Uplifting debut novel explores what makes an ordinary life extraordinary

“I can still remember watching that TV programme and being fascinated by it,” says Ryan. “It made me think about the fact that even an average life is a pretty amazing thing and even as a child I thought it was a great idea for a book but I never thought I could actually write one. The idea stuck with me though and it was always bubbling away in the back of mind. I wanted to write something that ordinary people could relate to and to highlight that life isn’t about being amazing all the time, living well and authentically in the day to day is what really matters.”

Until recently Ryan, who lives in Silsden, was a history teacher at Titus Salt School where she taught for 12 years. Now she is writing full-time, while also looking after her three young children. She began working on the novel during the first lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 when she was pregnant with her third child. “I gave myself permission to sit down and start writing – and once I started, I couldn’t stop, it just came pouring out,” she says. “I wrote like a woman possessed and I finished the first draft in about six weeks. I had been sitting on the idea for so long, I just felt so relieved to have finally written it – even if it hadn’t gone anywhere, that would have been fine.”

It did go somewhere though – Ryan got herself an agent and together they spent a year editing it (“I had a baby in the middle of that which slowed things down a bit,” says Ryan); then the manuscript was sent out to ten editors, three offers came back very quickly, an auction was held and Ryan eventually got a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster. Pretty good going for a first-time novelist. “I was such a novice I had no idea how unusual that was,” says Ryan.

Her protagonist in the novel is 28-year-old history teacher Emily who lives in Huddersfield. She is a thoroughly engaging character – a Northern lass with a nice line in dry humour, she is quirky, kind-hearted and prone to occasionally putting her foot in it. She too watches a TV documentary, similar to the one Ryan saw as a child, and realises that she is absolutely average in every way – height, hair colour, profession, even the cereal she eats for breakfast. Her motivation for trying to live a more extraordinary, less average, life is in memory of her twin sister Claire who died of cancer when she was eight years old.

Emily has always felt that had Claire lived to adulthood, she would definitely have been doing extraordinary things. In the book Ryan deals sensitively with grief, the different ways in which it manifests itself and how especially complex it might be with the loss of a twin.

“I wanted someone who was very average but who was also a really remarkable person – and I didn’t want her desire to be extraordinary to be simply a vanity project because that wouldn’t have made her very likeable, so I knew I had to give her another reason for doing it that stopped her from being selfish.”

Part of Emily’s ‘averageness’ also means that she will probably meet and marry her soulmate by the time she is 31, so she decides that any prospect of romance must be avoided at all costs. It is all a bit inconvenient then that a lovely young man called Josh comes along. “I wanted to write about love really and Emily finding love,” says Ryan. “And I think the flipside to love is always going to be grief. At the time I was writing the book, we were in the middle of the pandemic and surrounded by grief – it was hard to keep positive and optimistic. There wasn’t much light on the horizon and I wanted to find a counterbalance to that. I think that’s partly why the book got picked up because people were looking for uplifting stories.”

It certainly is an uplifting read – funny, romantic, moving – and an extremely impressive debut. The good news is that Ryan is already working on her second book which is due for publication in 2024 – she is certainly a writer to watch.

My (extra)ordinary Life is out now. Rebecca Ryan will be signing copies of her book at Huddersfield Waterstones on January 14, 12noon-2pm.