What is the greatest joy of writing for you?
Writing contains my emotions. It lets me work through ideas and create characters who can be part of themes that are important to me, or which I want to explore. Without writing, mainly song lyrics, I don't think I'd have retained my sanity!!
What's the story behind your latest book?
A health visitor friend of mine told me that middle-class women are the most represented in suicide statistics. I sometimes thought it might be macabre writing 2 novels about suicide, but I figured that lots of people write about varying sorts of murderers so it would be fine. I also think that suicide is an under-discussed topic, so if people talked about The Tuesday Night Book Club, it might, in its own small way, add to the acceptability of mentioning this really important subject. Depression plays large in our society and I wanted to take a character through the vicissitudes of modern suburban life, looking at where her non-achievement of the standards she's been brought up to expect would lead her. I've been fascinated by the supernatural forever it seems, so i always have to have some element of the ghostly or other-worldly in my books. I was intrigued by the idea that people could unwittingly invite in harmful spirits, so Violet comes to realise that the demon of which she has visions, is sustaining her self-pity and enveigling her further and further into it. There needed to be lightness to the story, as a foil to the lows that Violet experiences, so we have her spirited daughter, her environmentally aware elderly neighbour and her holistically charged aunt.
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