Please join us for a Q&A with Amelia Ireland, author of The Seven O’Clock Club.
Please join me in welcoming Amelia Ireland to our BookBrowse Community Forum. Her debut novel, The Seven O’Clock Club, was a recent BookBrowse Book Club selection. It received excellent reviews from our members, it was a Sunday Times bestseller, and it was named a most anticipated book of 2025 by Zibby Owens.
Amelia joins us for the next few days from her home in London but travels extensively to far-flung places. She likes to rock climb, kite surf, and ride horses. She is also a mother to two very dramatic children.
Please use this space to ask Amelia questions about her work. As a reminder, to reply to an existing comment, click the grey Reply on the right side under the comment. To ask a new question, click the blue Reply button a little lower down.
Amelia: Thank you so much for agreeing to chat with us. Is there anything you’d like to tell us about yourself before we get rolling?
Hi Kim
it’s an absolute pleasure to be here answering your members’ questions over the next couple of days!
I loved writing this book and am very happy to hear people have enjoyed it.
Thanks
Amelia
Hi Amelia! Thanks for dropping by.
Congratulations on getting your first book, The Seven O’Clock Club, published to such rave reviews. We’d love to know about the journey - when did you start the book, how long did it take to write, how did you approach getting it published, etc.
I started writing the book around 2017 on a trip to Uganda. I remember it clearly because I did a gorilla trek after my work conference had finished and I wrote the first two chapters in a camp in a forest without electricity or WiFi!
It took around 12 months to finish but the hardest part was the journey to find a literary agent, which took several years. I eventually found my lovely agent Emily after doing a creative writing course at Faber & Faber (which is a big publishing house in London).
Once Emily had gotten hold of the book it all took off pretty quickly. She signed off on the manuscript at Christmas and I had a book deal at the end of February!
Both getting accepted by an agent and then by a publisher must have felt amazing.
Did you always know you wanted to write a book? What prompted you to start one in 2017?
… and Uganda! Wow! What kind of work do you do when you’re not writing that led to such a trip?
It felt amazing and completely surreal! Especially since it had taken such a long time to get to agent stage.
And yes, I always thought I wanted to give writing a book a try. I did a lot of drama at school and so was used to having stories in my head I think. I also think that’s why I find dialogue so much easier to write than the narrative!
I am actually a lawyer by profession but the company I work for runs conferences all over the place. I go to Africa quite a bit!
In The Seven O’Clock Club, you focus on four individuals going through the grieving process. How did you come up with the premise, and what made you decide to go in this direction for your first novel?
Hello, Amelia, I loved your book and the twist at the end. I’m curious to know if there were any spiritual beliefs that informed your choice of topic and narrative reveal?
So pleased that you loved it! I would say I am spiritually curious but don’t hold any firm beliefs. I think I also like to think that anything is possible and wanted to explore that as part of the creative process. There was actually quite a bit of content I didn’t include where I explained more about the Higher Plane etc. More so to answer any internal questions in my own head!
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The premise came before the characters did! I initially wanted to explore how grief was experienced in different ways by different personalities. I had a couple of specific story ideas in mind (Misha’s and Freya’s originally). Then came Victoria’s and finally Callum’s. At the outset Callum didn’t exist as a character at all!
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I love reading debut novels and enjoyed The Seven O’Clock Club very much. I am also an attorney and found Victoria particularly interesting. I know the publisher and not the author in most instances controls the cover art. That being said, I was surprised that there were eight seats in the meeting circle. I will look for your sophomore novel.
It’s fascinating to me that Callum was a later add! I’m not sure why, but I kind of felt he was the glue of the story. Did Victoria and Callum come as you were outlining the story, or later in the process?
When all was said and done, did one of your characters emerge as your favorite? Which one was the most difficult to craft?
Did you have to conduct any research for The Seven O’Clock Club? Did you learn anything that surprised you?
Is there a scene that you’re especially proud of? How about one that was difficult for you to write?