Ruth Irons

I write twisty domestic thrillers, or you might call it 'suspense.' I think the word 'domestic' is important, because I love to explore ideas that involve normal, everyday people, who are somehow transported into tension-fuelled, complex scenarios. I also love morally-grey characters who make us question what we'd do in similar circumstances!

I grew up in a small village in South Wales, and loved writing stories from an early age. The valleys of South Wales are very green, and I've always felt an affinity with forests and trees. We also always had pets (cats, dogs, mice, guinea pigs, fish) and the early stories I wrote usually featured a little girl who discovered a magical animal, either in the garden or the forest! The first novel I wrote as an adult was a fantasy about a girl who falls into a different world through a portal in the forest floor.

I read lots of different kinds of books as a child. I loved the classics like Roald Dahl, and as I got older Narnia, and Anne of Green Gables, and was completely obsessed with the Brian Jacques Redwall series - perhaps another nod to those magical animals I loved so much in my own writing! I also used to sneak off with my Great Aunt's library books, and remember devouring all the Catherine Cooksons, probably at a younger age than would be recommended nowadays!

I'd probably recommend my debut, the Perfect Guest.

Lisa Jewell

Jane Austen

Charlotte Brontë

Sabine Durrant

Anthony Horowitz

The Time Traveller's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

That's a hard question to answer because I think a little bit of me always goes in to every character. Dinah from my first book is a complete mess, who makes terrible decisions and is impulsive and obsessive - so I hope I'm not like her! But at the same time I got the idea for the story when I was staying at a gorgeous AirBnB with my family, and imagined not wanting to go home - so stemmed from personal experience.

Jules, from my second book, lives in Kingston and is pregnant. I live in Kingston and have two daughters. So I could easily put myself in her shoes, and imagine being in that increasingly tense situation with a lodger having moved in.

Parades End Books is just up the road from me in Ham, and I have a particular soft spot for it because it's where I held my launch for my debut. It's a very sweet shop, and also has a great children's section.

I love my writing room! It's the box room, and used to be the nursery. It looks out onto the street, and has sage green walls and lots of plants. There are wooden book shelves, and musical instruments hanging on the walls, along with a Sri Lankan batik, and a poster of Woody Guthrie (I used to be an actor-musician and was in a musical about his life!) It's a very calm space, and when I have the whole day to write I enjoy lighting candles, making coffee and settling in.

If I could transport myself to any type of reading nook, it would be to a snug, book-lined room with a large window overlooking a forest or a lake. The rain would be beating down outside, and inside a fire would be lit, candles burning, and I'd be cozied up under a fluffy blanket, hot chocolate in one hand and book in the other. Perfection!