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Author Emily Koch talks to us about her latest novel What July Knew and how her near-death experience gave her the motivation to start writing her debut novel.
Emily Koch is an award-winning writer of mystery and suspense fiction. She is the author of three novels, including If I Die Before I Wake, Keep Him Close, and her latest title, What July Knew which was published in paperback by Vintage in July.
Her books have been shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award, longlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award, and selected as a Waterstones Thriller of the Month. The French translation of If I Die Before I Wake also won the inaugural crime fiction prize, Prix du Bureau des Lecteurs, in 2021. You can find Emily's titles on our catalogue.
I was a huge fan of Judy Blume and Anne Fine - theirs are the books I most remember reading. Other than that, according to my diaries - it seems I was very into Kylie Minogue! When I was researching my latest book What July Knew, which is set in the mid 90s, I went back through all my old diaries for inspiration from that era, and there’s a long entry about who I wanted to be if I went on the TV show Stars in their Eyes (I wrote about it so much I abbreviated it to SITE). Kylie, Sonia and Belinda Carlisle were my top choices!
I was very lucky to be alive after being run over as I crossed a busy road in London. That gave me a lot of motivation to do things that I wanted to do with my life and not wait around for the right moment. It’s a cliché, but you only live once. This was a big factor in me leaving my job in journalism a few years later so I could focus on writing a novel, which became my debut, If I Die Before I Wake.
The best feeling! I knew early on that it was a special story, because everyone I told about it was really interested to hear more. But it did take a lot of work! I had never written fiction before I wrote this book so I had a lot to learn. I am so proud of the result and the effect it has had on readers. It was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month and its French translation won a crime fiction award in France - I feel very lucky!
I loved writing this book. As I’ve already mentioned, it’s set in the mid 90s, and it follows a ten-year-old girl called July Hooper as she tries to uncover the truth about what happened to her mum, who she knows died when she was very small. July was such a fun character to write, and readers seem to have really connected with her. It’s a heartbreaking and dark book at times, covering themes of domestic violence, but I worked hard to balance that with lightness and humour - if I’ve done my job correctly it is an emotional read which will make you laugh, cry, and probably want to punch something (or one of the characters in the book). I’ve been blown away by readers’ reviews so far - I always hoped people would love it as much as they do, so it’s wonderful to see it happening.
It was really good fun! I wrote this book during the pandemic and I loved escaping the horrors of covid lockdowns and taking myself back to growing up in the 1990s. I often asked my social media followers for help remembering things like the best sweets of that time, or TV shows, popstars, magazines and so on. We often got lost down 90s rabbit holes and I only used a small amount of the research in the book! You can listen to a playlist of the kind of music I was listening to as I wrote the book here - I made a special Spotify playlist of all my favourites.
I think July was formed as a combination of my own diaries, plus characters in books I read as my research - I re-read my Judy Blume and Anne Fine favourites, and lots of Jacqueline Wilson novels too. She was very clear in my mind from the start, though - the first time really that I’d ever had such a strong sense of a character when I started writing.
I wish! No, it’s in very early stages at the moment. I’ve been very unwell this year with long covid, unfortunately, so writing has had to take a backseat. I believe the next book will be better because of all this though, because having time to breathe and think can only make the next book better.
Wow… good question. I think I’d have to say Rach 3 - Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3. It’s my favourite piece of music, with so much drama and feeling in every bar.
A whole bunch of clichés! You only live once. What are you waiting for?
I am a qualified windsurf and sailing instructor! I worked at a Greek windsurf resort for a few summers when I was at university.