An Interview with Author, Rachel North

By Sarah Morgan, August 2024
Watch out – there’s a new voice in the crime world.
Her name is Rachel North, but you may already know her as Caroline Bond. Confused? There’s no need to be. Caroline has published six novels since 2018, including the Radio 2 Book Club choice The Second Child. She was urged to use a pseudonym ahead of her crime debut, Happily Never After, about a wedding in Mallorca that goes horribly wrong.
“The industry likes to separate out genres, which is purely marketing, and the market likes a debut,” she explains when we meet for a chat in the beautiful Library Lounge at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate, where we’re both attending the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. “I’m hardly a debut, but Rachel North is a debut crime writer. That’s horribly commercial, but it’s how it works.
“And it does work because the holy grail when you’re not a big name, like me, is getting into supermarkets. The sales team got Happily Never After into a supermarket because they made sure it looks like a summer read and it’s from a new name. And now, because they want to build a readership, the next books will definitely be by Rachel North.”
“Hankering to come back”
So, throughout this interview, and to avoid confusion, I’ll be calling her Rachel. But whichever moniker she goes by, she remains a proud Yorkshire lass; she was born in Scarborough and now lives in Leeds.
“I confess, there was a detour, a working period down in London,” admits the writer, who completed an English Literature degree at Oxford before a career in research. “And I married a southerner, who comes from just outside London.
“But I couldn’t imagine family life in London, and commuting’s just awful. So I got a job back up north; for a while we had to be separated, commuting between the two places. But I always had a hankering to come back.
“I’ve passed (my love of the north) on. My daughter’s great, she said, ‘I’m not going to university down south mum!’ But I’ve got a son and daughter in Manchester now. I know they’ve gone Lancashire, but it’s still north – we can just about forgive that. And my husband’s an honorary Yorkshireman.”
So that’s okay. And although Rachel is now enjoying publishing success, she didn’t intend to write novels.
“You should also represent”
“My hankering was to be a screenwriter,” she declares. “I used to go into the BBC Writers’ Room to read scripts, and from there started developing story arcs. I think some people are very inspired by words, but I think I’m interested in visual storytelling, which is ironic, seeing as I’m writing books.
“Realistically, if you’re not close to television, you’re not going to get produced, and I was too old to start again as a runner. So I got to a life stage point where I was shortlisted for a few things, and I got paid for some short stories, and then it was like, well, if I want to go further, maybe I should go long form – which meant novels.”
Despite switching genres, Rachel says that there are things common to all her books.
“If you look closely, they all have someone either with some form of debilitating illness, or a disability. It’s not usually what the story is about, but I suppose it’s bit of a tick in my head – you can take representation too far, but you should also represent, and I think there can be a narrowness in characters without it. And there’s usually a decent young man somewhere.
“But in my books, even as I go into crime, there will never be a girl locked under the floorboards, or in a cellar, because I think there’s enough of a problem surrounding (violence against women) without those of us who write fiction perpetuating it. Just think about your victim a bit.”
“A messy process”
She claims that crafting her books takes her a long time, but thankfully, the ideas keep flowing.
“I can put a year of my life into a story, but I realised recently there’s usually a little seed when you’re working on something that feeds into the next book, even if you’re working in a different genre.
“You take something you’re interested in, and then you start adding to it. It sounds like a messy process, but I love that. I love that at any given point, I’ve got the next three, four, five – not books – but ideas lined up.”
Her next novel, which is set on a private island, is due out next year, and while in Harrogate, she pitched another, and that also got the thumbs-up.
“It’s a gift,” says Rachel of her literary career, before giving food for thought for those of us still procrastinating about putting pen to paper. “I’ve got a contract and although it’s not huge, it’s enough of a job with some volunteering and freelancing, and I’m grateful for that.
“I’m 60 this year, and I think I’m just getting started.”
‘Happily Never After‘ by Rachel North is out now