To meet or not to meet someone you admire?

international best-selling author Tess Gerritsen

I don’t remember what was the exact first book written by Tess Gerritsen that I have read - I think it was “The Surgeon”, but over the years I have read most of them. Some I enjoyed more, some less. Most I found so absorbing, I sometimes read through the night, becoming startled and alert if something made a sound, making me think that a serial killer was on the loose - some of the plots of Tess’s books were so unsettling, my mind kept whirling long after I fell asleep or sun came up. Trained as a physician, Tess always loved reading and writing, but only when she went on the first maternity leave that she started writing fiction that she wanted to get published. With her first book published in 1987, she has since sold over forty million copies of her books in over forty countries. Now retired from practising medicine, Tess lives in Maine and continues to write, with her latest book in The Spy Coast series recently presented at the launch of “Deadly: the festival of women writing crime” at The British Library at the end of March, where I got to meet her in person, as Mrs Gerritsen was a guest speaker.

Petite and very fit, I first ran into Tess and her literary PR Alison (Penguin Books & Doubleday) at the entrance to the venue and Tess couldn’t be lovelier in person. Respectful of her and her time, I let the women get on with things, while I went to the auditorium, which was delightfully intimate and proved to be the most wonderful place for a funny & easy flowing conversation.