Katia Sanfilippo asked Adeline Knight:

Hi there Adeline, while you were writing this audio book, did any of your own real-life experiences come into it? :)

Adeline Knight Hi Katia, thank you so much for your question - it's such a good one! I definitely drew on some real-life experiences from living in New York City when I was younger (in a tiny rent-controlled apartment in Greenwich Village very similar to the one that Jerry owns in the book - and where Eira stays). It actually was on Jones Street - which is the narrow road that Bob Dylan is walking down on the cover of his album The Freewheelin' - so of course I had to use that detail in the book! I'm also from a generation that is lucky to remember what it was like to date (and fall in love) before smartphones/social media/online dating existed, and it was fun to draw on some of that nostalgia in setting the book in 1999. And to remember the brief (and irrational, as it turned out) panic about Y2K! I've also hiked along the coast near St Davids in Wales (where Eira grows up) and feel very connected to that part of the world, so I enjoyed being able to bring that into the story - and was so thrilled that the Welsh actress Erin Richards agreed to be Eira for the audiobook, so that her Welsh accent is authentic (and that Ru's is authentically Australian, thanks to Adam Demos playing him!). I'm Australian and live in Sydney, so I also tried to weave in some of my observations of other Aussies in New York back in the day - and some Aussie humour :)

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