WHERE THE IDEA FOR COURIER CAME FROM

I had the idea for Courier when a man delivered a package to me and was wearing a black beanie hat and dark reflective glasses. I could hardly see his face, and it got me thinking how we know so little about couriers – who they are, what their background is, etc – yet when they deliver to us, they know our full names and where we live, and with that information, they could penetrate our lives. This paranoid thought lingered in my mind and eventually led me to imagine the character of Bob, the creepy courier who is the protagonist of my novella.

BOOKS THAT INSPIRED COURIER

While the idea of a stalker courier percolated in my mind, I re-read You by Caroline Kepnes - the writing style of which I adore - and I also discovered Damage by Josephine Hart, which is a brilliant story of yearning and obsession with a tone that I love. These books, and a few others, inspired Courier (see my inspiration section below!).

THE PROCESS OF WRITING COURIER

initially wrote about five thousand words of the story, but it wasn’t really flowing, and I thought the idea was too dark and the tone a bit grim, so I put the book aside. Then winter came, and the rainy overcast days lent themselves better to the feel of the book so I revisited the idea. The story had been brewing in my mind all year, and I started writing again. This time, it all came together perfectly, and I finished the novella in three weeks. I had a real sense of the main character, Bob, and it was like he was speaking through me. He’s a very quirky character, an oddball and a misfit, and there is some of me in him (minus the criminal behaviour!). I had a lot of fun writing about someone unashamedly weird and unhinged.

GETTING A FEEL FOR BOB

At the time that I had the idea for Courier, I was living in Wales, and I’d been getting quite into new age spirituality. I went to a lot of quirky events, such as chakra-aligning ceremonies and getting in touch with your feminine goddess workshops. I met a lot of spiritual people, some more grounded than others. I realised that some spiritual ideas can cloud a person’s thinking – especially vulnerable people – and lead them to lose touch with reality a bit. I liked the idea of incorporating this into Bob. He sees himself as an enlightened hippy and has essentially created his own moral code, completely divorced from reality. I had fun playing around with new age ideas in Courier, and I really enjoyed the idea of a psychotic, murderous hippy.

WHERE TO SET COURIER

I couldn’t decide at first where to set Courier. Most of my books are set in London, which is where I lived for most of my adult life, but London didn’t feel right for this book. I wanted to set it somewhere smaller, somewhere a little claustrophobic. I spent the summer of 2020 in Hastings, during Covid, and really loved the place. It was just perfect for the story. It has a strange feel as Hastings is very poor, but it’s also popular with artists and creatives, and people who want to turn it into the new Brighton. So it has this energy to it, while also having a bit of an edge. It felt right for Bob. Bob is a lost soul, a seeker, a misfit.

WHAT COURIER MEANS TO ME

As a writer, I was going through a bit of a strange time when I wrote Courier. I’d recently had a book deal in which I’d been encouraged to write very commercial thrillers, but this hadn’t felt right for me. I wanted to write darker, unique, edgy books, and I was resisting the constraints of genre conventions. I didn’t really know where I fitted into publishing and what my voice was. I wrote Courier with no vision of what I was going to do with it; my objective was simply to write something I enjoyed writing. Courier ended up being this dark, strange, quirky story, intense and a little different, with a length of 27,000 words. It had no idea where an odd creepy little book would fit into publishing, and I was at a point in my career where I really needed to do things my way; I was simply not in the mood to have someone tell me how my story ought to be. Inspired by some very interesting indie authors in the US, like Patrick C. Harrison III and Chandler Morrison, I decided to self-publish. Everything came together perfectly. I polished the manuscript with a proofreader and copyeditor and found a brilliant cover designer, who created a cover for the book that I just love – it’s eye-catching, punk, and unusual. I’m a huge audiobook junkie and consume most of my books that way, and when I write, I automatically think about how my books will come across in audio form. Courier in particular is very voicey, so I was keen to have an audiobook made. I connected with a phenomenally talented narrator who loved the book and captured Bob brilliantly, beyond anything I could have hoped for, breathing new energy into him and making him feel even more alive.r

With a perfect cover and audiobook, I was ready to release, and at this point, I already considered the project a success. I had written something I was proud of and had rediscovered my voice as a writer – that’s all I’d wanted to do. I had no expectations beyond that. I put the book on NetGalley and wasn’t really sure what would happen. But then reviews started coming in. People were singing the book’s praises. They really loved it! I couldn’t believe it when I was getting tagged in review posts on Instagram multiple times a day for months! This taught me an important creative lesson: go with your heart, trust yourself, enjoy what you do, write with passion, and everything else will follow. Readers resonate with authenticity and genuine creative joy.

Of all my books, Courier is my favourite. I love Pretty Evil, but I feel that Courier is my most skillful, fun and unique book. It’s been such a positive experience, and it gave me the confidence to trust my creative instincts. I adore Bob and his creepy little world, and I’m not done with him... Let’s just say I hope to one day see him on screen!