Bradford author Alexandra Potter on More Confessions of a Forty-Something sequel to hit book

The novel was about Nell Stevens, who after losing her business and fiancé, moves from California back to London. However, she finds that her old friends are married with children, the capital’s sky-high prices force her to rent a room in a stranger’s house and, in her 40s, believes her life is a mess.

But, she strikes up a friendship with Cricket, a widow in her 80s.

The new book picks up 18 months later, Alexandra tells The Yorkshire Post, with Nell, Cricket, Edward, and all her other friends friends going on “a whole new set of adventures”.

She says: "I loved it because they're kind of imaginary characters, but they're real to me. So it's like hanging out with your friends for another year.”

Readers clearly felt the same sense of familiarity. Why do they relate to these characters?

“I think it's because the main character, Nell, she's kind of everywoman. I get messages from readers in their 20s right up to people in their 70s. I got one recently from a from a lady who was widowed and she just said that she loved the book. She really related to Cricket, who's the older character, who's a widow.

"And then lots of people saying that it made them feel less alone, that they feel like they're trying to figure life out and that everyone seems to be succeeding, and they kind of still don't know what they're doing, and this book made them feel reassured that it's normal and that's what everybody feels like. There’s so much pressure now on social media to sort of have this perfect life and the book says that that's just not reality. Everybody's got these kind of messy, imperfect lives.”

Alexandra, 53, grew up in the Great Horton area of Bradford, attending the former Waverley Middle School and later a Thornton comprehensive before leaving for the University of Liverpool.

She now lives in London with her husband – though often visits her mother in the Yorkshire Dales – and has had 12 previous books published. It was not something that, as a younger woman, she saw coming.

“I used to think that people like me from the north of England, from a working class background who went to a regular comprehensive, I just didn't think that you could be a writer or do any of that stuff. I thought that sort of happened to other people. And I realised that it can happen to you, and you should just dream big. Believe in yourself, work hard, don't give up. There's a lot of slogging but there is no barrier, really - it would be an imaginary barrier.”

More Confessions… is published by Macmillan on Thursday.