Q&A: Andrea Mara, Author of ‘It Should Have Been You’
We chat with author Andrea Mara about It Should Have Been You, which is a propulsive new thriller where the all-too-relatable dread of a text message sent to the wrong person becomes utterly terrifying.
Hi, Andrea! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m the author of eight novels, a reformed nine-to-fiver who would still be working in a bank if I hadn’t been made redundant ten years ago and turned to writing crime. I live in Dublin, Ireland, with my husband and three kids. My kids are teens now, so the kinds of problems they encounter tend to end up in my more recent crime novels, as you’ll see in It Should Have Been You.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Like lots of school kids, I loved writing and reading – crime especially, everything from Enid Blyton to Agathan Christie to Jeffery Deaver to Stephen King. I started blogging (about lifestyle/ parenting) about twelve years ago as a form of free therapy when I was still working in banking – basically, I would come home from work, put the kids to bed, and let off steam on my laptop about how badly I was managing the juggle. Around the time I found out our office would close, a blog follower told me I should write a book, and the very next day, I wrote the opening chapter of what became my first crime novel.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Five Go to Mystery Moor
- The one that made you want to become an author: The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy by Barbara Vine.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Stephen King’s It because I still remember how swept up in it I was, back when I was thirteen, and now my teens are reading it and watching the movie, and I see how swept up they are too. That’s the power of good story-telling.
Your latest novel, It Should Have Been You, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
One wrong message, fatal consequences
Or, if what’s needed here is five separate adjectives: relatable, pacy, twisty, suspenseful, dramatic.
What can readers expect?
The book starts with an ordinary, everyday relatable event: Susan sends a message to the wrong group. She’s writing a mean, gossipply message about her neighbour, to hser sisters, but accidentally sends it to the entire neighbourhood WhatsApp group. The message goes viral – she’s inadvertently given away secrets about her neighbour – but soon four people are dead, and Susan is in fear of her life.
Where did the inspiration for It Should Have Been You come from?
Like many of us, I occasionally send messages to the wrong group, and I live in an area with a large WhatsApp group, like the one in the book, where people often send messages in error, often with hilarious results. But I think the deep-rooted inspiration for the book comes from an incident twenty years ago when I sent a slightly disparaging, eye-rolly email about my boss’s boss to someone and it eventually got back to the boss…
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I loved writing Nika. She’s a very unlikeable teenager and as authors know, the unlikeable characters are always most fun.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I almost always face challenges during a first draft when I wonder what possessed me to start writing, but It Should Have Been You is the only one of my eight books that I actually enjoyed writing. So no, no challenges – but only this one time!
What’s next for you?
My newest book, Such A Nice Girl, publishes in the UK and Ireland in May 2026, and I’ve just finished the first draft of my 2027 book. Which, now that I think about it, I also didn’t hate writing…
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?
Two auto-buy authors for me are Shari Lapena and Lisa Jewell – I look forward to reading their new books as soon as I can get my hands on them.
