The kindness of strangers Part 2

My children are both at university now – but out of sight doesn’t mean out of mind. Far from it. The fact that I don’t see them every day makes me worry even more.

I was thrilled, though, when my 18 year old son phoned at 10pm last night. Except it wasn’t for a chat. It was to say that he was on a train from Manchester to South Wales after a weekend catching up with old pals and the train had been severely delayed because of the weather. He’d just clocked that his train was due to terminate at Newport - at midnight, 50 miles from where he needed to be and with no more trains till dawn. 

To make matters worse, his credit card had been nicked a few days earlier, he only had £10 on him and his phone was about to run out of battery.

“We’re stuck at Shrewsbury,” he said. “And I don’t want to waste my battery so I’m switching my phone off now.”

Before I could reply, he rang off.

At midnight, with no news, I rang Newport railway station. But the place had shut up shop for the night. Next, I called a taxi firm close by.

“Don’t worry,” said a cheery voice at Dragon Taxis when he heard the sorry tale. “I’ll go and find out. What does he look like? I’ll see if he’s there.”

How kind was that? The man came back ten minutes later and said my son wasn’t there. But he’d asked the rail staff and in fact the train had travelled on to Cardiff. After that, they’d said, Arriva Trains were laying on taxis (free of charge) to take stranded passengers home. And sure enough, when I finally spoke to my son at 3am, that’s exactly what had happened.   

So, all I can say is: A big thank you to the wonderful Dragon Taxis of Newport. Talk about going that extra mile...

PS. I've just realised it's exactly a month till Christmas. Help!

PPS. The kindness of strangers Part 1 is here.

When was the last time you saw a kid out enjoying themselves on their bike?

I’ve interviewed Professor Tanya Byron several times over the years and she talks more sense about children and teenagers than anyone I‘ve met. And the fact that she told me not to worry when my children refused point-blank to have anything to do with star charts was a bonus.

Tanya has been a clinical psychologist for 23 years and earlier this month I spoke to her about a keynote speech she’s giving to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust conference in December. Once again, her words struck a chord as she talked about her concern that today’s youngsters lack emotional intelligence and emotional resilience. A lot of them, she said, are afraid of failure, afraid to take risks and afraid to think for themselves.

“Children are being raised in captivity,” she told me. “When was the last time you saw a kid out enjoying themselves on their bike?

“Children are not really encouraged, supported or taught how to assess, take and manage risk and I think it is developmentally catastrophic for them.

“Risk taking is seen as a very dangerous thing and to be avoided at all costs.

“We live in a litigious, risk-averse culture where paranoia is rife and we have an education system that is so built around targets and testing that teachers and headteachers are constrained from being innovative.

“But risk taking is important because it helps children to accept, understand and embrace failure. The times when you fail are often the most powerful learning experiences one can ever have.

“When I talk to successful people and ask them about their most cherished memories in terms of how they got to be where they are, it’s usually built around times when they messed up. But boy did that really teach them something. It got them to expand their thinking and their learning and inspired them to push on in the most impressive way.”

Wise words in my opinion. What do you think?

You can read the whole interview in this week’s SecEd magazine.

Liz Jones and her instinctive feel for dividing opinion

Liz Jones sparks more controversy than any other journalist I can think of.

She’s infuriated virtually the whole of Exmoor with her excoriating columns about the unfriendliness and the cold and shops closing on Saturday afternoons and she hit the headlines again last week with a piece about the bloggers she met at the recent Mumsnet Blogfest. Just to give you a flavour, she wrote about being in “a tangled teepee of virtual knitters, spinning yarns so they can remain inside their cupcake-scented world.” Oh dear. And completely wrong.

But despite the brickbats that get thrown at her on a regular basis, she’s just been named Columnist of the Year at the British Society of Magazine Editors awards.

Announcing the award last week, BSME chairman Kitty Finstad said she’d been chosen “for her instinctive feel for personal narrative and for dividing opinion – as a good columnist should.”

The BSME are right, I reckon. Liz Jones maddens me more often than not, and I’m a bit sick of her writing about her cats, her horses and RS, her rock star boyfriend (despite all sorts of rumours no one has a clue who he is). But, and it’s a big but, I still turn to her column in the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine before I read the rest of the papers.

Actually, this week I felt a bit sorry for her. Writing in the main bit of the paper, she said she was feeling nostalgic for Exmoor just a week after selling her stunning house. She’s now moved back to London, but is missing the country already, the wildlife, the space and the peace and quiet.

I know how she feels. I love the city, but even now there are days when I yearn to be living in the middle of nowhere once more. It’s fantastic to be able to walk into Oxford to meet a friend for a coffee or to see the latest (brilliant) James Bond movie. But I still miss the autumn afternoons when we strode up Pendle Hill (above) and saw no one at all apart from the odd fell walker and countless sheep.

PS. Back in the days when Liz Jones was features editor of the Evening Standard, she asked me to write a freelance piece about living in France. I never met her (we only spoke on the phone) but she was easily one of the most charming, appreciative editors I’ve ever been commissioned by.

