My First Time...with Sarah J. Harris

(Photo: Philippa Gedge)

Sarah J. Harris is an author and freelance education journalist who regularly writes for national newspapers. She became fascinated by synaesthesia and face blindness during her work as a journalist.

Sarah previously wrote YA under the pseudonym, Sarah Sky. The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder is Sarah’s debut adult novel, which was this month awarded the Books Are My Bag Breakthrough Author award. Sarah lives in London with her husband and two children.

She will be joining us to read from her novel at The Riff Raff on December 13th, and we can't wait to have her.

Buy tickets here >>

Describe the exact moment you decided to write your book?

I’ve been fascinated by synaesthesia for quite a long time after coming across the condition during my work as a freelance education journalist. I was also interested in face blindness and thought it would be a good premise for a book.

I started doing research into both conditions and they were playing on my mind. I eventually had a dream about a young boy running across a suburban street at night, terror etched on his face.

When I woke up, I wondered what had terrified him so much inside the house across the street. What if he had face blindness and identified people by the colour of their voices? What if the voice colour of someone he knew had changed as they screamed? What if he had seen the colour of murder? The book grew from that single image in my head.