Holly Jackson, the YA author worried her blood-soaked books are too dark for her teen readers

‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’, Holly Jackson’s true crime-inspired series for young adults, has become a bestselling BookTok phenomenon and is being made into a series by the BBC. She tells Helen Brown why being a teenager is a bit like living in a detective novel

Holly Jackson, author of ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder' (Press)

First there was the elbow to my ribs, then the whispered: “Look! Mum!” I was on the train with my 11-year-old daughter Pearl; she had noticed the little girl across the carriage from us was “reading the same, actual book as me!”. The book: Holly Jackson’s YA (Young Adult) phenomenon, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. The New York Times No 1 bestseller is a crime novel, the plot of which gives a shy schoolgirl permission to ask the adults in her community some tough questions. When we got home, we learnt that the forthcoming BBC series based on the book had just been cast, and would star Emma Myers (who played werewolf Enid in Wednesday, the most popular English language series of all time on Netflix). “Could you maybe interview Holly Jackson so you can get me a signed copy of her new book?” wheedled Pearl. “It’s called Five Survive, I already put it in your Amazon basket...”

Like most mothers of screen addicts, I would walk over hot coals to get my kids reading during the summer holidays. So a few days later, I’ve wangled a Zoom call with a “sleep-deprived and hungry” (yet still lively) Jackson, who is fresh from a long night shoot with the BBC. The 30-year-old novelist is, she tells me, “still buzzing” that her first novel is being turned into primetime telly.

“The book came from such humble beginnings,” she says. “I didn’t get one of those splashy big book deals that’s plastered all over Publishers Weekly. In fact, when I joined a debut authors’ group I found out I’d received the lowest advance – four figures – of any of them.” She shakes her head. A Good Girl’s Guide... was a slow burner with sales and – unlike Pippa, the novel’s teenage detective – Jackson says she’ll “never solve the mystery of why it took off in the way it did. And when my publishers began to suggest the book might top the NYT bestseller list I began catastrophising like a teenager, terrified of disappointing them. Then there was a lot of screaming and jumping around when I got the call. This was all just before Covid.”