Can you tell us a little bit about Early Daze?
Early Daze is the story of Jess, whose life suddenly changes when her baby arrives three months early. Jess has had an easy and relatively sheltered life and this hard experience - plus the different perspectives of the other parents she meets - makes her question her values. She even starts to wonder if her fiancé is really the man for her after all, especially after she meets neonatal's resident single dad.
Where did the inspiration come from to write about a premature birth and set it in a neo-natal unit?
My daughter was born prematurely, two days before the end of my second trimester. So Early Daze came about partly because I understood what it was like, which made it an obvious topic to write about, and partly because I wanted to do my bit to raise awareness.
Before you have children, you tend to assume that it'll be easy - you'll get pregnant when you want to and give birth to a healthy baby nine months later - but it often doesn't happen like that. Suddenly you're in a situation that probably only got a paragraph or two in your pregnancy manual. Early Daze takes you through the mixed-up early weeks when your baby is in hospital and you're in limbo. I hope it will help women who go on to have a premature baby, or have it happen to someone close to them. One reviewer who'd been through a similar experience said it had really validated what she felt at the time and left her feeling good, and I can't ask more than that.
10% of my royalties from Early Daze go to Bliss, a charity for premature and ill babies.
