in, that you had to be given a golden invite, that it was only for huge superstar authors.

Then around two weeks ago my agent emailed me and asked if I was going. She said it would be a good idea given my crime debut comes out next year, and I thought BUT HOW? At the same time, I had just been added to a WhatsApp group of other Irish writers (it is very bizarre and very pinch-me being in a group with people you have read all of your adult life) and they too were having chats about who was going to Harrogate, what flights, what hotels. Turns out, you can just… go online a buy ticket for the event and show up. Simple as that!

So that’s what I did. I booked my flight to Leeds and arrived on Thursday afternoon. I got the A2 Flyer bus to Harrogate and along the way I thought: ok this is fancy. A lot of the houses on the way to the small, pretty town look like they are worth millions. Then there were the Porsches and Land Rovers. I arrived at the Harrogate Inn hotel (the staff there were unbelievably sound) and unpacked my bag. No time to explore, though, as I had a day-job deadline for an article for the weekend so that kept me busy. On the Thursday night, I was invited to a dinner with some other Irish female crime writers and I was low-key and high-key and all the others keys of nervous. I find it really overwhelming meeting big groups and deeply overwhelming meeting a big group of women who I admire and look up to and want to make a good first impression with. First: it was so kind of them to include me and second: I need not have worried.

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Everyone, bar nobody, was kind and welcoming and didn’t seem to mind that after a few glasses of wine I do tend to become a chatterbox. And to be honest, my lasting impression of that dinner (in a lovely Italian restaurant called Piccolino) was this sense… whisper it… that this was exactly where I belong. I had so many questions for everyone and I can’t describe how much I love hearing about other authors’ journeys and experiences and thoughts. I love hearing about their successes and I really empathise with the other side of it: the anxieties and the many obstacles that inevitably appear.

After this, we decamped across the road to the tent outside the Old Swan Hotel where the festival is based (where Agatha Christie famously disappeared in 1926. I did ask what room she stayed in but no joy) and in the tent I met more authors, some agents, book shop owners, aspiring authors, you name it.

There are lots of panels and events that you can buy tickets for, and they also get you access to the site on the day. Because I was working with my journalist hat on during the day and filing articles, the only panel I got a ticket for was Andrea Mara’s one, but definitely next time I’ll plan further in advance and take the time off work so that I can hit up as many of them as possible. On Friday, I met with my publisher and editor for coffee, which involved a lengthy and very enjoyable gossip.

Another little tip for anyone thinking of going to Harrogate: the dress code. There isn’t one, thankfully. It is a chill or as fancy as you want. Having said that: I packed a lovely black dress but, at the last minute before I left for the airport, I took it out to save space. Then, in a very exciting email, I was invited to a dinner with other Penguin authors on the Friday night. This meant a quick dash into Mint Velvet in Harrogate on Friday to find something to wear, which wasn’t an easy task because it was quite hot on these particular days.

Full disclosure: in the half an hour leading up to the dinner in The Ivy, I thought: ImjustgoingtocancelIcantdothis. It’s just classic social anxiety, simple as that. I spent my 20’s doing this and I have no intention of spending my 30’s continuing it, where I worry about what I said after a big dinner or night out and overthink everything and feel insecure. I’m just so bored of that now, it’s so pointless. As long as you’re not being an arse to people, you’re probably grand.

So I metaphorically slapped myself across the face and went to the dinner and showed up and had, no surprise, a brilliant time meeting new authors whose books I can’t wait to devour. I also got to know really lovely people who work in Penguin, people who make magic happen. Later, I went back to the tent with them and met the ever-expanding group of Irish crime writers and the rest of that night is none of your business. Ha just kidding.

I got to bed at 2:15am (a good time was had) and my taxi arrived at 4:45am. I was in the office in the docklands in Dublin for 9:50am and put the finishing touches on our political coverage for the Sunday Times and experienced what I can only describe as a crushing comedown. When you feel like that, you know it was an amazing weekend. I got home around 8pm, had a glass of wine and a debrief with my husband and slept for 12 hours. It was incredible. The sleep and the days before it, both.

