Julie Walker Author

If you’re an avid reader or writer, you may ask yourselves how did the author come up with the idea for the novel? My debut, The Gift of Time, came about in an unusual way, so let me tell you about that.

Cast your minds back to March 2020, the whole country was put in lockdown due to the pandemic. I, myself, like thousands and thousands of people were told to ‘shield’ – to not leave the house or have visitors as we were considered ‘vulnerable’.

Sadly, fear reigned supreme.

Personally, having been through a very serious illness the last thing I wanted was to end up back at hospital in the ICU again.

I couldn’t work, I’m a yoga teacher and where we were living the WIFI was bad so I couldn’t even do Zoom classes.

The days dragged into weeks and my mental health was suffering. During a call with my younger sister, she began telling me that just before the pandemic she had wished for The Gift of Time and why didn’t I occupy myself by writing a book on that theme… I came off the call and rattled out a couple of thousand words and sent it to her. Her initial response was… you MUST do this.

I spent hours and hours in my garden and hours and hours at my laptop. The ideas were coming in thick and fast whilst gardening and I would rush back in the house to take notes.

The basic premise of the book (I must say here, I’m not someone who plots a novel!) was that there were six characters in five different countries who all suffer with their health (either mentally or physically) and are inextricably linked. Each chapter is devoted to one of the characters and their lives during Covid. The final chapter brings it all together, even I, as the author, didn’t know how that was going to happen!

The novel would easily work with or without Covid, but it is a plot driver because it’s set in 2020 (in case anyone is all Covid’ed out!) My other problem in 2021 was that I didn’t feel I could wait years to get a book deal, it felt too current and consequently urgent to get this out into the World. I chose to use a hybrid publisher (not vanity publishing) and looked at it as me paying myself an advance.

The day it was published I was in Daunt Books in London, seeing it on the shelves and signing my first copy. I remember my daughter reminding me to soak it all in, as the debut only happens once. When I saw it on the shelves at Waterstones in Bluewater, Kent I couldn’t take the smile off my face.

Life, death, birth, marriage, secrets… what more can you want from your contemporary fiction!

I lived and breathed the characters, so much so that I often wonder what they’re up to nowadays.