Friday book review - Thursdays in the Park by Hilary Boyd

Writer Hilary Boyd probably can’t quite believe it. A month ago, her first novel had sold just 3,000 copies – a respectable number, but nothing to write home about.

Four weeks later, it’s a different story. Largely through word of mouth, Thursdays in the Park has turned into a smash hit.

The book’s fortunes changed when Amazon discounted the ebook version to 20p. I spotted the novel a couple of weeks ago and was so entranced by the title and the cover – and yes, the price – that I downloaded it straight away. I was clearly one of many because the book has now sold more than 100,000 copies. Apparently Charles Dance is interested in starring in the movie and and the foreign rights have been snapped up in France, Sweden, Finland and Germany too. Not only that, Hilary Boyd has been interviewed by scores of newspapers and even popped up on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning.

But after all the excitement, is the book any good? Well yes, actually, it is. I read it earlier this week and tore through it in one go. Well-written, heart-warming and sweet, it’s the story of Jeanie, a 60-year-old woman trapped in a safe but sexless marriage. The light of her life is her little granddaughter Ellie, whom she looks after on Thursday afternoons. The pair always go to the park, and it’s there that she meets Ray and his small grandson Dylan. Ray is kind, funny and easy to talk to – everything that Jeanie’s husband isn’t, in fact – and much to the horror of Jeanie’s family the pair find themselves falling in love. 

Thursdays in the Park has been dubbed “gran-lit,” but readers of all ages will enjoy it. Boyd, who’s 62, says she wanted to write about romance and love at “a certain age” and show that these days becoming a grandmother doesn’t mean “polyester slacks and a blue rinse.” Not in Jeanie’s case it doesn’t, anyway.

Boyd’s book is far from being a great literary work, but it’s an insightful and compelling tale. There are a couple of sex scenes, but they’re tastefully done. Thursdays in the Park may be the talk of publishing circles right now but it’s nothing like Fifty Shades of Grey, I promise…

Thursdays in the Park by Hilary Boyd (Quercus, £7.99). The ebook is currently available for 20p on Amazon. 

Download White Christmas for free today

Hal Benson smoothed his crumpled charcoal jacket, adjusted the livid pink tie he’d borrowed from a friend and cleared his throat noisily. His mouth was dry and he’d started to sweat under the bright studio lights. He couldn’t for the life of him work out why he was so nervous. For goodness sake, he’d performed in front of thousands of people before. He’d played Macduff at Stratford-upon-Avon without batting an eyelid, and had even appeared in a Tom Cruise movie once. It had only been a tiny part, admittedly, and his five seconds of fame had ended up on the cutting room floor, but all the same, he was a professional actor. And this, well this was just play-acting.

In eight years of acting, Hal had never worked anywhere as garish as this place. He half-wished he’d brought a pair of sunglasses with him. The whole studio was painted in an acid yellow, with a giant black clock on the main wall and a vast red curved sofa in front of it. There was a Christmas tree in one corner, covered in red and yellow baubles, and a life-sized model of Father Christmas in the other. Red and yellow were clearly the TV station’s signature colours.

At that moment a young studio manager with a bulky pair of headphones clamped to her ears took him by the arm. She guided him to the left-hand side of the sofa and instructed him to stand in front of a translucent screen.

‘You’ll see a faint image of the graphics appear,’ she told Hal. ‘The image will give you an idea of where to point and you can use the remote clicker we’ve given you to move on to the next graphic. Is that clear?’

As clear as mud, thought Hal, but he nodded brightly and said ‘sure…’

That's a short extract from my festive new ebook, White Christmas. If you’d like to read more, you can download the novella for free on Amazon today. Let me know what you think...

Working parents - the debate goes on...

“Enough about saintly working mothers. What about me? I’m a working dad.”

That’s the headline emblazoned across the front page of Times 2 today, trailing a piece by Hugo Rifkind that sticks up for working fathers.

His gist is that society isn’t treating fathers equally. “… when she gets up many hours before going to work to deal with our children’s poos and pees and frankly unreasonable moonlit demands for Cheerios, she is a brave and selfless warrior for feminism,” he writes of his wife. “Whereas when I do, I’m just somebody who if he didn’t would be an a***hole.”

The most striking thing to me is that the parenting debate hasn't moved on at all over the last few decades. The trouble is, as each generation discovers in turn, if you’re a parent (whether you're a mum or a dad) you really can’t have it all.

Whatever anyone says, you can’t have a superstar career and be there 24/7 for your children. It’s just impossible.

In our house we never sat down and discussed how we would share the parenting. When my two were little my husband worked as a company turnaround expert, which meant being catapulted into businesses all over the place that were in trouble and needed sorting out. It sounds glamorous but it wasn’t. It was gruelling, tough and completely unpredictable. But he was self-employed and earned more than me, so no way could I say: “Hang on. You can’t go tomorrow. You’re looking after the children.”

If I’m honest, it irritated the hell out of me at the time. But then again, I knew that if he didn’t drop everything and go, then the mortgage wouldn’t get paid. OK, I could have found a live-in nanny and gone back to my old job as a news reporter but then I would have been away all the time too – which would have been terrible for the children.