So, final thoughts: authors, even the really big names, are really approachable. Despite the fact that the writers in that tent have murdered thousands of people between them, they couldn’t be more open to chatting, so if you’re a reader and lover of the genre: GO. If you’re an aspiring author dealing with all of the normal social anxieties and worried about fitting in, GO. Remember: you wouldn’t worry about what other people think of you if you realised how little they think of you. In a good way. Ok the coffee is finished, that’s my sign to feck off.

Would love to hear your thoughts, your questions, your suggestions.

Jen XXX

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Although it is hard to marshal your thoughts when your brain feels like hot fudge, I will try! (And I will apologise for any heat-related typos.) Firstly: the trip. It was my first week off since starting in the new job and how lucky am I to have picked the week that a heatwave came to Ireland? I stayed in a lovely house in Castlemartyr and the aim was twofold: chill out and stop overthinking life, and start a new book. I did indeed stop overthinking, and I did indeed start a new book.

It’s never that simple though, life, is it? I’ll be totally honest here; the process of starting a new book filled me with a very unexpected level of despair. I’ve been trying to figure out why that is, and I think I have an idea now of why. My debut novel, The Lies Between Us, which comes out next year, was written in my own sweet time with literally zero expectation. Sure, I had told people I wanted to write a book and was trying to put the words on the page, but no one was waiting on it. The whole process was entirely mine, private and full of wild hope and delusion. For some reason, I don’t really remember the process of starting to write The Lies Between Us. I definitely remember sketching out different timelines, I remember key scenes, tedious moments, I remember the joy of it all.

But this time feels so different. For some reason, having just sketchy ideas felt really scary. Every thought or character trait or idea for a scene was laden with an ominous thought: is this good enough? Is this anywhere near good enough? Was The Lies Between Us some fever dream that I can never hope to achieve again?

For me, writing despair looked like this: staring at an empty Word doc. Lying face down on the bed. Cleaning the most random objects in order to procrastinate. Doodling. Organising everything and nothing. I’m very relieved to say this was not a permanent state. One afternoon, my husband saw me lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling when I was supposed to be writing.

“Right,” he said. “Let’s brainstorm. What have you got?”

Grudgingly, as if I was revealing an embarrassing secret, I detailed some of the characters and scenes and little sparks that were flying in my head. An hour later, after talking it out and bouncing ideas around, I had my new cast of seven characters pinned to the back of a drying rack. Two hours after that, as the sun streamed in through the patio doors and two fans threw some hot air at us, I had a rough outline (a very rough outline). That was last Tuesday, and every day I am fleshing it out a little bit more. I then came across the most useful quote: just get it written. Make it good later.

So that’s what I will do for this next thriller, which is similarly set in a heatwave. I’ll get it written and I’ll hopefully make it readable later. Lessons learned: writing despair is temporary. Talking it out with someone you trust really helps. Getting the words down is all that matters. And put sunscreen on your shoulder blades, for the love of god.

Now! In an Instagram story a few weeks ago, I asked for a few questions and I promised I would answer them here. With apologies for the delay (the days are like minutes lately) here is the Q&A.

Q: How did you get an agent (very excited to read your novel)

A: Hello TFB! I’m very excited for you to read it too! There’s a long answer to this, and a short one, and I’ll give you the short one because I am melting into a puddle on this train lol. The way I found my amazing agent (hi Florence!) was through what I would describe as very careful matchmaking on both our parts. I had finished my novel, reworked it thoroughly on foot of constructive criticism, and was ready to submit. I went through a list of around 400 agents on the Jericho writers website, and whittled the list down to around 20 agents who I thought might genuinely like my book. I then very carefully researched around ten, read interviews with them, stalked them a little on social media (sorry) to get their vibe, and submitted a personal query to them. I also took careful not of their submission guidelines. Taking the time to tailor your query letter is so important. After this, some agents asked to read the full book. Then they asked to set up a call. A dream scenario.

Q: Legit q! If not on sale until 2026, why send review copies to other authors so soon?

