FAQ

Do you base any characters on real people?

Did you always want to write?

Do you do a lot of research for your books?

What’s the best thing about being a writer?

What do you like least about being a writer?

Name some of your favourite books?

How/where do you get ideas for your books?

Do you plan out your books before you begin?

Do you love all your characters?

Of your seven books so far, which is your favourite?

Which writers do you admire/influence you?

What’s your working routine?

Have you any remaining ambitions?

What inspired you to write your first book?
Boredom! I had become very disillusioned in my job and started writing as a form of escapism. I wrote about a girl who takes over a restaurant because that’s something I always thought I’d love to do. It’s a matter of luck and timing that it was ever published.

Do you base any characters on real people?
No, never. There may be character traits that I would use but the characters themselves are all pure fiction. If they reflect a real person then its probably me because I think there’s a part of me in all my characters.

Did you always want to write?
I always enjoyed writing but it never occurred to me that I could make a living from it.

Do you do a lot of research for your books?
No! I actually hate doing research, I always feel it intrudes on the story. Now, I leave the research until after the book is finished and then go back and fill in the blanks. I use the internet as much as possible although if I ever do a book based in a health spa I may just go on location to do the research!

What’s the best thing about being a writer?
Working from home and working if and when I want to.

What do you like least about being a writer?
Working from home and working if and when I want to!

Name some of your favourite books?
Five Quarters of The Orange, Joanne Harris
The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen
On Writing, Stephen King
My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult
Gentlemen and Players, Joanne Harris
The House That Jack Built, Catherine Barry
In The Beginning, Catherine Dunne

….. I could go on and on

How/where do you get ideas for your books?
Anywhere, everywhere, an idea can hit at the unlikeliest of times.


Do you plan out your books before you begin?
Yes, in that I try to use a backdrop that I haven’t used before and give my main characters predicaments that I haven’t dealt with before but, of course, that isn’t always possible. I usually do a rough outline of the first few chapters before I begin but it nearly always turns out completely different in the end.

Do you love all your characters?
Yes I do. Even the baddies in my books are rarely all bad as I think that’s true in life. As I write the characters come to life and grow until it feels like they are quite real so they become like family.

Of the books you've written so far, which is your favourite?
Its usually the one that I’ve just finished because it would always be my aim to make each book better than the last. Also,
I have great affection for the books and characters when I’m writing them, but once they’re published they become public property and I feel a little distanced from them.

Which writers do you admire/influence you?
Any of me heroes usually have a negative influence on me as when I read a really good book it makes me think I should just give up. Having said that, Stephen King’s book On Writing has been a great inspiration during some of my dryer periods and it’s a book that I still revisit from time to time. I am lost in admiration at the colourful prose of Joanne Harris or Nicholas Evans but I don’t try to emulate it. I see myself, first and foremost, as a storyteller or, to use an old Irish term, a seanachai.

What’s your working routine?
I am very much a morning person but if I’m on a roll I’ll usually keep at it as long as possible. I find the faster I write, the better the story flows so I’ve learned to go with it.

Have you any remaining ambitions?
Plenty. I would like to write in a different genre and I would also like to try my hand at a screenplay.