One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

right?’ he asked gently.
    She swallowed and nodded.
    ‘I contacted him yesterday. He was happy to hear from me, said he’d wanted to see you too.’
    ‘He did, so he can kill me,’ she said, voice shaking.
    ‘No. I think he wants closure too, Kitty. Go on in. You’ve nothing to lose.’
    Kitty looked at Archie, unsure whether to hit him or thank him, but knew that what he’d done had been from the goodness of his heart.
    She pushed open the door and stepped into the café. Colin Maguire turned round and stood up from his stool.
    And she walked towards him, hoping, and above all, praying, for his forgiveness.

Behind the scenes writing
One Hundred Names
    How did you come up with the title for this book? Inspiration is so hard to pin down, but can you remember anything specific that caught your imagination and helped fire you up to write the story of Kitty and her list of one hundred names?
    I was half paying attention to the television one day, the MTV awards were on, and actress Jennifer Lawrence appeared on the television to talk about her upcoming movie – which I heard as
One Hundred Names
. As soon as I heard this, I stopped what I was doing and looked up to see what the movie was about. Something about the title excited me, it made me want to hear more, it made my mind go wild trying to figure out who the one hundred people could be and how they were linked and what the story might be. So my mind was incredibly active as I was watching the trailer, and as usual whenever I heard a good title or idea, I was feeling jealous I hadn’t thought of it. Then I realized it wasn’t called
One Hundred Names
at all, it was
The Hunger
Games
! I was so delighted that I’d got it wrong because it meant that I could use the title for myself. The idea very quickly formulated in the seconds it took from mishearing the name to realising I was wrong. It’s incredible how ideas come, and what triggers them, and this is a perfect example of how something totally unrelated can spark off an idea. When I get an idea I become so excited, my adrenalin is pumping and I need to find a pen and paper straight away to write it down before I lose it, as it flows and develops so rapidly in my head. I remember not having a pen and paper near me so I emailed myself the idea on my Blackberry.
    Instantly I created two very different characters to tell the story. One was a detective who found a list of names and had to solve a crime, the other was a young journalist who found a list of names and had to write a story. I went with the journalist who had to write a story. I could relate to her.

    Did you plan the plot for this novel in detail before you started? Did you know how the book would end before you started writing the first line?
    It was September/October 2011 and I was just about to begin publicity for my novel
The Time of My Life
so I didn’t – couldn’t – think the idea through any more in major detail. Over the next few months I just let it bubble away so that it could grow and take on a life that would be three dimensional and exciting, something that would be worthy of a novel. During those months I travelled to Australia, Spain, Germany, the UK, and all around Ireland, but I was thinking about the idea the entire time. I felt sure it was going to be my next novel and I was excited. But I was nervous. I knew that the idea was a good one, possibly one of my best, but I felt it was too adventurous. To have to come up with one hundred characters, plus the main characters, was much too big for me. It would be close to impossible to write, not to mention confusing for the readers. I toyed with changing it to
Ten Names
or another more manageable number but I wasn’t happy with that idea. It had to be
One Hundred Names
or nothing at all. So I kept pushing myself away from the idea and trying to think of something else for my next novel.
    I love getting ideas, I thrive on ideas, other people’s and my own, and the terrifying thing for a writer is to
not
have the idea. This time I had too many ideas. I had so many characters and storylines in my head that had been developed over the years. I had to begin work on a new book in January and I couldn’t decide which one I was going to write. This was unusual for me because it has always been very clear to me over the years what I should write. It would be the story that would take over my mind and refuse to leave me alone until it was written. It would be the story where I