A: I’m going to give you an answer, G, that might not be entirely accurate but is my best reading of my situation! My publisher, Penguin Sandycove, began sending out advance reader copies around six weeks ago. I have been so… overwhelmed? Grateful? all the things… about the responses we have received so far. I think the main reason for going that early is because these are very busy authors we are submitting to: they have their own punishing schedules for books released and books still to be released. It makes sense to give them as much time as possible, so that when we come out with the cover reveal (soon!) we have those quotes and blurbs ready to try and build the book up and get some momentum behind it. To the best of my knowledge, we will do another advance copy round to reviewers etc soon.

Q: What was your process for developing the story, the plot and the characters?

A: Hello J! In my ramble above, I was saying the process of starting The Lies Between Us is a little oblique in my memory. This is probably because a) I have a terrible memory, shocking bad and b) the process of starting the novel took place over a long period of thinking. But what I do know is that I started with one central scene in my head. It’s a key scene between two characters and, for me, it is the very heart of the book. I kept asking myself the same question about these characters: what if? What if this happened to them? What if that happened to them? What if this was me? How would I feel or react? And from there it grew legs. The sense of location was also pivotal. I went to Dunmore East for the first time in between pandemic lockdowns and I just fell in love with it. I could visualise these characters there so clearly. From here, I asked myself about these characters futures’. Where would they be in ten, 20 years? How would this one dangerous scene impact the rest of their lives? And then the full story was born.

Q: Can you still enjoy reading books in your genre or are you comparing it/taking notes?

A: There’s E! Hi! You already know I’m sweating my head off on a train so I don’t need to make excuses to you. This is such an interesting question. Before I got an agent and publishing deal, I used to read books in my genre with such jealousy. How did they do this? How did they make that character so REAL? Will I ever be able to do this? And that was kind of a horrible way of reading and dissecting a novel. Now that I am near the other side of it, with a book soon to come, it is so different. I read books in my genre now and want to stand up and applaud. I marvel and saw WOW. That’s amazing. What a brain. I take notes in the best way: with appreciation for the technique and in the spirit of always learning. Maybe it’s because I know I’m nearly there myself, but I also think it is because I now have a deep, deep appreciation for how hard and long the process is. I salute my fellow writers and I feel the sacrifice that went into always saying No to get the damn thing done.

Q: Do you have any advice for aspiring journos?

A: Hello EW! Yes indeed I do. The most important quality you can have as an aspiring journalist is Determination with a capital D. Lot’s of people inside and outside of the industry will have lots of reasons to say No. (You’re too young / not experienced enough for this story / not around long enough / don’t have enough contacts / haven’t written enough etc etc). Don’t let their No’s get you down. Everyone started somewhere. Reach out to older journalists you admire. Don’t be embarrassed to pursue a story even if it feels futile. Put yourself out there: meet politicians, personalities, PR people, whoever offers. Apply to every internship. Watch carefully how the other journalists in the newsroom operate. Believe in yourself. You are the future of journalism! Finally: PICK UP THE PHONE AND RING PEOPLE. Make a nuisance of yourself. Leave some mud on the carpet :)

Q: Better to get an editor to go over a manuscript before going out to publishers, I take it?

A: Hmmm. Sadly I am about to roll out the most annoying phrase in publishing: it depends. Lots of writers benefit from an external editor when they are starting out. But of course, it’s a signifiant added expense that you have to foot yourself. If you’re really stuck and feel this could help, and you can afford it, do it! But also remember if your idea is strong enough, you will go through an extensive editing process with your agent and publishers.

OK that’s it for me! Thank you for reading on this hottest of days. Stay hydrated, lash the suncream on and enjoy it. These moments in the sun are rare.

Let me know your thoughts, too. Jen XXX

Firstly, I want to say a very humble thank you for the kind, lovely and supportive messages I have received about this Substack. I was on the phone the other evening doing an interview for a long-read piece I was writing about an ongoing healthcare controversy in the news, when the person I was speaking to randomly changed the subject and told me that he read my last post while sipping a beer on holidays.

This is someone who I’m sure wouldn’t always have agreed with everything I’ve written as a political journalist, but it was a nice moment of levity and really encouraged me to keep going.

