When I set out to write To A Perfect Stranger, I had two very different ideas in my mind: A romantic comedy, and a story that questioned and unpacked the process of falling in love. To question our blind faith in love on one hand, without diminishing the wonder of it on the other. I wanted to pull it apart, and put it back together again. I also wanted to wrap something that makes you think, inside a story that makes you laugh – a bit of a trojan horse, with hindsight. It’s been quite a tightrope to walk. I fell off a few times. Early on, there were two very distinct flavours. At times, they were at odds with each other and I have had to talk very sternly to both sides of the argument to get them to kiss and make up.

We all love a beautiful love story. I certainly wanted to honour our hopes and belief in that. But I also wanted to create something that might resonate with anyone who has been burned by love—to help us make sense of that—because love makes fools of us all at some point.

My main character, Frankie, is a dyed-in-the-wool sceptic.

“Just say … that this thing called love, this notion we all pour so much of our personal and collective energy into, is just a trick of the light … programmed over eons into our subconscious to keep us procreating …”

Frankie is horrified when she meets Jonathon, and can’t get him out of her head. She has good reasons for her fears, and she has very good reasons for having different priorities. She wants to make a difference in the fast-changing world of genetic science, which is a compelling story in itself about one of the biggest moral dilemmas of our time. Frankie sees her calling to help people as bigger than her, more important than her own happiness. Happiness she suspects may be fleeting in any case.

Frankie comes to learn what is really bigger than all of us. Hers is a story of self-discovery, and of big ideas, through the lens of a sharp-eyed wit. She is smart but also floundering, serious but also funny, clear-headed but very confused.

Now the time has come to tell people about Frankie’s story, and the original problem has come back to haunt me. Two very different types of stories, married into one. It’s very hard to describe.

But people are complicated, and love is complicated … and writing about all that with honesty, and science in the mix has been … well, complicated. But honestly, even when I fell off the tightrope, I couldn’t wait to climb back up and keep walking. Hand on heart, I have loved writing Frankie and Jonathon’s story. I hope you will love reading it.