Subscribe to trusted local news
If you are accessing this story via Facebook but you are a subscriber then you will be unable to access the story. Facebook wants you to stay and read in the app and your login details are not shared with Facebook. If you experience problems with accessing the news but have subscribed, please contact subscriptions@thestrayferret.co.uk. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
- Subscription costs less than £1 a week with an annual plan.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
02
Jun
Waterstones event marks Knaresborough author's second novel
Waterstones in Harrogate will stage an event next week featuring two local authors.
Knaresborough-born Kathryn Sharman will join Jess Kidd, who currently lives just outside of Ripon, at Waterstones in Harrogate to discuss their books and answer questions at 7pm on June 12.
It follows the release of Ms Sharman's second novel, The Second Home, published by Hodder & Stoughton on May 28.
Ms Sharman was previously a journalist in London before returning to Harrogate to work as a copywriter.
When work became harder to find she decided on a career change. She explains:
I turned 40, and by that time my kids were getting a little bit older, and not so physically reliant on me and it felt like a crossroads in my life.
If I was going to retrain and try a different career more along the lines of something more creative, which is what I really wanted to do, now was the time.
The Stray Ferret wrote about Ms Sharman's debut novel The Family at No. 23 last year.
Her new psychological thriller is about two families who own neighbouring holiday homes. Following what seems to be an accidental fire at one of the homes, young mother Lottie and wealthy property owner Olivia go to extreme lengths to keep their families together and the truth from getting out.
She said:
Often there is a tiny kernel of truth or something that I use as a jumping off point for my writing. It’s often been something that I’ve experienced in life or heard about and it’ll buzz away in my brain for quite some time.
For this novel we had not a similar experience, but something that stuck with me over five years ago now, before I’d even started writing my first novel.
That experience was when Ms Sharman's family were woken by construction work in the neighbouring house.
They resolved the issue with the owners of the neighbouring house. However, the incident stuck in her mind:
I came back thinking, what if the situation had been a lot worse? What if they hadn’t been quite so nice?
What if say, I was a young sleep-deprived mother who was a little bit on the edge and was getting really upset and frustrated about it. If everything started to escalate, where would that scenario lead?
That’s what you look to do, if you are looking for ideas as a novelist, especially psychological dramas, you’re looking to take it as far as it can go. You’re seeing what people are capable of if they’ve been pushed to the extreme.
I think that’s why people read psychological thrillers and enjoy them. They're credible enough and relatable enough that could you imagine yourself or someone you know being in that scenario.
But equally it’s so far removed from your own reality that you can just enjoy the wild ride of the drama without having to live through it yourself.
Crime writing
Ms Sharman completed a two-year masters course in creative writing at York St John University before becoming an author.
Speaking about the Waterstones event, she said:
I think it’s nice for a Harrogate audience particularly as we have such a strong connection with the Theakston’s crime writing festival, so there’s clearly a big crime reading community in Harrogate and the surrounding area.
Ms Sharman has agreed another two-book deal with publisher Hodder & Stoughton and hopes to release her next novels in 2027 and 2028. She said:
This schedule is normal for this genre as the people who read these kinds of books, read very quickly, they’re quite voracious, they have a big appetite for this kind of fiction and want to consume as much many as possible.
Her third book will be based on something she witnessed last year.
I can’t really say much as I’m still writing the first draft, but it’s going to have a more rural setting and it’s going to be another domestic, psychological thriller.
I fear that’s all I can say for now.
0