It's a bit daunting putting yourself out there and, naturally, there have been one or two snide comments. I thought about them for a moment or two, then brushed them off. You can’t please everyone, and that’s a fact.

You just have to plough on.

I decided to write today’s post about the in-between stage I’m currently hovering in, and what happens during it.

Two exciting pieces of news: I got my actual book cover! And we have the title too: The Lies Between Us.

I was sitting in the Sunday Times newsroom in the docklands a few weeks ago when an email popped up on the screen from Patricia, my editor at Penguin Sandycove. It read: The Lies Between Us Cover!

I am sad to say I have zero chill and sub-zero levels of cool. I gasped and stared at the phone like it was radioactive. One of my biggest fears in this whole process was that I would secretly end up hating the cover. I don’t know where I got that from, I think I’ve read horror stories online and it seeped in somewhere. A few people have asked me if I have a say in relation to the cover. The long and the short of it is that I get a say, for sure, but I do not get a veto.

I opened the email with trepidation and clicked into the image. I should never have doubted the process, because the team at Penguin are utter pros and they absolutely nailed it.

It’s weird because it is nothing like what I imagined, but I just adore it.

I have only shown it to a handful of people, and I showed them in person to gauge their reactions: all super positive. What happens next is that we will do a “cover reveal” on social media at some stage over the summer, and I’ll share that here then.

The other (even more terrifying) part is that early copies of The Lies Between Us have now been sent to authors as part of an advance copy print run. They have a dummy cover but I think the next batch might have the actual artwork. I had no idea they were being sent out on that particular week - until I started getting tagged on Instagram by amazing and accomplished authors who put up pictures of my book in their To Be Read pile.

We have received the first batch of early reviews for blurbs and I’m really blown away, not just by the reviews themselves but by how generous these authors have been with their time. Many of them are mid-book, mid-edits, mid-tour, you name it. I’ve had a glimpse of what the Irish female writers’ community is like, and let me tell you, they are the soundest bunch.

At some stage towards the end of the summer, I will have a meeting with Penguin Sandycove about the publicity campaign. I think it’s natural to have fear and anxiety about this part, but to be honest I also want to throw myself into it and just push through worrying about what other people will think when I have to put myself out there more.

That will also be the stage when I’ll be very, very annoying about pre-orders: apologies in advance. If you come to the launch I’ll ply you with warm wine and gossip to make it up to you.

In the meantime, I am polishing book two (gah), getting stuck into the new day job (really enjoying it) and doing up a summer content plan for this Substack (is there something in particular you’d like to read next? Am thinking about writing about the process of going on submission. Drop me a line and let me know.)

Have a great week and take it easy. And if you get it easy, take it twice.

XXX

It’s 6pm on Tuesday May 20th, and I have just spent the day mapping out ideas for our political coverage in next weekend’s Sunday Times here in Ireland. For a Sunday journalist, Tuesdays are all about kicking around possible angles, arranging interviews and chatting with sources.

It is also one of the few evenings of the week were I’ll definitely finish up on time, so I said I’d hop to it and put up my next post on Fact to Fiction, and this one is about finding a literary agent.

Quite honestly, I have lost track of the number of agents that I submitted a manuscript to over the last 15 years. As an Irish author, it’s an interesting situation in that there are a good number of amazing and talented agents here, but they have full rosters of clients.

It seems slightly different in the UK because there are so many well-established agencies which cater to different sections of the market. Given the fact that publishing is a highly subjective business, a greater level of choice is only good news for aspiring writers.

I made a lot of mistakes when querying agents with different manuscripts down through the years, and I’d like to share them here in case a) it is of any interest or b) it helps anyone who is considering entering the fabled land of querying. Here are the top three mistakes I made, and how I sharpened up.

