The Flatshare
After a bad breakup from an emotionally abusive ex, Tiffy needs somewhere cheap to stay. So, she replies to an ad for a flatshare, taking a man named Leon’s flat during the night and weekends. Leon is a night nurse and Tiffy is an editor, so they’re never there at the same time. They start leaving each other notes — and romance blossoms.
The book was inspired by her own living situation with her boyfriend, a doctor working night shifts: “With so much of our time spent apart, I started to notice clues around the house that would give me more of a sense of how he was. The number of coffee mugs by the sink told me how much caffeine he’d needed to keep him going that night. The last programme loaded up on Netflix said what sort of mood he was in. The sad lunch accidentally left in the fridge told me that that night’s shift was going to be an especially tough one. I spoke to a friend of mine about my strange living situation, and she pointed out that if my boyfriend didn’t live with me, he could have rented out his room to a stranger. The thought stayed with me, not as a business idea but as the concept of a novel. I found myself wondering, what if two strangers lived this way? Could two people share a one-bed flat, but never meet? And if they did… what might they learn about each other from the traces they each left behind?”
What resulted is a heart-warming page-turner full of romance and drama.
