I Know You follows a Scottish teenager who, after an argument with her boyfriend, is knocked unconscious and wakes up in the past at an Ethiopian refugee camp and spends the next 48 hours traveling through time. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

When my younger (and quite feisty) daughter was a teenager, I used to take great delight in teasing her by adopting rather unPC attitudes which I knew she would be unable to resist challenging. That experience provided the kernel of an idea. I thought it might be fun to have two characters of similar age but with world views formed half a century apart, thrown together. Clearly, such a situation is fantastical, so I felt that any construction that ‘explained’ the phenomenon would be fine. I was keen to establish the protagonist, Eilidh, as a bright but fairly typical late teenager – hence the early argument with the boyfriend. I also wanted to establish her as a time traveller and also someone with quite a lot about her, as well as introducing the link to Walter (the other main character). Given that Walter was born fifty years before her, that provided the window in which any meetings would have to take place. I chose Ethiopia in 1984 as it would show how Eilidh responded to being thrown into a nightmarish scenario, and allow me to introduce Walter in a low-key manner that didn’t give the game away too early.

Eilidh is transported to various locations and times over a period of 48 hours. Were you concerned about disorienting readers, or was that emotional confusion part of the intention?

I wasn’t at all concerned about disorienting readers, which might identify me as not caring about my audience! I was aware that the sudden jumps through time and space, allied to the pace at which the narrative moved, could be disorienting, but I felt that might help readers to identify more closely with what Eilidh was experiencing.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

In truth, the book is a somewhat self-indulgent exercise. I hadn’t enjoyed writing my previous novel and decided that, no matter what, I was going to enjoy producing this one. So, I chucked as many of the things that matter to me as I could think of into the pot – family, Scotland, relationships, sci-fi, love, humour, music, football (soccer), friendship. Although the story is clearly fantastical, I wanted it to still bear a few hallmarks of authenticity, so I included some of the more challenging themes that life throws at us – bereavement, illness, and the tragedy of someone close succumbing to dementia. I didn’t want those themes to overwhelm the narrative, but I did want to treat them with respect and sensitivity. I hope I managed that.

What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?

I’ve written a sci-fi yarn set in a near-future world dominated by competing AIs, focused on a tiny number of humans who happen to be telepathic. Any publisher who has shown interest has expressed the desire that the book be one of a series. I don’t have the appetite to write another of those (at least not yet), so I don’t think that’s going anywhere. Subsequently, I’ve just finished a particularly dark psycho-sexual thriller with what I think is a pretty surprising twist. Now I need to summon the energy to get on the publisher/agent treadmill! Meantime, I have a half-formed idea for a new novel, which is probably more like I Know You than anything else I’ve written.

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Eilidh, bright, headstrong and feisty, gets sparkling exam results that confirm her university place. Her boyfriend reveals he has deceived her. In the ensuing argument she is knocked unconscious. She arrives in 1984, in an Ethiopian refugee camp, where she nurses a dying child, then a wounded aid worker before wakening back home in present-day Scotland. Three days later, at an isolated beauty spot trying to come to terms with her ex boyfriend’s betrayal and her experience in Ethiopia, she encounters Walter, who is in the early stages of dementia. He is there because of a tattoo on his wrist that simply states the date and location of the beauty spot. Eilidh recognises Walter’s symptoms, takes him home and contacts his niece to come and collect him.

Over the following 48-hour period Eilidh finds herself transported to various locations in Europe and North America, and time periods from the previous fifty years. Each episode draws her further into an unexpected and unconventional romance. Eventually she travels to WW2 blitzed Liverpool and meets a fellow time traveller who explains that Eilidh faces a decision with life and death consequences.