1. Incomplete manuscripts

I know, I know. You’ve finally reached word 80,000. You made it to the top of the mountain. You typed the words The End. That’s it! It’s done! Send her out! Wait for the imminent six figure book deal! Alas. I made this error a few times. Once, I literally typed the words The End and then sent it to a handful of agents. Shock horror, that book died. A good literary agent will spot the warning signs immediately. They will know it is a first draft: they’ll see it in the floppy characters, the typos, the raw dialogue. I had to learn to resist the bizarre temptation to send my first drafts out into the world. I now think the first draft is just a skeleton. It takes a few more drafts to put flesh on it, and even then, the edits process will humble me more. I have learned, now, not to send off a manuscript until I’ve run through a good few drafts. I will do one draft that stress-tests the plot, another entirely on the characters (do they have a story arc? Are their motivations believable? Who is this person?) another on texture (show, don’t tell, etc) and when all the words turn to one big unknowable amorphous blob, I realise I’m probably done ;)

2. Lack of research

So, unsurprisingly, no six-figure book deal appeared in my inbox the day after I sent out my unfinished manuscript. Delusional bubble: popped. Another mistake I made was this embarrassing Google search: “Email addresses for top literary agents in Ireland and the UK.” Copy and paste, attach novel. Quick pitch and away we go. Cue: silence. Cue: refreshing of emails. Cue: generic rejection message. The year before last, I took a different route. I went onto the Jericho Writers website and went through a list of 400 agents. I read about each agent individually, what their interests were. My book is a mystery, a domestic thriller under the broad umbrella of crime fiction. It has strong but complex female characters. There’s an intergenerational storyline. When I found agents that were looking for these kinds of stories, I checked that they were open to submissions. Then I researched them individually: interviews, their social media, their taste, their wish lists. Yes, it took a very long time. I was working as a daily journalist at the time so a lot of this work happened late at night. It was exciting but tiring. Eventually, I came out of that process with a list of around ten agents who I thought would genuinely be open to my pitch. Right at the top of that list was Florence Rees of AM Heath, the agency that represents one of my favourite authors of all time, Maggie O’Farrell. I followed her submissions process exactly (this also takes time to research; some agencies will want the first 50 pages in PDF. Some will want the first three chapters in Word. Others want a full document outlining everything including the ending of the book. These guidelines are there for a reason) and pitched my novel to her, making it clear I had done my research on what she’s looking for. I sent the novel to the other agents, and I did my homework on them too. The difference in outcome this time around could not have been more stark. I received personal replies requesting the full manuscript within days, including from Florence. Then one day, as I was walking out of a hospital appointment, trudging along the path, my phone pinged. Florence had finished reading and wanted to set up a chat. In publishing you might hear authors talk about THE CALL - when an agent wants to offer you representation. I stopped in my tracks outside of the hospital and just stared, agog (like picture agog. That was me) at the email. I emailed back to arrange the chat, then I phoned my husband, sister, and one of my closest friends Ellen in the excitement of it all. In the end, three agents offered representation. They were all amazing but after chatting with Florence (I was so nervous) I knew we were a good mix. She’s funny and intelligent and razor-sharp. She also doesn’t seem to mind my endless stream of questions. But anyway, that is one lengthy way of showing how important detailed research is.

3. Shoddy query letters, lack of elevator pitch

You would think that being a journalist, I could easily summarise my novel and devise a snappy elevator pitch. Eh, nope! I am so bad at it! For a while, I didn't think it mattered all that much. Surely the most important thing is the book itself, right? Red buzzer, trap door opens, wrong! We get one shot to get this agent’s attention as they scroll through an ever-expanding submissions list, why fluff it? A great tip I learned is to write your query letter almost like the jacket copy of a book. When you're in the bookshop, about to head off on your holibops, you turn the book around and say: oh, this sounds snappy and intriguing. When I made my query letters more like this, that seemed to help immeasurably. Another tip I learned is to put your comp titles in, let’s say if your book is The Paper Palace meets Nine Perfect Strangers (that actually sounds like a weird mix but anyway) then it’s worth signposting that so that the agent knows where it might be positioned in the market. I was going to write next that having an elevator pitch is so important. Honestly though, I still get tongue tied when people ask what my book is about ;-) must try harder there.

So after that long and rambling post, I will get out of your inbox. As for what happened next after I signed with Florence (and drank some bubbles that literally had sparkly things in them, thanks Jessica) it was a few months of edits before we went on submission. I’ll do a post on both of those topics next.

