Belle’s Book Club: Author Interview with Jessie Keane

Jessie Keane is a Sunday Times top ten bestselling author with 14 fiction books to her name – although her own life has been just as eventful as many of her characters.

Born in a caravan to a Romany mother, she has lived at both ends of the social spectrum. Her gritty hard-hitting books are centred around the darker side of London, in particular Soho. It was a world that fascinated Jessie when she ran away to the capital as a teen, and was to provide her inspiration when she began writing years later.

Jessie’s 14th book, The Knock, has just been released, and follows Dora O’Brien whose life starts to go wrong when she falls pregnant by her gangster lover, and gets herself on the wrong side of bent copper, Donny Maguire. 

Your characters are often influenced by your time spent in Soho. Is that the case with The Knock? 

The scenes in my latest book come partly from a mixture of a very vivid imagination and a lot of life experience. Yes I did leave home for Soho when I was very young – too young, probably – and the experiences I had there shaped me and made me grow up fast. Shady characters and risky situations colour all my books – fourteen so far, including the Annie Carter and the Ruby Darke series. The Knock is no exception. It’s gritty, it’s gripping, and I am very proud of it.

How has your Romany heritage influenced the kind of books that you write? 

My Romany heritage is a constant delight to me. My book Fearless about Josh Flynn, a bare-knuckle boxer and his two women, was directly inspired by it. There is a very strong thread of the arts and music running through the Romany community and I’m lucky to be able to tap into that and create characters that hook my readers into turning the next page, then the next. The Knock is a story about love and domination and how quickly good things can turn bad, seeping down the generations like an open sore. Can Dora make good after her horrendous past? Can Angel her daughter ever forget the dreadful things she’s had to do, just to survive? The answers to those questions are all to be found in The Knock.

You have some characters who have appeared across quite a few books over a number of years. How do you keep track of all the details of their lives and personalities? 

I keep large files of information about my characters – every single one of my books has a massive amount about it stored away for future reference. Some characters – like Annie Carter – seem to just run and run, the fans always crying out for more even though I’ve already written six Annie books. Ruby Darke is another great favourite, appearing in Nameless, Lawless and then The Edge. I always say that Annie Carter is me, with knobs on. She’s tough at the core and I am too. As for Dora and Angel in The Knock? So far, I don’t have any plans for a sequel to The Knock but then you never know. Dora’s a wild one. Angel is calmer, quieter, but strong as buggery.

You tried writing chick lit first and that didn’t work for you. How did writing crime feel different? 

I tried for years to write romcoms or ‘chick lit’. I enjoyed it, but it was never a success for me. I had lots of near-misses where a publisher loved one of my lighter books, took it on holiday, wanted to publish it – then the sales team would say no, and that was that. That happened several times and finally in despair I gave up. Then I decided, just for my own amusement, to write a thriller set in sixties London. I was inspired by the Kray twins and wanted to place a woman in a similar situation – so Annie Carter was born. And she was so easy to write! Finally I’d found my voice. Within six months, I had a three book deal for a six figure sum, and after that I never looked back. I’m often asked if I would ever return to romance and I have to say a flat no. I love crime!

How do you recommend a budding writer works out the genre that is the one for them? 

People often say, write what you know. But I would advise: write what you love, what fascinates you, what really moves you as you write it. You’ll know it when you do. When I was writing The Knock I was either in tears or on the edge of my seat, wondering what the hell was going to happen next!

What is your daily writing routine? 

The morning is always spent writing. My perennial gripe is the in-tray. Paperwork is always piling up in there so every day at about one o’clock I’ll down tools and pay a few bills, answer some emails, get everything ship-shape. Then I’ll review what I’ve written in the morning, maybe go out to dinner or watch some TV. Stephen King thinks that most creative types are high-functioning schizophrenics and I think he’s right. Whatever I’m doing, there’s always a story dancing around in the back of my brain, demanding attention. Just can’t help it. The Knock popped into my brain while I was watching an old Marilyn Monroe film and I thought ‘that’s Dora, my good-time girl gone bad’.

It seems like your own life has been so varied that an autobiography should be on the cards one day! Is that likely? 

Never say never, but I always seem too busy with my fictional characters to take time out to write. The Knock is right up there at the top of the Sunday Times bestseller chart (currently number 3) and I’m busy doing interviews and answering questions about it. Being an author is so absorbing that it tends to dominate most of my days. Right now I’m already 90,000 words in to my new book The Manor, which is all about two closely linked families who are first involved in the hard game (armed robbery) and then take a sidestep into the lucrative world of drugs that starts to tear them all apart. Belle is the heroine of the piece, and I have to admit I have been picturing Ant Middleton as the hero. I always have a firm picture in my head of my major characters. Ant, sorry. Just couldn’t resist.

• Jessie’s latest book, The Knock, is out now, Macmillan, £12.99, hardbackFind out more about Jessie at: www.jessie-keane.co.uk or follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jessie.keane.9