It was a day much like any other. Alex Stone was at the office, where she worked as a finance manager in higher education, when suddenly everything changed. ‘One minute I was sitting at my desk, the next I was on the floor. Everyone heard the thud, turned around and there was an empty chair, just spinning.’
We’re at a café in Poole, bustling with early morning coffee drinkers, as she tells me how she’d been in the job for just over six years, having done a business administration degree followed by an MBA in finance. She had recently switched roles, but as no-one had been found to replace her original position, Alex was doing both jobs. Meaning that, the next day, she was back at work.
When Alex eventually visited the doctors, they told her she was completely burnt out. They also diagnosed her as having had agoraphobia, probably since the age of 15. ‘I’d just white knuckled it,’ she admits, somewhat ruefully. ‘School was hard – lots of panic attacks. Bus rides to university were terrible, then trying to cope with being in a lecture hall for two hours. Ironically, work turned out to be much easier, so I’d just been managing the agoraphobia.’
Alex, who remains close to her parents, enjoyed a happy childhood, living in a village between Birmingham and Coventry. However, when she was 11 and her grandmother became sick, she and her mother began staying with her grandparents every weekend. An arrangement that lasted for the next four years. ‘My grandfather was not my biggest fan,’ she says mildly. ‘My brother could do no wrong, and I could do no right. If I studied, I was boring. If I watched tv I was lazy. Mum didn’t drive, and he’d pick us up on Friday and take us back home on Sunday. So, for all those formative years I was very isolated, enduring subtle digs that destroyed my confidence.’ I ask if her mum was aware. ‘Now she realises what he was like. But he was extremely clever at manipulating everyone.’
It was also her grandfather who’d instilled in her the belief that ‘one works; one does not fail’. Hence her being back at work the day after she collapsed.
During those weekends at her grandparents writing became Alex’s sanctuary. ‘I didn’t have my friends, my toys, or my room. So, I took what I could fit into my little bag, and that was notebooks.’ She started with poetry, song lyrics and short stories (Enid Blyton was a particular inspiration).
In 2014, when the burnout first started to take hold, Alex found herself awake in the middle of the night composing a full-length novel. Soon she was hooked. ‘I couldn’t stop writing. Every spare minute I’d scribble.’
Called Once Upon a Memory, it was a historical western – an homage to the films she had spent her childhood watching with her dad. When she bought her parents a Kindle for Christmas, she sneaked the completed novel onto it as a word document. Her mum read it and asked her if she could get her any more by the same author – although she queried how anyone could get a book published with so many typos! ‘That was the spur that gave me the confidence to start looking into what it takes to become an author.’
One of the first things she did was join the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA) and soon she was submitting another novel, a romantic suspense, to their new writer’s scheme. At the time best-selling writer Katie Fforde was the RNA’s president and she offered a bursary for someone to attend their annual conference. Much to Alex’s surprise, and not long after her collapse at work in 2018, she discovered that she had won the bursary. ‘Despite the fact that “sensible” is core to my family I thought, if Katie Fforde believes in my writing, maybe I should take it seriously.’ And so, she took a career break.
Alex decided she wanted to live by the sea, so she booked a week of looking at rental properties between Swansea and Bournemouth. It was a beachfront flat in the latter that won her heart; it even ended up in one of her novels, The Quiet Sister, published in March this year. ‘The view from the flat was down the curve of the beach, all the way to the Isle of Wight,’ she explains. ‘Although it completely blew my budget I thought, this is a once in a lifetime moment. I’m here for six months, then I’m going back to my sensible job. Though in the end I never left.’
Now a professional writer, Alex did all the usual things of applying to agents and directly to a few publishing houses. Although she got lots of encouraging nibbles, she failed to get an actual bite. Until she sent off her fourth novel, The Perfect Daughter to a relatively new but incredibly successful publishing house: Boldwood Books. She thought that it was a character-led romantic suspense. Boldwood said it was more a psychological thriller; the genre Alex is now known for writing.
She recalls how tense the process was. ‘It took a few months. I got an email with lots of suggested changes. Then I had to wait to find out whether the acquisitions team agreed with my editor’s desire to buy it. I’d got to that stage before…’ When she finally got the call, she was offered a four-book deal – The Perfect Daughter, The Other Girlfriend, The Good Patient and The Quiet Sister – which is now extended to eight.
I ask what makes a psychological thriller. ‘It’s about the, what if?’ she says. ‘I’m also known for doing a past and present format, along with having an unreliable female narrator. My books generally have a traumatic incident at the beginning, then the rest of the story is looking at what’s happened in the past to influence how they’re now reacting to it.’
Her editor would love a book every six months, although when Alex’s dad recently fell ill, she was firmly told to put her family first, and the team were incredibly supportive. It’s clear how much Alex loves her publishers. ‘They have an annual authors’ get-together, which is basically a Boldwood lovefest!’ she laughs.
One of the things Alex is most proud of is her inclusion of lesser-known mental health issues in her novels. ‘I research for about two months before I start writing,’ she says, ‘to make sure I have everything absolutely right.’ In her second novel, The Other Girlfriend, she wrote about agoraphobia and was delighted to receive emails from readers saying that they were so much better able to understand the condition having read the book. She’s also written about Munchausen’s by proxy, narcissism, covert abuse, and coercive control (all of which can be found in The Good Patient).
When I ask if she has any advice for aspiring writers she immediately suggests, ‘Find your tribe.’ Since moving to Bournemouth, she’s certainly managed to do just that. Using the RNA network, within a week she’d met another writer who is now one of her closest friends. They frequently cycle or walk along the coast together, brainstorming tricky plot points.
Two years ago, Alex volunteered to speak at the Bournemouth Writing Festival, (next year running April 24 – 26, bournemouthwritingfestival.co.uk), and this year has helped its co-founder Dominic Wong organise their inaugural Romance Writing Festival at the Royal Bath Hotel (October 18, romancewritingfestival.co.uk). There’s an impressive line-up of speakers, including Sunday Times bestsellers Milly Johnson, Katie Fforde and Paige Toon. The packed schedule comprises talks, panels and workshops, with industry editors, publishers and agents as well as networking with other authors. Alex is organising the market-place stalls and gala dinner.
Alex has also set up her own initiative, Author Events, which began as an opportunity for writers to get together once a month. The first session had six attendees, the second had 25. Now she organises monthly coffee mornings in Westbourne and Christchurch, as well as evening events where authors can present their books and meet their readers.
While Alex’s own books have seen impressive sales, she supplements her income with a part-time job as an accountant for a publishing company – working two long days a week. So, has everything fallen into place in her new life, I wonder? Does she have a partner? (In truth I know she does, because she thanks him in her novels). She tells me how they connected on-line because they both love to read (we laugh, saying there should be a dating app for precisely that). ‘We actually connected during Covid, so we didn’t meet in person for three months,’ she tells me. ‘He’s French, grew up in Paris, and has serious literary tastes. But I’m bringing him round to reading some genre fiction.’ They now live together in Bournemouth, where he works in HR.
I ask what her ambitions for the future are, and she says it’s to write full-time. Then she reminds herself just how great her employers are. ‘They knew, when I got the job, that I was a writer, it’s my passion and my dream.’
Perfect publisher, perfect employer, perfect partner. I’d say that’s a pretty good place to be. And for that she needs to thank her adult self, for the courage she found in boldly creating a new pathway. But also, that teenager, sitting alone in a strange bedroom, finding both escape and resilience in her adventure stories, song lyrics and poetry.
The Quiet Sister by Alex Stone is published by Boldwood Books. Find out more at alexstoneauthor.com
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