Today it's my absolute pleasure to welcome Clare Mackintosh to the blog to talk about her debut novel
I Let You Go which is published tomorrow as a paperback,
eBook already published and has had amazing reviews so I'm looking forward to finally getting around to reading it.
Clare Mackintosh is an author, feature writer and columnist. She has written for The Guardian, Sainsbury’s Magazine, Good Housekeeping, The Green Parent, WI Life and many other national publications, and is a columnist for Cotswold Life and Writing Magazine. She is the founder of Chipping Norton Literary Festival and lives in the Cotswolds with her husband and their three children.
Clare spent twelve years in the police force, working on CID, in custody and as a public order commander, and has drawn on her experiences for her psychological thriller I Let You Go. She is currently writing her second novel.
A tragic accident. It all happened so quickly. She couldn't have prevented it. Could she?
In a split second, Jenna Gray's world descends into a nightmare. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh. Desperate to escape, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of a cruel November night that changed her life forever.
Slowly, Jenna begins to glimpse the potential for happiness in her future. But her past is about to catch up with her, and the consequences will be devastating...
Can you tell us a little bit about your debut novel I Let You Go?
I Let You Go is a psychological thriller with a police procedural strand. The book opens with a hit and run that kills a young boy, devastating his mother, who witnesses the accident. The story charts the months that follow: Jenna, who tries to escape her grief by starting a new life on the Welsh coast; and DI Ray Stevens, who leads the investigation into Jacob’s death. Despite her best efforts, Jenna can’t disappear completely, and her past catches up with her – with terrifying consequences…
Did your previous experience in the police force play a part as inspiration for the storyline?
I’ve definitely drawn on my experience as a police officer to write I Let You Go, but despite what some of my former colleagues have suggested, the characters are definitely a work of fiction! The essence of the book – the hit and run that kills five year old Jacob – was inspired by a real-life case that took place shortly after I joined the police force. It devastated a family, and a community, and I often thought of the family putting their lives back together in the years that followed. I Let You Go isn’t their story, but it touches on the emotions involved in such a tragic case.
