WHAT INSPIRED DON’T SWIPE RIGHT?

I spent the best part of a decade going on many, many dates, downloading every dating app on the app store. And for a while, it was fun. I met a lot of interesting people and tried everything from mini-golf, comedy clubs and wine tasting to baking classes, salsa dancing, board game cafes and rock climbing (and one truly terrible interactive improvisational theatre performance that still haunts me to this day).

But I started to see how dating apps could make people seem very disposable, as there
was always another person waiting in the wings if things didn’t immediately work out. It almost seemed like having a near unlimited pool of potential dates to swipe through wasn’t a healthy way to meet people!

I thought this would be the good basis for a murder mystery– what if dates really were literally disposable? And what if someone was using a dating app to find victims?

I liked the idea of hiding clues in each of Gwen’s dates, so she’d be forced
to re-live the awful dates that she’d tried so hard to forget, and also to think about the real people behind the dating app profiles.

I was able to recreate some of the terrible dating stories I’d heard – and a few of my own – which hopefully means parts of the book will ring true to everyone who’s ever wanted to climb out the bathroom window halfway through a Sloppy Giuseppe at Pizza Express –
as well as being exciting and a bit scary (as dating can be!).

I always loved reading murder mysteries, but at the time, there didn’t seem to be many set in the world I lived in, aimed at people like me. I liked the idea of mixing my two favourite genres – rom-coms and thrillers – to make a truly millennial murder mystery.

It’s a funny book, but hopefully it’s also got the with twists and turns of a classic ‘whodunnit’ that will keep readers turning the pages. Also, there aren’t many crime books where all the victims are men!