I spent a very happy hour or so chatting to Sarah Waters at Waterstone’s in Deansgate, Manchester last night. It was all in aid of her new book the chillingly, wonderful ‘The Little Stranger’.

I first interviewed her about ten years ago at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds not long after ‘Tipping The Velvet’ was published, and last in Sheffield about eighteen months ago with the publication of ‘The Night Watch’.

And waiting for the event to begin, we had lots to catch up on, the respective health and number of our cats, where we were living, and mutual friends and acquaintances. We also remembered a few funny stories about past events we had been part of.

We didn’t mention The Little Stranger, not once, until we were in the events room of Waterstone’s, radio mics turned on and ready to go. The event had been sold out days before and was bursting with fans. Sarah as ever was a gift to interview, relaxed, amusing and, given her world-wide fame, enormously self-deprecating. People love her books and they love her. The hour passed very quickly, with the last twenty minutes devoted to questions from the audience. The questions varied from the incisive and knowledgeable to the ‘I don’t know what I’m going to ask but I just love your books’ kind of statement, and were all greeted with immense good humour by Sarah and her audience.

As I left the bookshop to toddle back to Leeds, she was still signing copies of books for a queue that snaked about the store. I heard someone say
as I passed them, ‘I think she is one of the loveliest people in the whole world’.

And their friend replied, ‘No, in the whole universe’.

I think they could both be right!