Aoife Clifford

And particularly I felt about the Manchester part because

I mean, we get about three quarters of the way through the book.

We take a great swerve into great sweeps of America for the last quarter.

But that Manchester part felt just so alive.

I have to say that this is probably one of the most intriguing endings I've read in ages, Kate.

I don't know how you felt about it, but to...

because we can't talk about what happens at the end, but how it felt to me was sort of like you'd been watching the movie, you'd come to the end, you decided to wait through the credits, and then there's some more footage at the end of the credits that totally undercuts the ending as you understood it, and you just sit there gobsmacked.

And that's what this ending felt like for me.

And I had quite mixed views about the ending, but I've thought about it and thought about it since I've read it.

And the reader and the bookseller in me know that that ending is going to annoy a lot of people because people like things clearly wrapped up.

But the writer in me just thought, one, just had to tip my hat to the bravery of it and then just be amazed at the skill of him as a writer because you literally go from, for me, it was you took a breath of sort of relief and just went, oh, a sigh that the ending had ended as it did.

And then I literally had my heart in my mouth within, you know, four paragraphs.

And just think the amazing skill of that is really he's such a clever writer.

And I'd really love to have a discussion with him just about the ending to think of all the things that he was trying to achieve with that.

Because it is definitely an ending that will stay with me as much as I might want to argue about it.

Thanks.

Lovely to be gone again.

Thanks so much.

Hello, how are you?

Look, it's not too bad at all.