To celebrate the release of her new novel, Off Target, we asked author Eve Smith to open up and reveal five things that she'd like her readers to know about her. Here's what she had to say...
1. I write about the things that scare me. It’s a sort of therapy. I’ll be listening to the news or watching some science documentary and my mind starts conjuring up all the things that could possibly go wrong - usually involving medical disasters or strange new inventions and tech. Then I dive down the Internet rabbit hole and research them even more. I’m your nightmare dinner party guest because I’ve a host of grisly facts that I can whip out when you’re least expecting it, and really crash that party vibe...
2. I love dogs, but my Husky-Collie cross is totally out of control. She has a wonderful temperament, but boy does she like chasing things. We always get rescue dogs, but broke our golden rule, and instead of rehoming a puppy, we got Mishka aged two. It was only after we fell in love with her that we realised she chases anything that moves. And I do mean anything: birds, boats, deer, squirrels… And Huskies can run a long way before they get tired. Enter the dog tracker and lots of stress. But she gives the best cuddles.
3. I quit a job after less than a day. One summer, when I was a language student, I scored a job as a waitress in a prestigious seafood restaurant in La Rochelle. Having waited tables at home, I thought I was on safe ground. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only had I never seen most of the cutlery they used, which looked more like gynaecological instruments, I had also never uncorked wine at the table using a fiddly old-fashioned corkscrew. Cut to utter humiliation as a frowning customer seized the bottle and did it for me. Safe to say, I never went back…
4. I sang in a rock band called Elemental Spirits. OK, so it was a school band, don’t hit Google. We did covers as well as some of our own songs. I was hugely excited when we played a gig in front of the school, but unfortunately the sound system wasn’t very sophisticated. I had no mic in my ear, so couldn’t hear the other band members properly, so just had to go with it. Consequently, I sang the entire concert about two notes lower than I should, off key. I wondered why the audience were shouting: ‘Flat!’
5. I nearly drowned in the Zambezi river. On a gap year between jobs, my partner (now husband) and I travelled around Southern Africa in a convoy of Volkswagen Beetles. We stopped off at Victoria Falls and did every adrenaline activity you can think of, including white water rafting and, wait for it, river boarding. The Zambezi is a fast-flowing river with major rapids, inhabited by hippos and crocs, and I am not a very strong swimmer, but hey, ho, I was young and foolish… Despite swallowing huge volumes of river and getting spun round the rapids like a towel in the wash, I survived.
Off Target is out now from Orenda Books.
MORE FROM BOOKS: Seven things that helped me write a book while homeschooling, by author Caroline Corcoran