Steph McGovern - I had a stalker but he didn't frighten me, I'm from Middlesborough

TV presenter Steph McGovern has written a hard-hitting thriller which tackles themes including stalking, grooming, political corruption, terrorism and inequality. The former host of Steph's Packed Lunch, a top TV business reporter before that, used her two decades of interviewing powerful global figures - including US President Donald Trump - as inspiration for characters in her debut novel.

"A lot of it comes from my experiences of being a broadcaster - the power, corruption and lies that can happen," she says. Deadline, which is out now, sees fictional TV business reporter Rose Steedman live on air at a secure location interviewing one of Britain's most powerful men. With millions watching the broadcast, her earpiece is hacked and a voice says her child and her wife have been kidnapped, and she has to do everything the hijacker tells her in order to keep her family safe.

Steph, 43, says: "This book is all about the hijack but also about why the hijack has happened, who is doing it and what for - how is this going to end? It happens over the 20 minutes of live telly but it takes you back in time at various points to find out things about the characters involved."

One of the themes hit close to home for Steph, who is from Middlesbrough and now lives in Tynemouth. The 43-year-old former BBC journalist says: "Obviously Deadline is fiction but it is inspired and driven by things I have seen in my career. I had a stalker, so the stalker in the book is very much the stalker I had, just with a different name and different ending in terms of what happens. With my stalker, he used to turn up to places where I was filming and he was convinced we were in a relationship. He wrote to my dad, and the BBC security team had to get involved to warn him off."

Steph, who has a daughter, five, with her partner, adds: "My stalker was about 12 years ago. I don't know what it is about me but stuff like that doesn't frighten me.

"I grew up in Middlesbrough where I saw tough stuff, so some old man who thought I was his girlfriend didn't really frighten me. The only time it got to me was when he contacted my parents. Then I panicked because I thought my dad would getreally worried by this, because he had written to my dad.

"I did not feel scared by him. He got angry at being told by the BBC that he should not be turning up in places but he did not ever get angry with me. Maybe I'll think differently about it when I'm older and go 'Oh god, that was scary' but at the time it felt like these types of things just go with the job."

Steph decided to use this drama in her propulsive thriller because when she told her colleagues at the BBC, where she was working on the Breakfast programme, no one batted an eyelid. She says: "Part of the reason I wrote that was when I said I had a stalker at work, everyone was like, 'Oh, have you got one as well?'. It was like, everyone gets one at some point, so I wanted to write about that too.

"When we see stories about presenters being stalked we think 'Oh my God'but it happens more often than you think. It just does not often make the headlines.

"My story was not in the press at the time. Part of this book is to break the 'fourth wall' and show people what goes on in telly, what life is like, and the highs and thelows of it. The job of the news is to tell you stuff before you know it, and get some type of insight that an ordinary member of thepublic would not know, so I think it is about that access.

"People are fascinated by the access you have as a journalist. I go to Downing Street, and to high-level interviews with people like Donald Trump, so I think people are fascinated by this and how it all works."

TV business reporter Rose Steedman is about to interview one of the most powerful men in the world when her earpiece feed is hacked and a voice tells her they have kidnapped her family.

And in order to protect them she must do exactly as they say, as "they are in control now". Faced with this nightmare scenario Rose knows she must follow their instructions while her producers and the police scramble to work out how the broadcast has been hijacked and why.

The debut novel from the former host of Steph's Packed Lunch provides a fascinating peek behind the scenes of TV news broadcasts, combined with a thought-provoking and timely thriller that is a real page-turner. 7/10

JON COATES

Steph, who hosts The Rest Is Money podcast with ITV News political editor Robert Peston and has been a panellist and host of Have I Got News For You, decided to use Rose's earpiece being hacked in her book as this is what she is often asked about.

Adds Steph: "The question I get asked the most is how do you do interviews on the telly when someone is talking in your ear? People are fascinated by how that works."

With a highly inquisitive mind she admits to loving "what if?" questions and would ask her producer, cameraman and engineers on BBC Breakfast what they would do if her earpiece was hijacked and she was given instructions similar to that inher book.

And she was gripped by their different responses, with some saying they would be by her side and others saying, 'Sorry, I would get in my car and get away'. Steph says: "Everyone had a different reaction to it based on what was going on in their lives and that is what I found fascinating."

Her time on BBC Breakfast, where its stars such as Naga Munchetty, Charlie Stayt and weather presenter Carol Kirkwood are part of people's morning routines, taught her to develop a thick skin, which clearly helped when she had the stalker and now is vital when dealing with online trolling. She reveals: "I am trolled every day on social media. Whatever you put out, someone will be annoyed by what you have said or what you look like.

"My philosophy is just not to look at the good or the bad stuff. If someone is having a go at what I have said because I have got something factually wrong that is different.

"But anyone who has a gripe about what you are wearing or the way you have said something, I don't listen to them any more. I definitely did earlier in my career, because it was all new then." Steph came up with the idea for Deadline about 15 years ago but spent years suffering from "imposter syndrome" before finally penning it during the pandemic.

She did her first book event last week at The Exchange in Tynemouth, with Vera and Shetland creator Ann Cleeves interviewing her about it. The duo are doing another similar event at The Old Fire Station in Carlisle Monday from 7.30pm. Steph admits she is "nervous but excited" for people to finally read her thriller and is looking forward to chatting to readers at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, which takes place in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, from July 17-20.

She will be a special guest at the popular literary event held annually at the Old Swan Hotel, for which the Daily and Sunday Express is the media partner for its Crime Novel of the Year award.

And she will be interviewed on stage about her debut by bestselling Scottish crime author Val McDermid on Sunday, July 20, at noon. Steph says: "I can't wait for Harrogate, it is the highlight of my social calendar. I love the fact that there is this melting pot of readers and authors of all levels - like global bestsellers and people who have self-published are all together just very casually chatting and having drinks together.

"It will be different going back with my book out. I feel nervous but also excited, and by that point a few more people will have read it. I am excited to talk to them about the characters in it.

She is now writing the next instalment of her series, with Rose acting as a narrator as a group of friends prepare to board a plane and one of them goes to the toilet and does not come back.

Steph says: "So in the first book the hijack was the set-up for the story. In this one, the person not getting on the planeis the set-up for the whole story thatwill unfold."

Talks are taking place about adapting Deadline into a TV drama, which Steph hopes she can be involved with. And she jokes: "Hopefully, Netflix are reading this! I would love to be a part of this but they might decide early on that I don't have the skills for it. I like to do a million things - I am one of those people who has always got something on the go."

• Deadline by Steph McGovern is published by Macmillan (hardback £20) and is out now. Steph will be appearing at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival next week. Visit harrogateinternationalfestivals.com for tickets and information