Steph McGovern reveals hopes for TV adaptation of book - with very famous Teessider in lead role

McGovern released her debut novel, Deadline, in July of this year to rave reviews. It follows a broadcast journalist, Rose, who has her earpiece hijacked by someone who is kidnapping her child. She then finds herself at the mercy of this figure as she tries to work out what's going on, and how she can stop anything truly terrible from happening.

It's nail-biting stuff, and deeply-rooted in the world McGovern knows all too well. But it was also some words of encouragement from one very famous writer that got her over the finish line.

"I knew I had this hook of a TV reporter being hijacked on air, but I didn't know why or who did it. Ann Cleeves gave me the confidence to let the characters tell me; that gave me confidence in writing because I didn't have everything set in my head and I thought you would probably have to be like that, so it was really liberating," McGovern explained.

"I'm a massive crime reader, so I'm always thinking about the 'what if?'. So for me, my ordinary situation would be, at that point, being live on telly– the extraordinary thing would be it being hijacked."

McGovern has now moved on to writing her second novel – and seems to be enjoying the process a lot. While she's leaving the TV set behind her for the follow-up, Rose, the lead character is coming with her. With a recurring character in the bag, the obvious next step is a TV adaptation, which McGovern is hopeful for.

"I'm literally bugging my agent every day if we can get it on telly! I do understand the process is slow so it's not going to happen imminently, but I really hope it does because it's set in the TV world. It lends itself to being adapted for telly," she gleefully recounted.]

She also admitted she's allowed her mind to stray to who would play Rose: fellow Teessider, Faye Marsay, who also read the audiobook version of Deadline.

"Importantly for me, she's not just a brilliant actress, but she's from my part of the country, she's literally from Middlesbrough. I grew up here and she's got the perfect nuance of the voice – and she's a brilliant actress. She does the voice of the book so well, because she says things exactly how we would say. That was really important to me."

On My Bookshelf: Steph McGovern

The book that made me fall in love with reading as an adult was Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I just love that book because it took me to another world I knew nothing about. I hated history at school, if I'm honest, and I remember reading that book and thinking, 'I wish my history lessons had been like this'.

The book I recommend to everyone is The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I could literally sit here and list loads of books because it also depends on what day you ask me! I'm big in Seven Husbands but if you ask me in the next few weeks, I've probably moved on.

My next read is 59 Minutes by Holly Seddon which is really fun. It's about a group of different people being told they've got 59 minutes until a nuclear missile is going to hit. I started reading it the day we got all those alerts on our phones a couple of weeks ago, and that's sort of what happens to these characters.

My six-star book is In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan which is her debut thriller. She's lived and breathed AI snd this is a book which has a lot of what she knows and has experienced in it, but it's really fascinating on where AI is going to take us. As a business journalist, that really plays into things I'm interested in.

The book I wish I'd written is Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh – but I've got loads though!

Steph McGovern is in conversation with Mark Billingham at Cheltenham Literature Festival on Wednesday 15th October at 8pm. You can get tickets here.

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