Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?
It was 'Through the garden gate,' a "Janet and John" childrens book. I was at kinder-garden and suddenly during playtime reading clicked with me. I could finally do it, slowly at first but with exhilaration and amazing acceleration once through the learning wall. I read the whole book by myself several times and reading has been one of my favourite occupations ever since. My Dad said you can learn how to do anything from books and he was pretty much right.
Your own books are pretty raunchy, Is there a particular reason for that?
Several I suppose. I'm a reader first and a writer second, and I like adventure novels that include romance and graphic sexual description. Like my Dad said, you can learn anything from books. What I learnt was that the whole business doesn't work unless both (or all) parties are having fun. My otherwise liberal Grandmother was a bit sniffy about the sexual scenes in Wilbur Smith's first novel "When the Lion Feeds," but aged sixteen I found them electrifying on several levels. There was eroticism, uncontrollable passion, guilt, anticipation, gratification and manipulation in just a few paragraphs. Love and sexual relationships trump greed and ambition as the prime human motivators every time. Wilbur Smith, Harold Robbins, Tony Park and Jilly Cooper all write sexual intercourse scenes graphically and well whereas John Grisham doesn't really include any sexual content but the most chaste, yet they are all fantastic Authors. Just personal preference from both a reading and writing perspective I suppose.
Read more of this interview.