Secrets

Secrets was my 10th novel and gave me the opportunity to set another story in the North East. Pillow Talk, set in the location but inland, won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award whilst I was writing Secrets. The working title for this novel was ‘Runaway Home‘ – which (secretly) I still prefer. It was also time for a new cover-look for this novel – and I fought hard for something totally different to what I’d had before and what was ‘out there’ at that time. I have always rallied against being labelled ‘chick lit’ – such a pejorative term for any woman who writes ‘domestic drama’ but that bloody label has plagued me my entire career. This cover coincided with the iPod Nano being launched – who remembers the fab ads for it, with all the colour options oozing? That was our starting point for this cover.
Secrets was my first novel where a dog and a child were key characters and I worked hard to combat whimsy. The house itself, as with so many of my novels, is a major character in the book. I loved spending time in Saltburn – and, to this day, it brings me great joy that so many of my readers have visited, following an unofficial FreyaNorthSecrets trail!
In the name of research, I also had to cross over the top of the Transporter Bridge, 160′ over the River Tees – facing my vertigo head-on to do my characters justice. How many romantic interludes in contemporary fiction have been set in Middlesbrough, I wonder…