I’m middle-aged, married and a mother, and very happy to be all three! I live in a small village in Lancashire with my family and our cat, surrounded by bleak moors on one side and rolling fields on the other.
I wrote for many years as a hobby, but I did it in secret and when I finished a book I simply saved it to a floppy disc (that dates me!) and started another, without making any effort to be published. Turning forty made me reassess what I was doing. I had a strong sense of ‘now or never’, and I realised that while I was telling my daughter that she could achieve anything she wanted if she tried, I wasn’t setting a good example.
I began by submitting my writing to competitions, and encouraged by some success, joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers’ Scheme. It was at an RNA conference that I met an editor from Accent Press, who subsequently offered me a publishing contract.
If you had to give an elevator pitch for The Truth about You, Me and Us, what would it be?
It’s the story of Helen, who walks away from a perfect life and reinvents herself. When the past collides with her new life, will she choose the easy option again – and was it really as perfect as it seemed?
What inspired you to write about someone walking away and starting life over again?
The original book wasn’t about that at all!
I started writing this story about thirteen years ago, with a clear plot and ending in mind. However, after three or four chapters I knew it wasn’t going to work. The characters I was writing about wouldn’t fit into the neat scenario I’d devised for them, however much I tried to manipulate them.
I abandoned the book for several years and wrote other things, but I hate giving up so eventually looked at this one again. With more experience of writing by this point, the solution was obvious. My characters had to come first, and so the plot changed to suit them.
I can’t say much more without spoilers!
Describe Helen in three words.
Talented, selfish, reformed.
What message would you like readers to take from reading The Truth about You, Me and Us?
I can’t claim there’s any great moral behind the story, but I hope readers will enjoy the book and believe that it’s possible to turn your life around if the motivation is strong enough.