In the meantime, here are a few books I am adding to my To Be Read pile (a towering structure) Long Story by my Sandycove sibling Vicki Notaro, which comes out next week; The Secret Life of Leinster House by Gavan Reilly which will also be launched next week and which I was honoured to provide a blurb for; The Night I Killed Him by Gill Perdue; and It Should Have Been You by Andrea Mara. I am currently finishing Twist by Colum McCann and The Favourites by Layne Fargo, and shall report back!

Jen xxx

But I was young and ambitious, in a slightly delusional way, and I sent it off to a well known publisher in Ireland. I still remember the excitement of seeing the lovely editor’s email land in my inbox, with visions of book deals whizzing around my mind. Alas.

“I’m not convinced Womaniser is quite ready to be published at this stage, and would encourage you to do further work if you are determined to pursue it,” she wrote. Oops, I told you the name. But I felt crushed, even though I knew in my heart that it likely wasn’t good enough. When I picked my morale up off the floor, though, I saw some bright spots.

“I think you are in the process of finding your voice as a crime writer, and would really encourage you to keep working at honing as distinct a voice as possible – keep your cliché radar finely honed, clichéd description is a trap of the genre and to raise your head above the parapet, you need to avoid this.” I was also strongly encouraged to work on structure and plot.

And then, a glimmer of hope.

“For what it’s worth, I definitely think you have potential as a crime writer. Best of luck with it and keep me posted.”

Yes, it was a rejection. And for a while, all I could see was the word “NO”. But there was encouragement there, too. So I wrote another book. This one was called Chasing Kate, another mystery. I worked hard at making the plot sturdier, but, looking back, the same issue with flimsy characters persisted.

I sent it out to around ten agents. The first response was from a very well known agent based in Northern Ireland. “I am sorry to say that I was not pulled in by the story or the writing as much as I had hoped, so we’re going to have to pass.” Ouch.

A second rejection came hot on its heels.

“Thank you for your submission which we have now had a chance to consider and alas isn't something for us.” Double ouch. At this stage, I was wondering why, if they read it, did they not have any pointers about why they didn’t want it? I would learn that agents are incredibly busy people who simply can not give feedback to every single they read. When the third rejection landed, I felt gutted.

But right at the end of the email was this line: “I think the premise of the book is a great one, and you do a brilliant job of assembling such a diverse group of people, each with their own twisty back story and long-kept secrets. And the plot moves along at a great pace.” I was right: I had made progress with the plot. So, I wondered… maybe all is not lost? What could I learn next? What could I fix next? The answer was clear: characters. I had to really know them. They had to be as real as you or I.

I became busier and busier in my day job as a journalist, moving from health coverage to politics, and that sucked up a huge amount of my time. During the pandemic, I set to work on a new book, one where I knew everything about these characters: what happened to them in 1983, in 1994, in 2011 and 2022. I called it Sea of Mirrors. I was really, really proud of this one. Could this finally be it?

I submitted to around 12 agents, some in Ireland, most in the UK. Cue a flood of rejections, and a broken heart on my part. Many of them were just “no thanks”, a lot of them said it was too complicated, the timeline was confusing, it was too much. One renowned literary agent told me I was being too ambitious with the story. Another rejection landed on the first day of a much-needed holiday in Paris. It was a sucker punch. And then, one day, a lengthy email landed in my inbox.

It was a 700 word critique from one of the agents I submitted to. I couldn’t believe the level of detailed feedback she gave me, and I was so grateful to her for thinking so deeply about what was working and what wasn't. I frantically scanned through the message looking for her answer, and at the end she wrote: “it’s rare for us to give such detail, but I really did enjoy the read, and could see the potential. If you did want to rework it with the above in mind, I’d really gladly read a revision.”

My first thought: another No. I can’t handle another No. I’m done with this. I frantically Googled: do agents often ask for revisions? Do revisions ever get picked up? I asked writer friends and they told me clearly: this is a good sign. I put the novel away for a few months, as I was coping with the sudden death of someone I loved dearly, and thought I would never write again.

