Um, and what about, Roisin, you were, you were working as a teacher, and were you writing at the same time?

Yeah.

Um, well, similar really to Val.

I, you know, I was interested in stories from, like, a very, very young age.

I remember even at, like, yeah, primary school when I was maybe six or seven years old, and you had to write your weekly news.

Yeah.

My news, what I did at the weekend.

I'm gonna explore this a bit"?

And then I'm wondering for the book, how much research did you have to do in terms of getting into the mind of Keira and what, you know, the reality she was facing? What type of research did you have to do?

Yeah, well, I mean, a certain amount of the research, I suppose, was quite informal in that I just was very aware of these stories.

I just think you are, particularly, you know, existing in the world as a woman and, you know, just going about your life and listening to the news and talking to friends and... you know particularly when you're a single parent and have a lot of single parent friends you don't have to go too far I think really to become very aware that this is something that is being experienced by an awful lot of people but within that I did do a huge amount of research in terms of talking to people talking to I met with a support worker from the refuge who was really great at talking to me about, I suppose, the patterns that they're seeing in terms of coercive control, in terms of the, I suppose, a lot of the violence that's non-physical violence, but the emotional violence and manipulation and I suppose use of finances, use of technology to monitor and to control.

And she really gave me an insight into that, which I was then able to, I suppose, weave into the story.

I just wanted it to feel really authentic to Ciara's experience.

And then the whole aspect of living in a hotel.

I mean, I've never, you know, had to live in a hotel you know luckily I have you know family support but I just wanted to know really what what that would be like you know because I think we get so numb to you know we see the statistics all the time about the rising numbers of families in emergency accommodation but I supposed to really think about well what is that actually like what is it like to try to I don't know you know potty train a two-year-old in a hotel bedroom like how how do you even do that yeah and I spoke to a number of people I spoke to a professor who's a sociologist at the University of London and has spent years specifically researching the impact of emergency accommodation on families and she talked to me about things like you know having to use a different hotel entrance a lack of cooking facilities just all the I suppose that the restrictions placed on these families' lives.

So where did you find the time to do this, to write the book?

[laughs]

Well, it's interesting.

There's a, there's a big campaign going on in Britain at the moment.

You've probably seen all this on the internet, Get Britain Reading.

Um, they had a big study last year and came out with these statistics that reading rates are really plummeting, and p- less people are actually reading for pleasure.

So, you know, they, they really do seem to be sort of tackling this head-on and saying, "Right, you know, we, we need to encourage people to read." So there's been all sorts of different surveys coming out.

And, you know, there's been so many of them saying, you know, the benefits for your mental health, you know, are just so, so clear.

Yeah, that's al- that's often good place to start, actually

Yeah.

Yeah, she's at the heart of it all really, isn't she? She's, um...

I really wanted Nesting just to be very character-driven.

Like, we're with Ciara all the time.

We're with her every step of the way.

And, um, she's really this person who from the outside, she seems to have a perfect life initially, right? She's, you know, she's the dream.

The house, right, in the leafy suburbs of Dublin.

Yeah.

[upbeat music]

Oh, my goodness.

Um, I've nothing written down 'cause I really didn't think I'd win.

Um, would you believe it, it's actually my birthday today? [audience cheering] [audience applauding] Thank you, everybody, for coming to my birthday party.

[audience laughs] Uh, no, honestly, I'm just...

Oh, this is so good.

I can't believe it.

It's a hard reality for your central character that she's had to leave her home, isn't it? That's where it starts.