Harriet Tyce

View Reviews of books by Harriet Tyce

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Harriet Tyce

Harriet Tyce grew up in Edinburgh and studied English at Oxford University before doing a law conversion course at City University, which was probably the worst career decision of her life. She practised, badly, as a criminal barrister in London for nearly ten years but left after having children.

After spending some years in the doldrums she started to write, and recently completed an MA in Creative Writing (Crime Fiction) at the University of East Anglia, during which time she wrote Blood Orange, drawing on the hangovers and numerous journeys to far-flung magistrates’ courts across the south east of England as background material. At least that legal training didn’t go entirely to waste.

She now lives in north London with her husband and children, and enjoys writing books about lawyers far more than actually being a lawyer in real life.

Interviewed 21 November 2020

Ten words to sum up your working life to date ...

Tentative
Evolving
Rejection
Dejection
Perseverance
Nervous
Delighted
Astonished
Elated
Repeat

Nine things you can see from where you're sitting ...

Fern
Brass pineapple
Globe
Family photographs
Literary Theory by Terry Eagleton
Glass penguins
A lucky cat
Pens in a pot
Gin and tonic

Eight minutes to prepare a meal. What's it going to be ?

Boil pasta, add frozen peas, stir in pesto, add grated cheese. Cheesy peasy pesto pasta – my daughter’s favourite.

Seven people you'd like to go for a drink with ...

Raymond Chandler
Dorothy B Hughes
Marlon James
Ruth Rendell
Christopher Marlowe
Gillian Flynnv
Aphra Behn

Six things you can't live without ...

Coffee
Cheese
My dog
My cat
Sleep
My family

Five favourite words ...

Roiling
Juxtapose
Barolo
Montepulciano
Brie

Four places you'd run away to ...

Torridon
Kyoto
Oslo
Anywhere but here

Three books you've bought recently ...

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
The Chocolate Run by Dorothy Koomson

Two things that make you rant ...

Dominic Cummings
The sound of people chewing food

One thing you'd tell your teenage self ...

Keep writing – it’ll get better.