ABOUT THE BOOK
What if everyone in your family was given a DNA test at Christmas: would there be any surprise results? For two women the answers are shocking, and dangerous.
Families lie. DNA doesn’t.
Isobel Ashworth breezes through life, blissfully accustomed to the privilege which comes with her family name. But that changes when she arrives in the exclusive town of Hartwell. Sent there by her father to complete a controversial property development – and prove herself a serious player in the succession plan – her perfect life is unravelling. Isobel’s fiance is telling lies, the project is a disaster and the locals hate her; could her father be setting her up to fail?
Buzzing with the promise of a big story, journalist Meg Hunter arrives in Hartwell to expose the Ashworth family dealings, and transform her faltering career. As she follows the trail of corruption, she uncovers clues about her mother’s mysterious past.
When the next-gen Ashworths each receive an anonymous Christmas gift of a DNA testing kit, Isobel questions everything she knows about her family. Isobel is drawn to Meg and her pursuit of the truth … but someone out there will stop at nothing to hide the secrets of both families.
Great for readers of Liane Moriarty and Sally Hepworth.
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Meet Kate Horan
Can you tell us about your childhood? Where did you grow up and what are some key memories that involve books, reading and stories in general?
I grew up on Sydney’s Lower North Shore with parents who were both avid readers. Some of my earliest memories are of listening to my father and grandfather telling stories around the dinner table. I spent a lot of time at Mosman Library as a child, and never missed an opportunity to go to Woolies with mum to pester her for ‘Babysitter’s Club’ and ‘Sweet Valley High’ books which they sold at the checkout. Some of the books I remember reading most vividly are Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt and So Much to Tell You by John Marsden. I went through a lengthy Agatha Christie phase as a young teen, followed by an all-consuming Maeve Binchy era.
You have taught English and Drama at high schools but spent the last 17 years in corporate communications. What are the key things you have taken from your different careers that has helped define your style of writing and stories?
I think teaching gave me a good insight into people which is key to developing memorable, interesting characters. It also really drove home to me the power of stories. I remember having a particularly challenging year nine English class, full of boys who weren’t big readers. I told them if they were focused, we would spend the last ten minutes of the class reading. They all groaned, but then I whipped out my secret weapon, Tomorrow, When the War Began, by John Marsden, which I read aloud. They were captivated!
After five years of teaching, I moved into communication consulting, helping executives to pitch and present. All my time spent facilitating should hopefully stand me in good stead for the speaking events I’ve got coming up to talk about The Inheritance!
What was the inspiration that kickstarted the story in your debut novel, The Inheritance?
I got the idea for The Inheritance when I received a DNA test kit as a Christmas gift a few years ago. I’ve always been drawn to stories about complicated families with dark secrets, so it sparked my imagination. I joined some of the many Facebook groups where people ask for help to understand their DNA results and what I found was fascinating. While some people were use DNA testing to solve a specific mystery, such as to identify an absent father or find a birth parent, many others do these tests out of simple curiosity about their ancestry and ethnicity.
Often the results seem to contradict what they ‘know’ about their family, leading them to discover family members they didn’t know existed, or that close relatives are not actually genetically related.
This led me to think about the potential for someone to give DNA tests as a gift with the secret agenda of exposing a long-guarded family secret. It seemed like a great premise for a novel, so I got writing!
Did you work full-time writing? What was the process and how long did it take for you to finish?
I wrote The Inheritance while also juggling freelance consulting work and parenting two teenage boys. It took about 15 months before I submitted it to agents. After I signed with Curtis Brown I did another draft and then there was also the editorial process with HQ. All up, I’d say it took 20 months to finish.
In terms of my process, I tend to ‘pants’ the first draft, working out the story as I write. I took a few wrong turns, but by the end of the first draft I had a good sense of my characters and the story. I still didn’t know my ending though, as I started my second draft before I got all the way to the end. When I was almost halfway through the second draft, I was getting a little worried about how I would bring it home, but then the ending came to me, completely out of the blue, while I was driving my kids somewhere. It’s very mysterious, where these bolts of inspiration come from!
What sort of research did you do for your story?
I spent many, many hours in Facebook DNA groups, where people go to get help to make sense of their test results. I was riveted by the many extraordinary stories of people making all sorts of shocking discoveries. I remember one post in particular where a guy wrote, ‘my dad got us all to do DNA tests to help him with his family history project. The results just came in. Now my two siblings and I are sitting downstairs, listening to our parents arguing, wondering which one of us isn’t his.’ I used these as inspiration for the Facebook Sleuths posts in The Inheritance, and wove in posts by the characters about the DNA discoveries in the story.
I also researched dementia, as the main character’s mother, Jenny, has Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. I found Somebody I Used to Know by writer-activist Wendy Mitchell an invaluable resource as first-hand accounts of the illness are rare. She was a tireless advocate for those living with dementia.
Can you tell us a bit about the space that you write in? Do you have things around you that inspire you? A window with a view? A dog by your feet?
I have an office which looks out onto the street, so I watch people walking their dogs while I daydream at my desk, with my own dog snoring at my feet – a yellow Lab called Trixie.
I’m a visual thinker, so my walls are covered with all sorts of things. I ‘cast’ my characters using actual actors and make mood boards, so that I can picture them vividly, and I find images of my settings too. I’ve even drawn a map of the fictional town in my current WIP so that my geographic descriptions make sense, and I keep track of my plot by putting chapter summaries on palm cards on the wall. I also believe in manifestation, so I print pictures and stick them around my desk to make sure the universe knows what I want. Weird, I know, but it seems to be working so I’m going with it!
What authors do you most like and want to in some way emulate?
I absolutely love Sally Hepworth’s books. They are such a joy to read, always entertaining and surprising, while also tackling complex themes. Obviously Liane is amazing. Her writing feels so effortless. I would love to emulate the way she brings her characters to life through their inner thoughts and observations. I also love many of the current Aussie crime writers – Anna Downes, J P Pomare, Christian White – who are able to keep me guessing right to the last page. There is nothing like a well-executed twist. This is certainly something I seek to achieve in my own writing.
If you could travel back in time, what would you tell the young Kate as she was just about to start on her writing journey?
I’d tell her to invest in learning the craft. When I first started writing, I just muddled along trying to work out how to do it. Things really took off for me once I signed up for courses like the Faber Academy’s Writing a Novel program and Kathryn Heyman’s Australian Writers Mentoring Program. When you’re writing a first manuscript, you don’t have an agent or a publisher to guide you, so it’s important to get that help from somewhere.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kate Horan has spent the last 17 years working in corporate communications, helping executives to pitch and present. Before that, she taught English and Drama at high schools in western Sydney where she relished inspiring teenagers with a love of reading and writing. She graduated from the University of Sydney in 2001 with an Honours degree in English Literature.
She traces her love of storytelling back to her childhood when she would listen to her father and grandfather telling stories around the dinner table. Always a voracious reader, as a child she was often in trouble for reading under the quilt with a torch after lights out, and she firmly believes bookshops are the most magical places on earth. After many years of feeling the niggle to write her own stories, she attended Faber Academy’s Writing a Novel program in 2020.
When she’s not dreaming up stories about complicated families with dark secrets, she’s kid-wrangling her two young, high-spirited boys, listening to podcasts and walking her golden lab on Sydney’s beautiful Northern Beaches.
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