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On Revisiting THE LOVE CHILD
Revising a backlist novel for republication is an interesting and often unsettling exercise. The story holds true – a good story always does – but you encounter a greener version of your writing self…
How the Harrisons Began
I started work on ‘Relative Love’ in 2002, with little notion of what I wanted to achieve other than a story told from the multiple viewpoints of a single family. It would take place over the course…
Before I Knew You...
‘Before I Knew You’ was originally published by Penguin (Michael Joseph) in 2011. The idea for the book began with the appealing notion of its structure – two families swapping houses across the…
THE WRONG MAN
THE WRONG MAN ‘The Wrong Man’ is a revised version of a novel called ‘Walls of Glass’, which I wrote thirty years ago. It tells the story of a mother of two small children who dares to own up to the…
On writing The Godmother
I wrote ‘The Godmother’ over twenty-five years ago, back in distant pre-digital days when people used fax machines instead of sending emails, and ‘mobile’ phones were cumbersome office gadgets used by…
ON RE-EDITING MY FIRST NOVEL
I started to write ‘Alice Alone’ when I was twenty-five and working as a freelance journalist in Buenos Aires. It felt daring – and exposing! – to be trying my hand at fiction, so I deliberately…
ONLINE DATING: Finding True Love
It was lockdown that gave me the final shove. After a decade of sputtering, post-divorce romantic adventures, suddenly all I had for company was my Golden Doodle, Mabel. Wonderful, loving company, but…
Words, words, words...
I love words. Of course, I love words! Thirty-five years of writing books would have been impossible if I didn’t. Playing with language, thrashing around for exactly the nuance of meaning I am trying…
AN UNEXPECTED CHRISTMAS GIFT
It all began so well. I’d been invited to spend two days over Christmas with my brother and his young family in their gorgeous Sussex home. I zoomed out of London on a blue, crisp Christmas Eve, the…
My Corona Novel
To be honest - fear of death, loss and suffering aside - I felt quite lucky to be a writer when the lock-down hit. First off, my 'products' - books! - were safe. Indeed, reading, that old-fashioned…
Writing 'Good Girls'
The best thing about writing novels is that the starting point for a story is invariably many miles away from where it ends up taking you. In the case of ‘Good Girls’ my initial intention was to…
Keeping Up-to-Date
I love my desktop computer. (I am typing at it now, so very happily, click click click). It has facilitated the birth of three novels and a memoir. It has a wide screen and a sleek shiny look as good…
BOOK LAUNCH
On November 1st my new book, For the Love of a Dog, will be officially launched into the world. I shall have a party, open some fizz, say a few words. Milestones must me marked or they slip through…
Memoirs vs Fiction
I never thought I would be one of those novelists who wrote a memoir. Here are some of the reasons why: Making up stuff is much more freeing and fun Fiction is satisfyingly infused with the private…
My Sixteenth Novel
I had hoped that by now, Spring 2017, I would be posting a blog about the launch of my latest novel, 'Good Girls'. It has been finished for many months. Indeed, I am already well into that enjoyable…
Getting A Dog
Once upon a time, a million years ago, in answer to the question 'What do you want to be when you grow up', I would always reply - without hesitation, and certainly no trace of irony - "a kennel maid…
Human Endeavour
So. We are in the thick of the Olympics, and no, I didn't think I would get sucked in, because how could I ever care as much as I did four years ago, and besides, I am having a busy summer - places…
Ernest Hemingway: Genius has its drawbacks
What does it take to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for heaven's sake. I mean, to WIN THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE!!!!! It makes the Man Booker, or the Orange, or the Costa Award - or indeed…
The New Year
"Time" is a man-made construct. As far back as the Neolithic period apparently, our ancestors were looking at the moon and devising 'calendars' to mark the phases of the periods they were living…
Why I Write
As many people know by now, I have finished my novel. My 16th. It is called 'The Distance Between Us' and has taken THREE YEARS to write, FOUR if you count the year before that when I was 'charging…
Milestones Matter
My son is leaving home. Cue a chorus of jeers and "about-time-toos". Forgive me if I don't join in. They take their time to go, this lot, not like us oldsters, who packed our bags for a first job or…
Writing vs Living
My mother died last week. She was eighty one, and had had an amazing life, and was getting frail, so it was a blessedly sudden and speedy release for her, but a terrible shock for the rest of us…
Endings etc
A good ending is the hardest thing for a writer to pull off. Readers can be swept along by fabulous narratives, full of twist and turn, but it is the final chapter - the lingering taste in the mouth…
Creative Frictions
We all need something to push against. It takes a few decades to realise this. Growing up, our lives are structured by authority: 'Time to go to bed!' 'Time to wake up!' 'Time to get dressed!' 'Time…
The Value of Words
My novel A Family Man, which took a year to write, is currently available to purchase for 99p. This is thanks to an Amazon Summer Promotion and I couldn't be more pleased. Last month, due to…
Everyone has a novel in them... on't they?
