Amanda Geard's Blog
September 2, 2025
A reader letter for THE GLASS KEY
I'm so excited about THE GLASS KEY landing in May 2026 and I wanted to share with you a reader letter that explains why this book means so much to me.
Dear Reader,
The inspiration for The Glass Key came during the royal wedding, April 2011.
As Kate and Wills walked down the aisle, my soon-to-be husband and I walked onto an isle, a 52-acre Norwegian one, one hundred kilometres north of the Arctic Circle.
It was for sale.
It was love at first sight.
We were 29.
The island was in an archipelago called Fleinvær and we arrived on Good Friday. The locals invited us to their traditional Easter egg hunt and that night shimmering northern lights touched the sea. As a salmon dawn broke, we knew we were in trouble. We put a deposit on the island – which cost a fraction of the price of a bedsit in London. Its cabin was simple – no running water, no electricity. A twenty-five square metre box on the edge of the wild Atlantic.
We bought a small boat. Grew potatoes. Brewed yarrow beer. When autumn came, we picked buckets of cloudberries. From a fisherman, we learned to lay halibut lines, where to find uer (red fish), when to dry cod. It amazed us how island life connected seamlessly with previous generations – fishing, gathering eider down, preparing for winter. Saving everything ‘just in case’. On our island, with its lack of creature comforts, I had stepped back in time.
It might have been 1940 … and many of the stories I heard hailed from then – a wartime theatre underrepresented in English language fiction. How islanders had tucked away their radios, hidden their flags, watched bombs rain on the coastal city of Bodø.
I became obsessed with that time, just as I had become obsessed with living on an island. Here in my third book, The Glass Key, a fictional version of the archipelago comes to life. It’s home to four young women, each strong in their own way. There’s no electricity, no water. They lay halibut lines, fish for uer, dry cod. Brew yarrow beer, collect cloudberries. And in 1940, as war grips their world, they rescue a castaway who alters their lives forever.
They also tell stories, as the islanders do today. A mix of Nordic folklore and fairy tales. I came up with the concept of a key made of glass … which opens a locked box containing a truth. The key may only be used once, then it shatters, so that the truth may never be locked away again. This theme runs through the novel as Maggie Murphy travels from Ireland to Norway in 2005 to unravel her family’s mysterious past.
We sold the island in 2018 when we moved to Ireland for work. My heart still aches when I think of it. A few years later, we bought another Norwegian cabin, a run-down century-old farmhouse north of the islands. It needs work. We spend two months there every year, waking up at whatever temperature it is outside. I wrote much of The Glass Key wrapped in a blanket overlooking the fjord. Thinking of our island. Missing it terribly. A piece of my heart is still there. Will always be there. Because you can leave an island, but I don’t believe an island can ever leave you.
Amanda x
PS you can pre-order The Glass Key here (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FG8499XC) and I would be so grateful I you added to the book to your Goodreads shelves (The Glass Key: The magnificent, epic novel of love, war and a secret frozen in time from the bestselling author), it really helps with visibility and tells me that you're excited too!
Dear Reader,
The inspiration for The Glass Key came during the royal wedding, April 2011.
As Kate and Wills walked down the aisle, my soon-to-be husband and I walked onto an isle, a 52-acre Norwegian one, one hundred kilometres north of the Arctic Circle.
It was for sale.
It was love at first sight.
We were 29.
The island was in an archipelago called Fleinvær and we arrived on Good Friday. The locals invited us to their traditional Easter egg hunt and that night shimmering northern lights touched the sea. As a salmon dawn broke, we knew we were in trouble. We put a deposit on the island – which cost a fraction of the price of a bedsit in London. Its cabin was simple – no running water, no electricity. A twenty-five square metre box on the edge of the wild Atlantic.
We bought a small boat. Grew potatoes. Brewed yarrow beer. When autumn came, we picked buckets of cloudberries. From a fisherman, we learned to lay halibut lines, where to find uer (red fish), when to dry cod. It amazed us how island life connected seamlessly with previous generations – fishing, gathering eider down, preparing for winter. Saving everything ‘just in case’. On our island, with its lack of creature comforts, I had stepped back in time.
It might have been 1940 … and many of the stories I heard hailed from then – a wartime theatre underrepresented in English language fiction. How islanders had tucked away their radios, hidden their flags, watched bombs rain on the coastal city of Bodø.
I became obsessed with that time, just as I had become obsessed with living on an island. Here in my third book, The Glass Key, a fictional version of the archipelago comes to life. It’s home to four young women, each strong in their own way. There’s no electricity, no water. They lay halibut lines, fish for uer, dry cod. Brew yarrow beer, collect cloudberries. And in 1940, as war grips their world, they rescue a castaway who alters their lives forever.
They also tell stories, as the islanders do today. A mix of Nordic folklore and fairy tales. I came up with the concept of a key made of glass … which opens a locked box containing a truth. The key may only be used once, then it shatters, so that the truth may never be locked away again. This theme runs through the novel as Maggie Murphy travels from Ireland to Norway in 2005 to unravel her family’s mysterious past.
We sold the island in 2018 when we moved to Ireland for work. My heart still aches when I think of it. A few years later, we bought another Norwegian cabin, a run-down century-old farmhouse north of the islands. It needs work. We spend two months there every year, waking up at whatever temperature it is outside. I wrote much of The Glass Key wrapped in a blanket overlooking the fjord. Thinking of our island. Missing it terribly. A piece of my heart is still there. Will always be there. Because you can leave an island, but I don’t believe an island can ever leave you.
Amanda x
PS you can pre-order The Glass Key here (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FG8499XC) and I would be so grateful I you added to the book to your Goodreads shelves (The Glass Key: The magnificent, epic novel of love, war and a secret frozen in time from the bestselling author), it really helps with visibility and tells me that you're excited too!
August 21, 2024
Loving my fellow authors
One of the great perks of being an author is getting the chance to read fellow authors' work ... early and voraciously. I'm lucky to be sent early copies of novels written in my genre, by the publishers of the likes of Kate Morton, Lucinda Riley, Jenny Ashcroft, Rachel Hore, Eve Chase, Jacquie Bloeseand Diane Setterfield. These writers bring the past to life, and many weave history with a contemporary thread. We all write about the present, by looking back at the past. That is way I see it. That is the way I read it.
I'll share some of my cover quotes over the next few weeks as I start to deep dive a little more into Goodreads. It's always a huge thrill to see them there, especially on the books of some of my favourite authors.
And don't forget to pop over to Jenny's profile to read about Secrets of the Watch House (my review is there!) and all her of her beautiful backlist.
Find Jenny's profile here.
