I always loved mystery stories most - Enid Blyton's Secret Seven first, then Agatha Christie.
Would you say your childhood and teenage reading has had a distinct influence on how you write fiction now, and why?
Yes - my addiction to mystery in novels is as strong now as it ever has been.
What did you do before you became a published novelist, and how did you come to write your first novel and get it published?
I was a reasonably well-known and successful poet, and a part-time Creative Writing teacher. Then I had the idea for Little Face and I thought, 'I'm always reading crime novels - now I'm going to try and write one.' I had an agent at the time who was very discouraging and kept telling me I wouldn't be any good at writing crime, so I fired her and got a proper, encouraging agent. He loved Little Face, and within a few days he'd found a publisher for it.
How would you describe your style of fiction or your approach to writing fiction during your first few novels?
I write emotional-psychological thrillers - sort of a blend of first-person psychological woman-in-peril novel and police procedural.
How would you describe your style of fiction or your approach to writing fiction now?
Well, I'm still writing the same genre of book! The main thing that's changed is that I now know when something's going wrong much more quickly - so I'm getting better at editing myself. This means my first drafts are much better than they used to be, and there's less re-writing involved.
Was your first published novel standalone or part of a series, and what advantages or disadvantages did this present for you?
Both! My novels are a mixture of standalone and series. They contain the same police characters, so in that sense they're series, but each one is narrated by a different heroine who is unique to that book, so the books feel very different from one another - in that sense they're standalone.
Did you find writing your second novel easier or more challenging than writing your first novel and why?
Much easier - because I had a publisher by then, who loved my writing and was avidly awaiting book number two. So my second novel Hurting Distance was written with much more confidence, because I knew it was wanted by someone.
Who is another novelist whose fiction writing you admire and why?
Ruth Rendell - because she understands better than anyone else I've read the weirdness embedded in so-called normal everyday life.
Pick a series of novels you have written. How would you describe what makes that a cohesive series with strong appeal for readers? If you have not written a series of novels, how would you describe what makes one of your favourite series by another novelist a cohesive series with strong appeal for readers?
I think a lot of my readers keep reading my books because they're interested in the relationship between Charlie and Simon, the two detectives - they wonder how it will develop. As a reader, I read series crime fiction because I get attached to the series characters - they become like old friends you're keen to meet up with again.
How would you summarise one of your novels in one paragraph?
This is the blurb of my latest, Lasting Damage:
It’s 1.15 a.m. Connie Bowskill should be asleep. Instead, she’s logging on to a property website in search of a particular house: 11 Bentley Grove, Cambridge. She knows it’s for sale; she saw the estate agent’s board in the front garden less than six hours ago.
Soon Connie is clicking on the ‘Virtual Tour’ button, keen to see the inside of 11 Bentley Grove and put her mind at rest once and for all. She finds herself looking at a scene from a nightmare: in the living room there’s a woman lying face down in a huge pool of blood. In shock, Connie wakes her husband Kit. But when Kit sits down at the computer to take a look, he sees no dead body, only a pristine beige carpet in a perfectly ordinary room…
How would you describe the appeal of this novel to readers?
I think (hope) that, as with all my novels, readers will be motivated by nosiness and desperate to find out what's going on!
Author website: http://www.sophiehannah.com/
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