But those words kept popping back into my head: a good sign. And that is what thoughtful rejections represent: signposts. You’re on a roundabout, the exit signs are flitting by in the window, and if you pay attention to what they say, you will take the right turn.

With some trepidation, I set to work on using every single piece of that amazing feedback that the agent had sent me. I paid close attention. I read the books she recommended. I worked and reworked and reworked. Eventually, in January 2024, I submitted it to a handful of agents, which I carefully researched (I’ll have another piece on how to do this) and I waited for the No.

This time, three agents wanted to set up A Call. A Call.

THE CALL.

I remember being in my sitting room with my husband, I remember holding onto the laptop and asking him: is this happening? Is this really happening? Yes, it was! It was so tremendously exciting. I’ll never forget getting one of those emails saying: “our submissions team highlighted (this) to the very top of my pile and I read on the way to a meeting today and absolutely LOVED.” I picked an agent I love (more on that later), we whipped the manuscript in better shape (more on that later too) it went to auction (definitely more about this later) and it has sold in international territories and comes out next year (you get the picture - I have lots of posts planned lol).

The point I am trying to make in a very long convoluted way is this: if you keep writing, and keep trying, and keep submitting, and keep honing what you do, someone somewhere will be gracious enough to offer you feedback along with their polite “no.”

If you take that advice, if you follow those signposts, if you keep going, you can get there. You can exit the roundabout. I heard someone say recently the only difference between a published writer and an unpublished one is that one just kept trying.

That’s my advice for what it is worth! It’s a bank holiday here in Ireland and I’m about to go and visit the seaside town of Bray (my ancestors must have been born there) after a busy week in work. I hope this post gives you encouragement if you need it. And I hope you’re enjoying an icy cider, because that’s what I’ll be doing. XXX

I’m just going to dive right in and introduce myself instead. Hi, I’m Jen. I’m a befreckled redhead from Ireland who has worked as a journalist for national newspapers for a little over 17 years now. Hence the wrinkles. Around seven weeks ago, I left my job as a political correspondent with The Irish Times to move over to The Sunday Times, where I work now as their political editor.

I was totally chill during that career change and acted completely rationally at all times. Ahem. If anyone wants an unhinged post on making a big career move, hit me up. But that’s not why I’m here today. Last year, after 15 years of trying to get a novel published, my mystery novel sold to my dream publisher, Penguin.

Throughout those years, and throughout the many failures which I am here to fully own, I noticed something. I realised that even though there are AMAZING blogs and Substacks and online resources for writers… it wasn’t enough. My appetite for information was insatiable. I wanted to know every single thing there was to know about querying agents, about the etiquette of that process, about waiting times, about the chances of getting a publishing deal. I really struggled at times with rejection. Straight up, I also struggled with jealousy. Sometimes I let the jealousy make me bitter, which I probably shouldn’t admit to, but hey, when life gives you lemons that’s how they taste ;-)

All of this to say, I found myself constantly asking: is this normal? How do I overcome this? Or: how many agents should I query? How should I respond to this agent’s question? How long does the process last when you go out on submission to publishers? How will I survive all of these edits? Oh yeah, and: are pantsters REALLY better than plotters?

My novel will be published, all going to plan, in early 2026. I have a lot I’d like to share, and would love if you’d join me along the way. I will write a bit about my own rocky road to publication, how I learned how to query agents, how I found an agent I adore, what really happens when you go on submission, what happens when a book goes to auction (not a gavel in sight), and what happens after the book deal (spoiler: plenty of silent moments). I’ll share my book title and cover reveal, and a diary of the lead-up to publication day. But my first post will be on rejection, and I’ll put it up here this weekend. It’s a huge part of the process for most of us, and it’s harder than we are sometimes willing to admit. When I learned how to see rejections for what they really were — signposts — everything changed. So do come back for that.

Along the way I’ll also post what I’m reading, watching, listening to, drinking and if there is any interest at all, gossip from the world of media and politics. Thanks for reading this missive, and I can’t wait to get stuck in with you and hear from you. Jen XXX

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