What was the inspiration behind Christmas at the Village Sewing Shop?
I’ve always loved the idea of quilting and how it brings people together and so when I decided to write a Christmas book set in the village of Butterbury, it seemed a lovely way to tell the story and the tangled web of relationships within one family.
How do you decide the challenges that your different characters face? Which comes first the challenges or the characters?
The main challenge of family dynamics certainly came first for this book – I thought about all the ways siblings could fall out, the challenges of parenting and of marriage, and slowly I began to sketch out my character profiles until I had the bones of a story.
You are a very prolific writer, can you tell us a little about your writing journey?
I started writing in 2011 – up until then I’d only written non-fiction articles. Once I started down the fiction route I didn’t want to stop! I love creating different settings and characters and disappearing into entirely different worlds. I don’t know why I left it so long to start!
We loved returning to Butterbury, what advice do you have for aspiring writers about creating a community that can be revisited?
I think the best thing is to make sure you have lots of possibilities with your setting or community – that could be a range of shops or businesses, different families, friendships. But even if you didn’t set out to make the book one of many, I think you can always pluck out secondary characters and subplots and have fun with those for the next book.
Can you tell us a little about your next book?
My next book is another Christmas title – A Winter Wedding at Mistletoe Gate Farm. It’s out in December this year and is another book set in Heritage Cove which is a fictional village on the east coast of England. The main themes are friendship, family and of course romance.
When you are not writing what do you do to relax?
I love to walk and do yoga – and of course I read a lot as well. There are so many good books out there that I can’t quite keep up but a recent holiday saw me read three titles which was lovely. It’s great to disappear into other worlds and characters’ lives.
Thank you so much for taking part in this interview.