Tell us about your new novel, The Lover
The Lover is about a workplace romance gone bad – pretty terribly actually, since the man is found murdered in his bed one morning.
The Lover examines power imbalances in both professional and intimate relationships, coercive control and domestic abuse. Tell us more
I am fascinated about the darker moments of ordinary life. My books return to this question: what makes good people do bad things? I’m curious about the ways in which people who love each other can harm each other.
Your previous thriller, The Cleaner (2025), sold more than 60,000 copies. Tell us about it
Esmie begins working for three homes in the same neighbourhood but she’s really there to snoop. Someone there destroyed her brother’s life, and she intends to return the favour.
You moved from South Africa to the west of Ireland 17 years ago, with a seven-month-old baby and far from your support network. Your writing often explores outsiders, marginalisation and the search for belonging. Did the isolation of the early years influence your work?
Hugely. There was a lot of change in a short time, including my mother’s terminal cancer diagnosis. But I decided that I would literally write myself into this country – I would write something I could only write here. Drawing on Irish myth and landscape, I wrote The Wren Hunt, which started me on a path, one that leads all the way to The Lover. They’re different genres, but the voice and the way of invoking place and myth is a constant.
You grew up in South Africa under apartheid and the violent resistance to that injustice. How formative was that?
I have anxiety issues, many of us do these days, though I was first diagnosed decades ago. Recently, wondering about the origin of this anxiety, I realised: of course I’m bloody anxious, having grown up in a place that repeatedly told me I wasn’t good enough as a child.
I’m resilient and robust, and don’t actively nurture these old scars or wounds or whatever they are now. But sometimes, say if I enter a large, noisy crowd and can’t see a way out and the panic rises, I think, ah yes, it’s all still there, deep inside.
Apartheid was awful, a moral failure and worse, and it’s disheartening to see the world normalising many of those attitudes again.
Your debut story collection Moss (2004) explored your native Cape Town
I loved writing these interlinking short stories. I was fortunate to work with André Brink on them, and his support and encouragement is at the foundation of my writing life. For this, I’ve dedicated The Lover to him.
How would you compare your debut thriller The Cutting Room (2013), set in South Africa but published after you moved to Ireland, with your more recent work?
The Cutting Room is more literary than genre fiction. I learned a lot through writing it.
Tell us about your YA books Strange Nature, Blood to Poison, The Wren Hunt and The Wicker Light
They’re a bit of myth or magic, a bit of adventure, with sprinkles of romance.
Which projects are you working on?
I’m finishing up my next thriller, enjoying the continuation of my murderous spree.
Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?
I have been known to get obsessed, like with sacred architecture in The Cutting Room, and structure my holidays around that.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
“Are you one of those people who talks about doing things or actually does them?” – this was said by a well-known writer to a friend, and it’s stuck with me for decades.
Who do you admire the most?
My mother for her quiet strength, my father for teaching me to do my thing, uncowed.
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?
No billionaires. And laws to keep politics and the press free from the control of the wealthy.
Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?
I recently finished Dissection of a Murder by Jo Murray, which I loved.
Which public event affected you most?
The genocide in Gaza, how we watched the most appalling suffering, and couldn’t stop it.
The most remarkable place you have visited?
The 280-million-year-old petrified forest in Namibia. Surreal and beautiful.
Your most treasured possession?
Don’t laugh – my treadmill. It’s the best thing I’ve ever bought.
What is the most beautiful book that you own?
We have a family Bible that has been passed down since the 1800s, with gorgeous illustrations. It records family members – and has pages missing, torn out a hundred years ago, to protect family secrets.
Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Emily Brontë, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson. I think we might have a few things in common.
The best and worst things about where you live?
It’s beautiful and quiet, which I love, but sometimes I think it might be a little too quiet.
What is your favourite quotation?
“We started dying before the snow, and like the snow we continued to fall.” Tracks by Louise Erdrich.
Who is your favourite fictional character?
Miss Marple. She’s fab.
A book to make me laugh?
Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera – murder, but funny.
A book that might move me to tears?
I was riveted by Leslie Clare Hall’s Broken Country.
The Lover is published by Bantam
