Interview with Isla Gordon – Author of A Winter in Wonderland and many more…

ISLA GORDON - AUTHOR

We loved A Winter in Wonderland, what was the inspiration behind it?  

Thank you! Hooray! I’d been brainstorming wintery book ideas and thought it would be fun to put somebody who is super un-festive in somewhere super festive. I did a little research and found that you can apply to do seasonal work in Lapland, one of the most Christmassy places on earth. From there, I just had to figure out how I’d convince my leading lady, Myla, to make the trip…  

One of the aspects of your writing that we love is the way that you create such a wonderful sense of place, as well as your atmospheric descriptions of Lapland in this book, we absolutely loved your descriptions of Bath in The Wedding Pact. What magic do you use to achieve this? 

That’s so kind of you – thank you! I like to try and picture a place in relation to all the senses, so that I’m not just describing what something looks like, but how the icy wind feels, or how salty the food tastes, or what the old building smells like or what sounds my characters can hear on a bustling street. I think that can help readers (and me!) feel really within the world I’m creating.  

Can you tell us a little about your next book? 

For my next Isla Gordon book, I’m working on a brand new, lovely wintery story, because I can’t get enough!

You write very successfully under different names, what advice do you have for aspiring writers about how to achieve this? Which name feels the real you? 

Have fun with it. Find happiness in experimenting. And if it works for you, don’t be afraid to let your styles bleed into each other. For me, I write openly under three names, and though each name has a slightly different style of book, I think my voice can be found throughout. This means readers who enjoy one of my books may go on to enjoy another under one of my other names, which is wonderful.And as for which feels the real me… that’s a great question, but I think I’d say they all do, depending on my mood. 

You have set your books in many different locations, do you have a dream location that you would love to feature in one of your books? 

ALL the locations! I’d love to set one in LA one day, and Hawaii. And snowy Canada. But I’d also quite like to set one, somewhere, in a different time period. I have a few ideas floating about. 

When you are not writing what do you like to do to relax? 

Gaze at my dog, soak in some good TV, or wander down to the beach near where I live to see the ever-changing colours of the sea and sky. And read or listen to lashings of lovely books, of course 🙂  

See our review of  A Winter in Wonderland here

Image credit of Isla – Phil Dickenson