How I love research – it’s a true perk of my career. I spent delightful periods of time in the North East, in the jewellery quarter of Hatton Garden – and in a cage just off Regent Street. The cage was a security area within the offices of the Tanzanite Foundation (which oversees ethical mining of the gem) and I’d sit there handling carat after carat of this magical stone. Just a tiny nugget of a story hidden in a newspaper can fire my imagination – and reading about a 15 year old girl who woke along the arm of a crane in her nightie having sleep-walked there, became the springboard for full research into this fascinating, dreadful affliction.
The scenarios when Petra was doing her pottery classes were based on fact – that really was me. And yes, there was a sixth-former who’d gently serenade me with his guitar from a chaste distance….wonder where he is now! As with Chloe, some of these characters are not based on people at all. Arlo’s naughty schoolboys are in fact horses I know – my own included.
Read a brief synopsis of Pillow talk
Browse inside Pillow Talk
Well, the last thing I won was probably a gymkhana when I was eight – so to be awarded the Romantic Novel of the Year 2008 for Pillow Talk was an awesome moment in my life. It was going to be a lovely day, whatever the outcome, as it was Georgia’s 5 th birthday and also publication day for the paperback edition of Pillow Talk. I was still in my slummy-mummy uniform of old jeans and jumper half an hour before the taxi arrived but as my lovely friend Jeanette always says: “you do scrub up well, love.”! It was such a thrill being short-listed in January – the first time it has happened for me. I shared the short-list with fellow authors Jojo Moyes, Adele Parks, Catrin Collier, Catherine King and Maureen Lee.
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Well, I hope you like the sneak preview of the Pillow Talk jacket on my Home Page…what doesn’t come across is the wonderful vivid blue – just wait until you see it. I wanted a colour as close as possible to tanzanite – the precious gem stone that is a key theme in the book. Before I was a published writer, to help make ends meet, I worked as a picture researcher for a number of publishing companies, using my background in art to help source images and designs for book jackets – and what a fusspot it made me! I’m a perfectionist (though I’m sure the art dept would call me a pain in the proverbial…). For example, we tried out almost twenty different shades of cream before I gave the nod for the background colour of Love Rules, Home Truths and Pillow Talk. We use an artist from New York to do the illustrations – but then the designer and I spend hours tweaking the length of eyelashes, the redness of lips, the creases in clothing… So you can imagine how many blues I squinted over in search of The One. Think I’ve found it, though…
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It’s blowing a gale outside – a tree was uprooted right outside our house this lunchtime so Georgia and I went to ogle the twelve lovely firemen from three fire engines which hared down our street in two seconds flat. The tree had fallen right across the road, smashing a couple of cars in its wake. No one hurt. There’s something so sad about a fallen tree – all those decades, perhaps centuries, of standing so lofty and proud, ending with such an undignified disposal via chainsaw and council wood-chipper. Freya says: Go hug a tree!
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How I love research – it’s a true perk of my career. I spent delightful periods of time in the North East, in the jewellery quarter of Hatton Garden – and in a cage just off Regent Street. The cage was a security area within the offices of the Tanzanite Foundation (which oversees ethical mining of the gem) and I’d sit there handling carat after carat of this magical stone. Just a tiny nugget of a story hidden in a newspaper can fire my imagination – and reading about a 15 year old girl who woke along the arm of a crane in her nightie having sleep-walked there, became the springboard for full research into this fascinating, dreadful affliction.
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