My book is coming out in the UK this week. I thought rather than just begging you to all buy it, I would do a tiny thread about one part of the publishing process—The author photo. Whenever I read a book, I flip to the photo. It isn't to see if the writer is cute or what their cat looks like. It's because a long long time ago, I could barely believe that ordinary humans got to write and publish novels. I became familiar with various author photos—author plus bookshelf, author plus dog, author plus tree. Sometimes they smiled. But not often. Usually, the women were wearing make-up. Often the men were frowning. When we were choosing a photo for Starling Days. I sent off a whole parcel of photographs to @FrancineElena and the @SceptreBooks team. They chose one that I almost hadn't included. It was taken on the beach near Margate at the end of last summer. My hair is wind tangled. I was tired. I was temporarily living with my family again. Some minor health problems had come up. My partner was working very late a lot. I had poured all of myself into the new book. All of this shows in the purple crescents under my eyes. I was a bit worried when they chose it. Surely this wasn't sophisticated enough? My friend, the photographer, offered to retouch it. He wanted to make me look fancier. But my editor @FrancineElena said, she liked the unretouched better. It looked more like me. And after a while, I realized she was right. The person who wrote this book was sometimes tired and frazzled. She wasn't the most glamorous. And I didn't want to be anyone else.