Blog Tour: What Happened That Night by Sheila O'Flanagan

About the Book:
Lola Fitzpatrick is bright and ambitious but she's also headstrong and stubborn. When one evening, out of the blue, she has to make a life-changing choice, she decides quickly and rashly. And without a piece of vital information that might have changed everything.
Lola's daughter Bey has inherited Lola's determined nature. Yet her impulsive reactions place her in danger, leading her to run away from what she wants most. And then, one night, she's standing in front of the man she loves, with her own choice to make...
For both Lola and Bey, everything changes in a moment. But their biggest mistakes might also turn out to be their greatest opportunities...

The Inspiration Behind 'What Happened That Night': When people ask about inspiration for my novels I’m often very vague with my answers because I’m never entirely sure where the inspiration has actually come from. All I know is that it’s popped into my head.

I’d been thinking of writing about an estranged family for quite a while before a conversation with the jeweller when I was choosing my wedding ring a few years ago made me think of incorporating the world of ‘haute-joaillerie’ (high class jewellery) as part of a new novel. And as soon as I began to imagine how that might work, Lola and Bey’s stories seemed to emerge like polished diamonds from rough stones.

I might have done more research than I absolutely needed to get the background right - this had nothing at all to do with the fact that putting on very expensive pieces of jewellery is an enormous thrill - it was all about being accurate. Well maybe. It was just a pity I had to hand back those gorgeous necklaces and bracelets every time!

The characters are always the most important part of a novel for me. They have real jobs, real lives and real families and all I’m doing is drawing their stories out. So it’s the decisions that both Lola and Bey make, and the fallout from those decisions as well as their relationship with each other and with Bey’s father and his family that are the very core of the story. This book has a wide cast of characters but because they’re all different in their own way I didn’t have any trouble keeping them in my head.

But in What Happened That Night the jewels are characters too. Until I started my jewellery research I’d never really thought much about precious gemstones, but - like Bey in the book - I’m fascinated by the fact that  they would have started to form  at a time when dinosaurs were roaming around the world.

And I still think from time to time that the small diamonds in my ring have witnessed all of the world’s history and will still be around in millions of years, even though none of us will be.

The truth is that you don’t really own a precious stone. It just stays with you as an onlooker in your life. But it’s a very glamorous onlooker!

Don't forget to check out the other stops on the tour and What Happened That Night which will be released on the 13th July! 

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