Tessa Bickers is the author of the new novel The Book Swap. She is also a journalist and a singer-songwriter, and she's based in the UK.
Q: What inspired you to write The Book Swap, and how did you create your characters Erin and James?
A: There was a Little Free Library that I used to pass when I would take my daughter to the playground every day. It was quite a lonely time in the early months of motherhood and I would look forward to passing the library and seeing what new books had been left behind.
I started to wonder what other reasons there might be for someone to look forward to visiting a library and whether it was possible to create a love story set around one. James, Erin, and Bonnie arrived in my head quite quickly afterwards, and I started to plot The Book Swap!
Q: The writer Cesca Major called the novel “[b]oth a gorgeous romance between two broken people, and a love letter to books and reading.” What do you think of that description?
A: I think Cesca’s description is perfect. I really wanted The Book Swap to reflect the importance of novels and the power that books can hold for those of us who love reading.
They aren’t just escapism, they teach us so much about life and when we read one line that sums up how we feel it’s as though someone else out there understands us and shares our experiences. It make us feel less alone.
I also always knew that Erin and James would need to heal themselves and each other and so describing them as broken really highlights who they are when we meet them.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I always knew how The Book Swap would end and I knew the journey I wanted Erin and James to go on, separately and together. How that happened definitely changed as I went along. I really enjoyed weaving in their friends and family to help them progress and those roles definitely grew more, the more I wrote.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?
A: I hope that readers find The Book Swap inspiring and hopeful amongst the pain.
There were many themes within the book that felt really important when I was writing it and I think self-forgiveness is up there as one of the most important. That it’s possible to live with the mistakes we make and it’s possible to keep going, even if we’re hurting or troubled.
I hope there are a few lessons within the book that readers can hold onto, in particular around grief, and I also just hope that they enjoy it as a book and are carried along by the story.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have just finished an edit of my second book, which I can’t reveal the title of just now but I believe an announcement on that is coming soon from HarperCollins! Watch this space…
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I absolutely love receiving messages from people who’ve read The Book Swap so if anyone has read it and has any questions, please do write through my website or via Instagram. I always try to reply.
It’s a funny thing to sit behind a laptop all day and write words and a lot of the time the only people you speak to are the characters inside your own head, so to receive messages amongst it makes my day.
It also reminds me that there are people out there who will one day read the words that I’m typing away and that really keeps me going.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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