BOOKS


Author Interview Tanya Byrne


Six years after the release of her last novel, Tanya Byrne returns with a tale of grief and heartbreak


Charlotte Eyre @charlotteleyre 32 30th April 2021


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ix years aſter the release of For Holly, and aſter a period where she swore she would never write again, Tanya Byrne is publishing a new YA novel about love, death and what makes life worth living. Aſterlove (Hodder Children’s Books), which will be on bookshelves in July, is about the relationship between two girls, Ash and Poppy, and is split into two sections: Before, which is about how the girls meet and fall in love; and Aſter, which is set in the wake of Ash being hit and killed by a car. According to legend, the last person to die on New Year’s Eve becomes the grim reaper for their parish, so Ash is then the grim reaper for Brighton, assigned to adolescent deaths. The love story does not end there, however, and, without giving away any spoilers, Poppy and Ash reconnect. As Byrne says, “they fall in love in life and they fall in love again in death”.


The novel has been a long time in the making. Byrne


wrote her third novel For Holly several years ago when her mother was very sick, and was editing the manuscript


Photography: Maya Ziyu


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