1. Why do you write novels?

I love to write. It’s the best way of living a hundred lives instead of just one. And I especially love writing historical novels because it’s pretty much the only way of living in the past!

2. Who inspired you?

I’ve been a huge reader since I was young, so hundreds of writers have inspired me, starting with Enid Blyton, moving through Jean Plaidy, Phillipa Gregory, Elizabeth Chadwick, Sebastian Faulks and Hilary Mantel, via Marian Keyes, Nick Hornby, Jo Jo Moyes and pretty much anyone I can get my hands on!!

3. What’s the essence of your style? The part that, if removed, is not your voice anymore?

I’d have to ask my readers that but I hope it might be creating characters that people really engage with and giving them believable voices.

On the downside, I overuse both ‘just’ and ‘a little’ so have to consciously go through and take most of those out when editing!!

4. What was your dance-around-the-kitchen moment in writing?

That has to be when I was finally offered a contract. I’d had an agent for several years but we’d had two novels – one contemporary and one historical – rejected and my third submission was feeling like a last chance. In the end, an editor who had enjoyed the rejected historical one picked this one up and, not only that, but they signed me for a 3-book series! The editor (who is still my editor now and who I love) wrote me a gorgeous email saying how much she loved my writing. It arrived when I was on holiday with family and friends in Wales so my good friend Brenda, declaimed the whole email on a windswept Welsh beach and we all cheered!

5. What do you want to accomplish in your writing career?

Everything! I want to be a bestseller and have readers waiting eagerly for my next book to come out. There are a few lovely people like that these days but it would be fabulous to have more.

6. Can you ever envisage not writing novels - running out of ideas or energy?

Not at the moment. The joy of historical research is that every time you research one thing, you turn up a hundred other interesting nuggets, crying out to be stories all of their own. For example, I found out when researching 1066 for my Queens of the Conquest series, that Macbeth was a real King, and Lady Macbeth a real queen, and that they were strong and much-loved monarchs. I knew instantly that I wanted to write about her, soBlood Queen – and the whole Shakespeare’s Queens series - was born.

7. What advice would you give to your younger self?

Believe in yourself! A number of times when I was trying to make it as a novelist, I nearly stopped. I would cry into the pillow and tell my husband in a pathetic little hissy fit that I was going to ‘get a proper job’ but, somehow, I just couldn’t stop writing and then, bit by bit, it started to happen. Believing that would be the case might not have changed much, but it would almost certainly have made it less painful – especially for those around me!!

8. Away from writing, what are your passions, and what do they mean to you?

My big hobby was always rowing, which I did to a pretty serious level in my younger years, getting two gold medals at Women’s Henley. I totally love the way that rowing is the ultimate team sport, in that you have to work utterly in sync, but when the chips are down, you’re out there on your own (because you can’t see anything other than the back of the girl in front) and you have to dig deep yourself. I’m quite a disciplined and hard-working person and this sport suited those elements of me.

These days I’m getting on a bit. I did go rowing recently and was chuffed to keep up technically but the old lungs struggled and I have accepted that my competitive days are gone. I will stick to walking the dog!

My new passion is travelling. My husband has recently retired and we’ve bought a motorhome or, as I like to call it, an office on wheels! Last autumn, we went on a wonderful research trip through France and Spain and all the way to Lisbon, and there are many more planned. Watch out for novels set in all the loveliest places…!!

9. How would your best friend describe you?

I imagine words that would come up would be ‘bonkers’, ‘mad’, and, hopefully, ‘fun’. I’d almost certainly be described as ‘lively’, ‘active’, ‘energetic’, ‘enthusiastic’, ‘up for anything’ and definitely ‘unable to grow up’!!

10. What’s a significant question to ask you, that no other interview has to date, and what’s the answer, only for New2theScene?

Tricky!! Maybe what time period would I most like to travel to?  The answer would have to be some point before the birth of Christ. Iron Queen was the first novel I set in the BC era and getting my head around what that was like was fascinating. In Fire Queen, Ophelia is pagan but Christianity is already growing and starting to permeate the world, so going another step back into a fully pagan society intrigued me. So much of European culture and society has been influenced by Christianity that trying to consider what it was like before it ever existed is a little mind-blowing. My new set of novels will be set in and around the time (and location) of Christ, so watch this space for more on those…