Rachel Joyce, best-selling novelist. It will be her first visit to Guernsey.

Rachel Joyce, the best-selling novelist who is one of the Guernsey Literary Festival’s speakers this year,  was a respected writer before her big publishing break in 2012. She had already written plays for BBC Radio Four, and jointly won the 2007 Tinniswood Award for her To Be a Pilgrim.

But the publication in 2012 of her first novel, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, changed everything. The novel sold really well, it was a long-list finalist (top 12) for the 2012 Man Booker Prize,  shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book prize, and she won the UK National Book Award for New Writer of the Year for the book. It was the best-selling hardback book in the UK from a new novelist in 2012.

Rachel admits that she was very surprised but she kept her feet firmly on the ground.

Getting a publishing deal was the big thing I had been hoping for,’ she says. ‘It made life quite busy for a while, but I am wary of that kind of success. It seems to me that what goes up most also come down.

The book is about Harold Fry, who nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs. He has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else's life.

That ‘someone else’ is Queenie, a former colleague who is suffering from cancer in a hospice. As he begins the 627-mile walk, he reflects about his marriage, his former employment as a brewery representative, about his son David, from whom he is almost completely estranged. From stopping places he sends postcards, to his wife Maureen, to Queenie, and to the unnamed girl at the filling station who gave him inspiration for his journey.

It’s a great idea which appealed greatly to readers and Rachel is hoping that her new novel, around which her talk in Guernsey will be based, will appeal in the same way. The book is called The Music Shop.

‘Years ago, we found a shop just like the one in the book where the owner seemed to have a knack for finding the music people needed. He took my husband on a journey through classical music. Then, overnight, the shop went. It was like losing something by stealth.’

The memory prompted the creation of the character Frank, who in 1988 owns a music shop. It is jam-packed with records of every speed, size and genre. Classical, jazz, punk – as long as it’s vinyl he sells it. Day after day Frank finds his customers the music they need.

Then into his life walks the mysterious Ilse Brauchmann, who wants Frank to teach her about music. His instinct is to turn and run. And yet he is drawn to her.

As well as these two novels, Rachel Joyce has written Perfect, and The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessey, and a collection of interlinked short stories, A Snow Garden & Other Stories. Her work has been translated into thirty-six languages.

She was also written more than 20 original afternoon plays and adaptations of the classics for BBC Radio 4, including all the Bronte novels. She moved to writing after a long career as an actor, performing leading roles for the RSC, the National Theatre and Cheek by Jowl.

Her wide range of writing is right for her. ‘I enjoy all of them,’ she says. ‘It depends what kind of story it is. I am lucky in that I am allowed to switch between them. Sometimes a story feels it needs a small space in which to make the most noise; other times it feels as if it has a lot of strands that need exploring.’

What is she reading at the moment?

‘I am reading The Secret River by Kate Grenville because it’s my daughter’s GCSE text. (I loved The Art of Perfection.) This is such a powerful book about identity and belonging.’

Rachel Joyce’s talk, The Music Shop, is in the Festival Hub in Market Street on Saturday 12 May at 11.30 am.