Claire Nicholls

Yes, exactly.

And at the start of the book, she receives a prophecy which is going to change her life.

What do we need to know about this prophecy, Veronica Roth?

Yes.

And this man is Theron.

I'm not surprised that every woman that comes into contact with Theron seems to fall in love with him because he is a completely lovable character.

And it's kind of hard to talk about him because a lot happens to him in the first few chapters of the book that I don't want to spoil.

But who is this young man when the novel opens?

This is being marketed as the first of two books and marketed as your adult novels.

This is not Divergent.

You said earlier that you did try writing this as a YA novel and it didn't work.

which I find fascinating because a lot of authors say they don't really know when they write a book if it's, say, YA or adult fiction.

They just write the story.

But it sounds like for you there was a very clear distinction in how you write a story for an audience.

I'm going to ask, where does it come from, do you think?

Because if you're always writing about it, it's got to come from somewhere within you, right?

I love hearing about the very clear distinction between your adult work and your YA work.

And I did want to go back to Divergent for a moment because it was, as I said in the introduction, such a huge thing for you at such a young age.

Can you tell me what it's like to have that level of success that early in your writing career?

It reminds me, I've talked a couple of times to Samantha Shannon, who had a similar journey to you.