Q&A with T.M. Logan

 

 

 

T.M. Logan is the author of the new novel The Room in the Attic. His other books include The Mother. He lives in Nottinghamshire, UK.

 

Q: You’ve said your friends’ house-moving story was an inspiration for The Room in the Attic--can you say more about that?

 

A: The initial idea came from a casual conversation with some American friends about their house move in Boston. Some time after they moved in, they were decorating and getting the house the way they wanted it, and noticed that one of the rooms seemed an odd shape, not quite as big as it should be.

 

When they explored further, they found a hidden space behind a false wall, which was not on the realtor’s plans of the house. It was a curiosity of the house that presumably had been put there many years, or perhaps decades, earlier. And to this day, they’ve never found out who built it that way, or why.

 

But it got me thinking: what if you moved into a house with the very darkest secrets? What if you inadvertently stirred up old ghosts, old crimes? And what if the perpetrator of those crimes was still out there? That was the little anecdote that initially got me started on The Room in the Attic.

 

Q: How did you create your character Adam?

 

A: He’s a father and a family man, like me, and there is some of me in him. He also loves history and old architecture, and has a real curiosity about the house he moves his family into.

 

Also like me, he doesn’t like to leave questions unanswered – he develops a real fascination with finding out why the room in the attic has been left untouched for so long.

 

I loved writing about the family dynamic of the parents and their three children, and I always like to reflect on my own experience as a parent when I do that. In some respects, Adam is also an everyman so he’s quite easy to relate to.

 

Q: The writer Sarah Pearse said of the book, “A darkly gripping and addictive read, [The Room in the Attic] skilfully plays on a new homeowner’s worst nightmare - that something deadly is lurking beneath the welcoming facade as the home’s past echoes into the present.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: It’s a great description! We always hope that home will be our sanctuary, but that’s not always the case.

 

On one level, the novel reflects a fairly universal experience of moving house, of leaving the old behind and embracing something new, of trying to find your feet where everything is unfamiliar.

 

But moving house is also a step into the unknown. There’s a sense of discovery, of trying to make a new place your own even as you discover more about its quirks – or perhaps about the people who lived there before you.

 

I wanted to capture that feeling with The Room in the Attic, that feeling of secrets slowly revealed, of the history contained within those walls. And the danger of stirring up the past.

 

Q: Did you know how the story would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: I had a good idea of how it would end when I was planning out the arc of the story, but there are always changes along the way. No matter how much planning I do, I find there is always a certain amount of organic growth within the story once I start writing, as I get to know the characters better and how all the elements fit together. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m in the planning stage for my 11th novel, which will come out in the UK in 2027. My 10th is coming out here at the end of February 2026 so I’m also looking forward to that! The next one to be published in the USA will be The Daughter, which will be coming out in early 2027.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: The Park – the suburb of Nottingham where The Room in the Attic is set – is a real place and has some of the most stunning Victorian architecture in the county. It’s also one of the only places in Europe to retain old-style gas lighting on the streets, which gives it a really unique feel – especially at night!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with T.M. Logan.