Sudden fame and writing your second novel

‘It's wonderful in some ways but makes you feel very vulnerable in others. To suddenly become known and to have lots of people reading your slightly odd thoughts is a weird thing. You feel exposed because all these eyes are on you...

There's obviously a level of expectation (about her second novel) I didn't have before and that makes you nervous. You think about what criticisms you had of the last book and think, "Am I making the same mistakes? Am I doing the same things wrong?" I'm told that it gets much better after the second book!'

Paula Hawkins, author of the huge bestseller The Girl on the Train, in the Sunday Telegraph's Stella