Yeah

...

this is what, what is.

And, and I think that no matter who we are, we do have things that we just take with us and adopt as our own, and largely are the things that people say about us.

You know, if we've always had someone say, "You're really smart," or, "You're really kind," or, "You're really this," you take that on as a kind of cloak to, to, to a good end sometimes and to a bad end if you're not hearing the right things.

And you know, I, I also ...

The book can sound, when you hear all of the topics, that it is sort of relentlessly bleak, and I don't, I don't want people to think that because-

Oh.

that lady in the signing queue, was she just looking to get this off her chest to somebody and you were the chosen person? She was

telling anyone who would listen, but it actually, it had been a talk about crime.

It was a crime author's event.

And I had spent a lot of the time talking about you know, how it was a wonderfully safe way to murder people if you write crime.

And I was going through a divorce at the time.

So I was talking about, you know, the person I wanted to murder.

No surprises who that was.

Can you tell the listeners a little bit about Persephone?

Right.

But I will say that every...

You know, my books in a way have followed the trajectory of things that I've gone through, motherhood, you know, even not being able to get pregnant, and, and all of those things.

And now with the divorce, I think that's been the most significant thing that's happened to me.

I mean, and I say this acknowledging that this makes me very lucky, but it's the most significant thing that's happened to me in my life, the most difficult-

Mm.

There's a reason that you do that.

As humans, we wanna connect.

Right.

But I will say that every...

You know, my books in a way have followed the trajectory of things that I've gone through, motherhood, you know, even not being able to get pregnant and, and all of those things.

And now with the divorce, I think that's been the most significant thing that's happened to me.

I mean, and I say this acknowledging that this makes me very lucky, but it's the most significant thing that's happened to me in my life, the most difficult-

Mm.

There's a reason that you do that.

As humans, we wanna connect.

Yeah, I have androgenetic

alopecia, which is a hormone-based – type of hair loss that can affect women actually at any point, because sometimes the hormones can do that even during puberty.

When did it happen for you? For me, it was the perimenopause period.

It was around 40 that it started.

That's so fascinating.

And for me, I also have autoimmune, which is hand in hand and it's hard to kind of unpick.

Yeah.

Yeah.

looking at the wrong person and we will discuss that

soon.

The everything shower is the shower where you wash your hair, you shave your legs, you do all that kind of stuff.

I know about that shower.

Generally, my showers have been quite pitiful when you understand what we're learning on TikTok.

So I would get in the shower, scrub a bit with one of my fancy soaps, rinse off and away I went.

Well.

This is for circulation.