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What was the last good book you read? |
Alan Furst’s ‘The World at Night’ – a brilliantly atmospheric story of loyalty and betrayal in occupied Paris.
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To what extent has your life experience influenced your writing? |
My childhood had a great influence, I believe. We lived in the depths of Hampshire. There were no neighbouring houses, and our cottage had, when we moved in, no mains water, gas, sewage or electricity. There was a Georgian mansion nearby, unoccupied at the time and used as a furniture depository (I think it’s since been turned into chi-chi flats), where we children used to go and play in the overgrown garden. The isolation and beauty of my childhood home certainly permeates my work.
I also had the difficult experience of discovering in my mid-teens that I had something wrong with my spine – it’s hard for a sixteen-year-old girl to be told she isn’t ‘normal’. I think that has given me sympathy for the characters in my books who always feel a little on the outside.
I have two brothers and a sister, and have brought up three sons – I think this qualifies me to write about family life!
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Did you know how A STEP IN THE DARK would end before you started writing it? |
Yes. I always need to know how a book ends before I start writing. I have to know the beginning (often one of the most difficult parts to write), some of the main events in the course of the book, and the end. I need to know the mood and feel of the book as well, and, for that, I think you need to know how it ends. I knew the end of A STEP IN THE DARK from very early on. When I reached the climax of the book – the confrontation between Bess and Adam in Ravenhart House – I felt quite emotional, having arrived at the end of a journey I had planned a long time before.
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What inspired your new novel A STEP IN THE DARK? |
Scotland, certainly – I am married to a Scot, so have visited the country often over the years. Ravenhart House itself was inspired by a hotel we stayed in in Perthshire, a marvellously brooding and atmospheric place set in spectacular countryside.
I also wanted to write a book that spanned three generations. I wanted to portray different stages in Bess’s life, and to show how life experiences and the passing of time altered her. I decided to write a novel that deals with maternal love - the love of a mother for her children is such a fierce, powerful thing. And I wanted to include a terrible moral dilemma in the novel - the choices Bess makes during the course of the book are always informed by her intense love for her son.
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What kind of audience do you think A STEP IN THE DARK aimed at? |
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Anyone who enjoys a good story! Lively women of any age who enjoy novels set in the recent past.
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