Yes, of course Everyone 'has a novel in them'. Because the lives of each and every one of us are 'stories' - narrative blends of the ordinary and the extraordinary, with happy bits and sad bits, and…
Choosing Books
My current "house-mate" (aka: Job-hunting Graduate Son) recently remarked that I always 'rave' about whatever book I happen to be reading. He did not intend the observation as a complimen... t was…
Machine Love
I have fallen in love. With a car. This is not something I would have expected of myself, not just because I am an unabashed, problematical, die-hard Romantic, in the most conventional 'human' sense…
December Digital LAUNCH News!
December 6th: Digital Publication Day for my novels 'Relative Love' and 'A Family Man': I can dimly - very dimly - remember when I thought 'digital publishing' wasn't going to be something that would…
Halloween Confession
I am not a fan of Halloween. Sorry. But there it is. To be specific, what I am really not a fan of is the dubious tradition of 'Trick or Treating'. I first came across it while living in America in…
September & Dickens
My summer reading bonanza produced two stand-out favourites: Elizabeth Strout's The Burgess Boys and Colum McCann's Transatlantic. (I am glancing at them now, sitting in the books-I-have-loved bit of…
If you are struggling in the July heat
I make a point never to complain about hot weather in the UK. EVER. For those who may be struggling to stay positive, here are 10 of my reasons why the heatwave is a Wonderful Thing: The faint but…
The Fox Cub
I first spotted the cub about a month ago. I know, I know, urban foxes are disease-carrying vermin (and they terrorize my cats), but it looked irresistibly dear, curled up into a glossy ball in the…
One Great (Virtual) Leap Forward
I have decided that the British seasons are like one of those fairground Big Dipper rides... antalisingly sluggish to the top of a steep climb (that's winter), then whizzing down the slope on the…
It's not so bad!
It is hard not to be gloomy at the moment, don't you find? For Brits it is always hard, but what with the "triple-dip recession" imminent (does that mean the double-dip is finished....???!!), dumps…
Love Matters
Every so often (not just on Valentines Day) I am struck, all over again, by the astonishing reach and drive of human love. The Technological Revolution, Wars, Famines, Rockets On The Moon and Melting…
THE LOVE CHILD
Today sees the publication of my new novel, The Love Child. It makes me happy to write that, happier still to see my labours bound so beautifully and available for public consumption. But there are…
December Deliberations
Each December I resolve to stay healthy and relaxed in the run-up to Christmas. It is just a case - I tell myself - of maintaining the right attitude, keeping perspective, not letting the festive…
Author talks
Having a new book to promote means leaving one's desk to go to places and talk to people. Writing stories is not enough. These days authors have to help 'sell' them. Part of me wants to complain…
October Post
I am an 'old-fashioned' author, not anti-technology (I love my Sony Vaio... it has a BIG screen!), but in the sense of being deeply committed both to books as objects for treasuring and to the tactile…
September Blues
Part of me is still on my Greek Island. It rained for five minutes in seven days. My skin is full of sun, my brain rested and still refusing to come to heel. I read four stunning books: 'Don't Let…
August 3rd - Olympic Note
I am not an attention-seeker. (Cue scoffs from people who think they know me well. To which I reply, I am someone who loves attention while often being too shy to seek it out, which is quite a…
Summer Newsletter 2012
At the moment I am something of an expert on Roman Britain. It is a bulge of unlikely knowledge, acquired thanks to a week spent walking Hadrian's Wall (the middle stretch of 40 miles or so, between…
Spring Newsletter 2012
It is March and I am sunburnt. This is not from a skiing holiday or a Caribbean jaunt, but because I sat outside having a sandwich lunch in Soho Square yesterday with a writing friend. We talked…
Autumn Newsletter 2011
For me there are very distinct cycles in the production of a novel: the thinking bit, the scribbling a few notes bit, the grab-it-by-the-throat-and-start bit, the press-on-even-though-it-feels…
Winter Newsletter 2011
Each year I am struck by the way Christmas is 'made' to happen. An act of collective, steely determination by a species determined to find something to help it through the winter. Each year I resist…
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