I am never happy when I finish a book. I always start feeling good, and then I get to about Page 75 and start losing momentum - and I kind of pull it together at the end, but by then I think it's just all over. It's become almost a running joke among my agent and my editor - I always say that, so they don't take me seriously anymore.

It’s funny how one summer can change everything.

Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place.

When you don't know where you're going, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to have more than you need.

Maybe it was true, and being a girl could be about interest rates and skinny jeans, riding bikes and wearing pink. Not about any one thing, but everything.

I don't talk about my books while I'm writing them: not even my husband knows what a novel's about until it's done.

That's not a real answer.' Says who?' Says me. I mean real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence.' Clowns.