KELLY RIMMER

The best-selling author of Before I Let You Go has just released her new novel, Truths I Never Told You, about a woman who unravels a family mystery. Rimmer, 39, tells WHO about the book that …

… first captured her imagination as a young child

It was a Sesame Street ABC book. My grandfather couldn’t read English, but I so vividly remember climbing up onto his lap as a preschooler and watching as he pointed to the letters in that book and tried to ‘read’ a story to me. … opened her eyes as a teenager I read Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta in Year 10. I related to Josie on so many levels, particularly the way she struggled to find her place within her school and her family culture. It wasn’t just entertaining, it felt specific to some aspects of my existence. … inspired her to write

Heidi, which I read when I was 8. I was growing up in Sydney and it seemed magic that Johanna Spyri had written mere words to transport me to the Swiss Alps. I so desperately wanted to master that magic, and here I am more than 30 years later, still working on that. … recently made her cry

Lisa Ireland has a wonderful book coming out in May titled The Secret Life of Shirley Sullivan. The story managed to make me both laugh and also weep hysterically. … features her literary heroine

I am still in awe of Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery. She was feisty and brave, but also complex and complicated. As a young girl who sometimes struggled to find my voice, Anne was an inspiration. … she would love to have written Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. I read that book in one sitting – the whole time I was equal parts sick with jealousy at how brilliant it was and completely enthralled.

… she has recently released

Truths I Never Told You was inspired by a collection of disparate ideas and events. I wanted to write about post-natal depression, about family and memory, and about the ways that society’s expectations of women have and haven’t changed across recent decades.