Hannah Luckett: 'I strongly feel that writers should lean into their own experiences'
BY Katie Smart
19th May 2026
In this interview Hannah Luckett, author of the debut contemporary romance After Ever After, shares her advice for incorporating metatextual elements into your writing.
'The novel is a patchwork of all of the places that have meant something to me. Therefore, the story sort of came with the location and it is a gift to have a setting that is quite so easy to write about and romanticise.'
We caught up with Hannah to discuss her time studying with us, her favourite romance authors and the inspiration behind her debut novel.
After Ever After follows Ava after the sudden death of her husband. It is a story of grief, self-discovery and a second chance at love. What inspired you to write this novel?
I have always found it odd that romance novels end in that fairytale ‘Happily Ever After,’ but for so many protagonists, who are in their twenties when they meet the love of their lives’, there is so much more life to go and I wanted to break that apart a little. What happens when you had your own happily ever after and then that disappears? I also found the idealisation of those past relationships really fascinating too, because how do you navigate the fact that you are single by something entirely tragic and unfair? How does that sit with new relationships? For me those questions alone where enough to get me writing and wanting to find out what grief looks like in new relationships.
The story is set in the small French village of Monpazier – a place which brings up mixed emotions for Ava as she returns to her husband’s hometown without him. When in the writing process did you decide on Monpazier, and what details were you most determined to draw on to make the village feel so vivid?
It was always going to be Monpazier. I was incredibly lucky to spend the majority of my teenage summers in the Lot et Garonne but Monpazier market on a Thursday was the highlight of any trip. There was just something about the medieval square, the wonky town houses and the flaking shutters that spoke to me and made me feel at home and something I was determined to capture. The novel is a patchwork of all of the places that have meant something to me, occasionally locations are blended together and sometimes they genuinely are places that you can visit as described! Therefore, the story sort of came with the location and it is a gift to have a setting that is quite so easy to write about and romanticise.
Ava is an author working on a book called The Grief Diary – what was it like to write about the writing process? Do you have any advice for writers including a metatextual element in their own work?
The metatextual element of the novel came much later in the process, and served at first as a plot device to get my main character back to the place that she needed to be. It then became much more of a backbone to the story and it was slightly heartening to think that me and my character were going through similar struggles when it came to things like writing block. I think going through the publishing process and talking to agents and publishers about books really helped influence Ava’s own writing narrative arc and therefore I strongly feel that writers should lean into their own experiences and bring in their real-world knowledge to strengthen their story. As someone who is also slightly addicted to Instagram, I really enjoyed bringing in the contemporary element to her life too and made her character more relatable, to help with this I followed women who had gone through similar experiences to Ava and it was incredibly profound learning about their own journeys as young widows and how they navigated building new relationships.
You’ve dubbed yourself an ‘unromantic-romantic’, what does it take in a romance novel to win you over and make you swoon – and how did you apply this to writing your debut?
My expectations of the Romance genre have definitely changed as I’ve grown into myself. Flowers and romantic gestures are wonderful but what really makes me swoon is a character that’s going to notice that your car needs filling up, or who makes a real effort with your friends, generally someone who is going to see when you’re at maximum capacity and stand in to take something off of your shoulders. There definitely is a pattern in my writing of characters who come to relationships as fully-formed people in their own rights, albeit a little broken, and therefore when they commit to each other they do so in a way that compliments their characters and doesn’t redefine them entirely. I think that is the part of Ava and Florian’s journey that I am the most proud of, that they have worked hard for their relationship and I can imagine it lasting for a very long time.
Who are some of your favourite romance authors?
Emily Henry, Sally Rooney, David Nicholls and Cecilia Ahern are the reason I write romance, for me they showed me an entirely different way of writing a romance novel and have done incredible things for the genre. It doesn’t feel like too long ago when romance was a bit of a snubbed genre that people were reluctant to read openly, but now I find it incredibly heartening to see people raving about their favourite romance novels all over social media and out in public. Recently I have been reading Paige Toon, Mike Gayle and Niamh Hargan.
You took our six-week online Write to the End of Your Novel course before applying to and accepting a place on our Writing Your Novel – Three Months course in 2020. How did your time studying with us impact your approach to writing?
Ultimately, it made me take writing seriously. I had completed a Creative Writing degree at University but it hadn’t really equipped me for the reality of how to get something published. CBC was the missing piece that helped me reach that next step. I didn’t actually get on to the three-month course on my first attempt, but received some seriously good feedback and it gave me the confidence to try again and that is really what it comes down to- resilience and persistence. It was a very safe space to try new things and the team were nothing but supportive when I was ready to start querying. I was very lucky to land my agent Emily Macdonald, very quickly after I finished the course, and CBC definitely helped educate me on the process. If anyone mentions that they want to write, I will always recommend CBC.
Many of our students find lifelong writing friends on our courses. Are you still in touch with anyone you met on our courses?
I am! I count myself incredibly lucky to have been on Write to the End of Your Novel with Jennie Godfrey. At the end of the course, we made a little group with another writer, Laina West and sent each other chapters of our WIPs to help us edit. Niamh Hargan was on my three-month course too and it has been so encouraging watching her publication journey unfold, it made it feel so much more achievable. It is generally just really wonderful how writers of different genres can still support each other and critique in ways that might not be immediately obvious. I am a better writer for sharing parts of my novels with all of them.
Finally, what’s next for your writing journey?
I am currently editing my second novel with Bedford Square, another stand-alone contemporary romance, but this time set in the Hampshire countryside which focuses on the UK wine scene! All being well, it will be published next Summer.
In the meantime, I am just going to make sure I enjoy the next few months of seeing After Ever After in the world and to take a moment to just appreciate it all.
Get your hands on a copy of After Ever After, out this week from Bedford Square.
Hannah was a student on our online Write to the End of Your Novel and Writing Your Novel – Three Months course in 2020.
The books linked in this blog can be found on our Bookshop.org shop front. Curtis Brown Creative receive 10% whenever someone buys from our bookshop.org page.