We absolutely love Celebrations at the Chateau, what was your inspiration behind the book?
I fell in love with the Channel 4 programme Escape to the Chateau with Dick and Angel, followed by Chateau DIY with other British people buying chateaux and making them their homes and businesses. I just loved the bravery involved, the ‘give it a go’ attitude and when the going got tough, their ‘dig deep’ attitude. I would love to do this, I just know I’d never get any books written if I did! So I decided to write about it instead!
You always seem to create the most wonderfully realistic settings in your books, how important is the research for you?
Research is very important. But it’s a fine line between not getting lost in the research and using just enough for the story. I’m creating my own worlds here, not replicating existing ones. I tend to start each book by deciding on the food of an area and the country it’s in. I think once you discover the food of an area, you are introduced to the community, the history, the culture, all woven into the walls of the place. It’s like deciding what I’m going to cook for dinner, choosing the main ingredient and then digging deeper, working out what to put with it and putting my own twist on the recipe.
Your characters always have a warmth and a depth, how do you develop their personalities?
Hmmm. None of my characters are perfect. There’s a lot of me in them! Well intentioned but not always getting it right! I like to think about where they are now and what obstacles they’ve had to overcome to get there. Everyone has some sort of obstacles in life. It makes us who we are. In this book, Fliss has learnt to live with her dyslexia. It’s made her who she is and the skills she has developed over the years.
Delicious food often features in your books and posts, what is your favourite celebratory meal?
Christmas dinner! I love cooking Christmas dinner. I love the smell of the stock simmering and the roasting turkey as it fills the house during the course of the morning. I also love birthdays. I love having friends and family together, so in November I always cook a big pot of chilli con carne for my daughter’s birthday and my son always has a bbq in the summer for his.
What advice do you have for aspiring writers about how to create a sense of place that you always achieve in your beautifully atmospheric writing?
Ask yourself what you can see right now, what can you smell? Can you taste anything, or hear something, touch something? But most importantly for me, how does it make you feel?
When you are not writing, what do you like to do to relax?
I cook! I’m a simple cook and I love cooking up big pasta dishes to feed the family, pizzas or roast dinners. And I love walking my dogs on the beach, it’s good for the mind, body and soul. It’s just fantastic thinking time.