Her Last Breath

1. I once rubbed shoulders with Brad Pitt. Yes, I literally rubbed my shoulder against his as he passed me in a VIP room at the premiere of Guy Ritchie’s Snatch. I managed to get into the VIP room because I was working in PR after getting my English degree at Royal Holloway, University of London. I live about a 40 minute train ride north of London in the UK. 2. I got attacked by a kangaroo. Okay, ‘attacked’ might be a bit of an exaggeration. It tried to jump on my back while I was in Australia. Why was I in Australia? I was writing an article for the travel magazine I edited, a job I got after impulsively quitting PR one day. Sure, I loved the PR world, especially all the parties I attended while sipping champagne and eating all the canapés the stick-thin models bypassed. But I’d always dreamed of writing so quit my job to retrain as a journalist. 3. I wrote my first novel The Atlas of Us (Before I Say Goodbye in the US) after doing a short Open University course. That course was the OU’s Starting Writing Fiction course (now offered for free here), which I did while working for the university in the department responsible for co-producing popular series with the BBC such as Frozen Planet and Coast. I then went on to work in the OU’s social media team before leaving all that behind to pursue writing full-time! 4. I love dogs. My first dog was a one-eyed Jack Russell called Archie. He has a starring role in The Atlas of Us, though when he got a copy of the novel, he didn’t seem too bothered. A sniff, a huff then back to chewing his paw. He sadly passed away but now we have Bronte, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who rules the roost in my house alongside my daughter Scarlett. In fact, those two are both King and Queen of the Buchanan household, me and my husband their humble servants. ​ 5. I'm addicted to lip salve. It’s been an addiction of mine since childhood. I own about a hundred different lip salves but can never seem to find one when I desperately need to. One of my friends believes this addiction suggests psychotic tendencies. I disagree. But who knows, one day I might write a novel about a lip salve-addicted serial killer...

Bea Holland has appeared on several television shows, including The Bill, William and Mary and Teenage Kicks, and featured in the short London Gives Jessica Advice. Bea has lent her voice to both video games and audiobooks, having narrated a number of Barbara Taylor Bradford titles, as well as Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough and The Girl with No Name by Diney Costeloe.