Anatomy of a Scandal: number 5 in the charts, tour dates, and a quick catch up.

I’m absolutely delighted that, ten days after publication, Anatomy of a Scandal has stormed to number 5 in the Sunday Times bestsellers’ charts - in a week when abuse at the heart of Westminster’s in the news once again. I am proud, but also grateful to everyone who’s bought my novel, and in particular to the team at Simon & Schuster who’ve been championing it for almost two years.

I’m off on tour this autumn, venturing as far as Wales, Devon and Scotland to talk about my prescient novel about power, privilege and consent.

The first stop was last weekend, where I appeared at Guildford Literary Festival with my bestselling writer friend and fellow S&S author, Louise Candlish, and for most of these events I’ll be pairing up with other authors, which I thinks makes for a far more interesting discussion. So I’ll be talking alongside authors including The Secret Barrister and William Clegg, QC, psychological thriller writer, Amy Lloyd, EC Fremantle, whose latest has been described as a Jacobean Gone Girl, and novelist Sofka Zinovieff.

Anatomy’s also been picked as The Mail on Sunday YOU magazine’s reading group book of the month for October. You can get 20% off the £7.99 price of a copy, and read about the inspiration behind it here. From Thursday, 17th, it will be both the book of the week in Waitrose, and a deal in Tesco where you can snap it up for £2.50 if you buy a copy of the Sun. (It’s also £3 in Sainsbury’s.)

Enough hustling. I need to get on with writing, inspired by the large audience Louise and I met at Guildford - one of whom told me she’d been reading my novel until 4am that morning; and another who was inspired to tick off a man who’d been trying not to pay for his cappuccino at the hotel bar after listening to us talking. A third concluded, after listening to us: “But you’re lovely women, really.”

We are, and I am. Do come to any of these events if possible. I’d love to meet you.