I left college with no {qualifications} – now I’m a success author within the US | Books | Entertainment | EUROtoday

Six months earlier than All The Colours Of The Dark was printed, creator Chris Whitaker heard on the QT that it was going to be picked by Jenna Bush Hager – daughter of former US President George W Bush – for her ebook membership.Along with Hollywood star Reese Witherspoon and chat present queen Oprah Winfrey, Jenna’s ebook membership is the largest and most influential in America. It was an enormous second for the London-born creator – and he wasn’t allowed to inform a soul!

“You’re sworn to secrecy but, even then, you never really know how well the book will do,” explains Chris. “It can still bomb – it happens all the time, it’s not a guarantee of success – but when I finished All The Colours Of The Dark I knew it was the best book I’d ever written and if people didn’t like it, I couldn’t give them any more. That was a vulnerable feeling.”

In the occasion, the novel, printed in July final yr, was a smash-hit, spending 22 weeks on the distinguished New York Times bestsellers listing and turning Chris, 43, into one of many UK’s greatest cultural exports. It has offered a staggering 1.5 million copies world wide and, having simply come out in paperback within the US, is again in thebestsellers’ charts. Its creator has now visited27 US states and counting, after touring exhaustively over the previous 12 months.

Chris’s breakthrough ebook, We Begin At The End, gained the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year at Sunday Express-supported competition in Harrogate in 2021. It had a 20-year gestation. Chris had begun writing as a type of remedy after being stabbed throughout a telephone theft aged simply 19.

The Montana-set story launched the exceptional Duchess Day Radley – a 13-year-old making an attempt to guard her household from a killer who returns to their city after 30 years in jail for murdering her aunt. It was a tricky act to observe, however having develop into a full-time author within the meantime, the previous property agent and City dealer conceived his follow-up at first of 2018 and spent the following 5 years writing it.

“The pitch was two abducted teenagers who fall in love in the pitch-black basement where they’re being held having never seen each other – the boy escapes and can’t find his way back to the girl,” says Chris. While parts modified over the course of the writing, that ingenious prime line remained and the ensuing characters – Joseph “Patch” Macauley and Grace, the voice within the darkness who conjures up him – quickly captured the hearts of readers.

“It was set up like a mystery but everyone who had read We Begin At The End was messaging me asking what happens to Duchess – because when the book ends she’s 14 and everyone was like, ‘What happens to this girl?’. And I didn’t know the answer and it was a big question: ‘What happens to a child that has had a traumatic start in life as they enter adulthood?’. So that changed the shape of All The Colours Of The Dark. It became less of a mystery and more of a saga.”

The ensuing ebook, which spans generations and mixes a lacking individuals thriller with a serial killer thriller and heart-breaking love story, sees Patch escape – kick-starting an epic search along with his buddy Saint Brown to search out the lady from the darkness, though there’s no tangible proof she ever existed within the first place.

“When you decide that you’re going to follow a character from childhood into adulthood, it no longer fits neatly into a genre,” Chris admits. “You know, I think the crime’s the least interesting thing in the book. It started as a coming of age book and then became a book about friendship and first love and family – and less about the actual crime.”

The extraordinary novel was shortlisted for this yr’s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2025, lacking out to Abir Mukherjee’s pulse-pounding thriller Hunted, however Chris stays sanguine. “I’m happy it was Abir’s year,” he says. “It’s such a brilliant book.”

However, he admits to sometimes having to “pinch himself” over the response to All The Colours Of The Dark – together with assembly former President George W Bush throughout a charity occasion on the Bush household’s Walker’s Point Estate in Maine. “He just appeared beside me, gave a quick speech and then shook my hand and asked if I wanted to come to the main house and have a look at his paintings,” Chris remembers. “He’s got a big collection, he paints himself, he’s really talented. He’s incredibly charming, funny, and still has that kind of mischievousness, a bit like a kid.”

He continues: “That was one of the moments where I thought of how far the book has got me. From someone who dropped out of school with no qualifications, no real education, to walking around with the ex-President. This is what storytelling can do.” He can be stuffed with reward for his American readers. “They have their arms wide open when I go to events,” he smiles.

“People are genuinely shocked when I open my mouth, because they think I’m American. They’re just so welcoming. The book has really hit the sweet spot of book club fiction there.”

As for the audio ebook, which has performed equally nicely, Chris plumped for American actor Edoardo Ballerini, 55, who appeared in The Sopranos amongst different reveals. “I had a very distinct voice in mind when I read the book back to myself. It’s not in my London voice. They sent me eight different actors reading the same passage, and Edoardo was head and shoulders. Not just the best, but the best for this book – exactly how I imagined it.”

Despite having met President Bush, and seen former First Lady Dr Jill Biden pictured on a seaside studying his novel, Chris’s proudest second was taking his three youngsters, aged 14, 11 and 5, to see a billboard in London promoting its success.

“I took my kids to see it, there’s a photo of it on my Instagram, and they’re holding hands looking at it, and it said over one million copies sold – and that was the first time it really dawned on me, seeing it on this big thing,” he provides.

“My 11-year-old is a massive Arsenal fan. We were at the Emirates and he said he was working out how many Emirates stadiums’ [full of people] have read the book.”

As for his huge success, he provides: “I genuinely think it’s because I relate to the characters I’m writing. I had a difficult childhood and all of my books feature teenagers having a difficult time when they’re kids.

“I know that feeling. I couldn’t have written Patch and Saint and I couldn’t have written Duchess if I couldn’t empathise with what they’re going through. I think that is the difference.”

Next up is a love story for adults referred to as The Time Keeper. It is due in 2027 however Chris admits it would take a bit longer, given how a lot travelling he’s needed to do.

“It looks at the idea of fate and time and how much control we really have over either of those things – and it’s a big sprawling love story,” he provides, praising his “brilliant” editor, Emad Akhtar, for his persistence with All The Colours.

“For four years, me and Emad met for lunch every few months in London and he couldn’t have been more supportive,” he smiles. “I missed my deadline by two years and at no point was there any pressure. I wasn’t told to write a certain type of book, I was given complete freedom and support to just write the book I needed to write.”

While he isn’t planning to return to crime writing, he provides of the Festival: “Wherever I am in the world, I see Harrogate on the calendar and I feel it’s like coming home to the readers, to the other writers, to people that run the festival. It is my safe place.”

• All The Colours Of The Dark By Chris Whitaker (Orion, £9.99) is out now