Will

There's a fantastic, I'd sort of say like a change of pace that happens.

It's sort of almost, I think, like the last quarter of the book.

And it's breathless for me as the reader.

I absolutely ripped through that final bit because you are moving from one character to the other and seeing this sort of plot develop.

that felt like that must have required a lot of work on your part to make that work and to maintain that pace.

Is that true or was that just a different technique that you were employing as a writer?

She could see a glint in your eye.

Yeah, something.

That's so interesting.

As you say, you clearly had been looking forward to getting to that point in the story.

I wanted to ask about historical fiction, I suppose, as a genre.

Because I think that some writers write historical fiction because they happen to have found something about a historical period that they want to fictionalise and want to write about.

Others because they are seeing a parallel between then and now.

others because they're writing about more universal themes and I think you've you've done different things with your last sort of few books but I just sort of wondered whether it was the same impulse for you each time or or what it was that means that you are drawn to writing books that are set in completely different periods that require research and all the rest of it

So does it mean that instead of more thinking, are you drawn very much by the characters that you're writing about and I suppose the more universal themes that they might happen to allow you to talk about?

There are a few moments in the book where characters don't know how close they are to somebody very significant and they are unaware of each other in the story, which in a story that big feels incredibly significant for me as the reader.

And I wondered why you wanted to include those moments.

It's very satisfying for the reader, I must say, those sort of moments, because you're like, oh, my God, are they going to know?

OK, they're not.

But it felt very true to life, as you say, that you might not know how close you are to somebody.