Favourite book of all time:

I would answer differently on any day you asked. Today it is Annie Proulx’s perfect, heartbreaking novella Brokeback Mountain

Book that made you want to become a writer:

I’ve always been a passionate reader, but when I finished Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, it was the first time my admiration was mixed with a definite spike of envy – I hated that she’d written and not me.

Book you recommend to people:

I’m terribly evangelical about favourites. I often recommend Donna Tartt’s Secret History to show the depth and intelligence possible within the crime genre.

The best book to start a book club:

You want to start with a good argument, so Jane Harris’s Gillespie and I. Set in Victorian Glasgow, it’s a tragic tale of obsessive love whose narrator is comic, tragic or despicable, depending on your viewpoint. I loved it, but my mother was enraged.

Favourite author:

Sarah Waters is so consistently good, completely immersive. Fingersmith has a brilliant plot, Nightwatch is bold and melancholy, but The Little Stranger has a special place in my heart because I love a haunting.

Favourite classic book:

The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, which I discovered at a delicate age, read by Vincent Price on late night radio. Indelibly spooky, and some of the most influential stories ever written.

Book you wished you’d written:

I love Patricia Highsmith and her moral audacity. In The Talented Mr Ripley, she takes the viewpoint of the killer, and you find yourself quickly compromised, sympathising with the sheer difficulty of getting away with murder.

A Famished Heart by Nicola White (Viper) is out now