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9th December 2025
03:34pm GMT
Andrea Mara has long been one of Ireland’s most loved writers, a fact further proven at this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards when she won Crime Fiction Book of the Year for her novel It Should Have Been You.
2025 has been one remarkable year for the author, with Andrea’s novel All Her Fault hitting the small screen in a hit thriller series starring Sarah Snook and Dakota Fanning.
The show was recently nominated for a Golden Globe, securing 2025 as one of the best for Irish author Andrea Mara.
All Her Fault is a thriller about a playdate that goes terribly wrong, and one that'll leave every parent shaken to their core.
In an interview with our sister site Lovin Dublin, the author opened up about what inspired her best-selling novel, All Her Fault.
Andrea shared, “My inspiration for All Her Fault is actually from something that happened in real life. I was collecting my daughter from a playdate when she was about five years old.
“I turned up at the house and rang the bell, but there was no answer.”
“I peered in the glass panels at the side and realised not just that it was an empty house but a completely unoccupied house with no furniture.”
Luckily, a neighbour appeared next door and told Andrea that the family had just relocated and were no longer living at the property.
“And then someone put their head out of the window of the house next door and said, "Oh, no one lives in that house. So, I had a complete heart attack and thought, "Oh my God, they have kidnapped my child."
“ In reality, why would people who already have a five-year-old kidnap another five-year-old? All it was was that they had moved house, and I had their old address and not their new address.”
The mum’s horrifying experience was the big inspiration behind her bestseller, and the story that has landed on TV screens around the world.
Mara says All Her Fault became a series down to a lot of luck.
“When the book came out in 2021, I was really, really lucky. It was the Sunday Times Crime Thriller of the Month, which I didn't even understand at the time, what a big deal that was. But unbeknownst to me, Nigel Marchant of Carnival Productions, who made Downton Abbey, happened to be reading the Sunday Times one morning in August 2021. He saw the review of the book and thought it sounded like a good premise for a TV show.”
“He went out and bought the book, and I got an email from my TV agent about two months later to say that Carnival were interested in optioning it. It's kind of scary sometimes how much of these things comes down to luck.”
All Her Fault is an adaptation of Andrea Mara’s 2021 novel of the same name. Starring Succession star Sara Snook, this new nail-biting thriller is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.
It is available to stream on NOW TV.
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