So, we muddled through. I did the childcare and freelanced from home (a plus side of journalism), while my husband paid the bulk of the bills.

But suddenly everything changed. First my daughter went to university, followed this September by my son. And after all these years of wondering whether I did the right thing, I’ve stopped worrying. My children’s childhoods went by in a flash and I’m glad I didn’t miss any of it. 

White Christmas – new romantic novella out now

With Christmas just seven weeks away (help!), my festive new novella has just been published. White Christmas, the tale of two rival weather forecasters, was great fun to write – so I hope readers will enjoy it.

From Christmas trees and carols to holly and mistletoe, the story aims to get everyone in the festive mood. White Christmas is available for download at Amazon. Here's the blurb...

Everyone dreams of a White Christmas.

But nobody dreams of one quite as much as Hal Benson.

Out-of-work actor Hal has been hired as a stand-in weather presenter by a ratings-chasing TV news channel. But actually, Hal couldn't care less whether it rains or not. To him it is just a job.

But then he meets rival weather forecaster Lizzie Foster. She’s bright, determined and very beautiful. Fascinated by meteorology, she can’t believe that Hal is completely clueless about the weather.

They become friends, but as Christmas Day approaches, their relationship turns out to be as unpredictable as the weather. And sometimes as stormy.

Whilst everyone else is unwrapping presents, Hal and Lizzie are looking to the skies for signs of a White Christmas. So will the pair overcome their meteorological differences - and find true love?

Movie stardom for A Street Cat Named Bob?

How brilliant to hear that a green-eyed street cat called Bob could be on the way to movie stardom.

Like thousands of other readers, I was bowled over when I read A Street Cat Named Bob. James Bowen's book describes how he found an injured stray cat in the hallway of his block of flats back in 2007. He took the cat in, nursed him back to health and called him Bob.

James, a recovering drug addict and musician, started taking Bob busking with him and the duo soon became a familiar sight around the streets of Covent Garden and Islington. Then, two years ago, they were spotted by literary agent Mary Pachnos, who encouraged James to write Bob’s story.

The ensuing book, written by James and journalist Garry Jenkins, became an instant bestseller. It has already sold more than 250,000 copies around the world, been published in 18 languages and a US version of the tale is due out next year. James is also writing a children’s version, called Bob: No Ordinary Cat, which will be published in February.

And now a report in The Sunday Times says a film could be on the cards. Apparently  the Hollywood agent who brought Marley & Me to the big screen is in talks about turning Bob’s story into a film. Bob is already the most famous cat in London. He could soon be the most famous cat in the world. 

The BBC's Nick Robinson - and the perils of working from home

BBC political editor Nick Robinson is a brilliant reporter. He always looks cool, calm and unflustered – even when he’s got scary deadlines to meet and major political stories to cover. He’s also got that rare journalistic knack of making the most complicated issues clear and intelligible. He’s particularly good on Radio Four’s Today programme, where he often pops up to detangle the political complexities of the day.

Yesterday Robinson was featured on The Sunday Times Magazine’s long-running A Life in the Day page. It was fascinating stuff (he said most politicians are “decent people doing an honourable job,” declared he'll never do Strictly Come Dancing and revealed that when he’s working he lives on crisps and chocolate). There was also one recollection that will strike a chord with all parents who work from home.

Although Robinson is based at London’s Millbank, he explained that he sometimes does interviews from his basement office at home.

“Once, when the kids were small and my wife was away, I had an important radio interview to do – about the Northern Ireland peace process – and I told the kids they needed to be quiet,” he said.

“But the minute the interview began they started shouting that a door handle had fallen off and they were locked in a room.”

So what did he do?

“Like any man faced with a choice between family and career, I ploughed on with the interview…”  

And I’m sure the listeners had no idea about the drama going on around him. What a pro.   

Uggie, the Artist: My Story - the perfect Christmas present

Paul O’Grady’s face was a picture when he saw the Jack Russell trot smartly into the studio. The wonderful O’Grady looked like he wanted to tuck the terrier under his jacket and smuggle him home.

The adorable little dog was Uggie, taking centre-stage on Graham Norton’s TV show to promote his newly-published memoirs. O'Grady was another of Norton's guests, along with Robbie Williams, Darcey Bussell and Felix Baumgarter.

Uggie, the Artist: My Story tells the tale of Uggie’s rise from abandoned puppy to Hollywood superstar. The book relates how he was discovered by his now owner and trainer Omar Von Muller and got his big break in the film Water for Elephants, starring alongside Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon. Then came The Artist – and mega-stardom.

The book is selling like hot cakes right now and I’m thrilled because one of my closest friends helped Uggie to tell (I mean woof) his story.

Wendy Holden is a brilliant writer, whose 25 books include A Lotus Grows in the Mud, Goldie Hawn’s memoir, and Lady Blue Eyes, the autobiography of Frank Sinatra’s widow Barbara. She was so entranced by Uggie after seeing him in The Artist that she contacted Von Muller and suggested writing the book. The rest, as they say, is history.

As Wendy told USA Today: “There’s just something about Uggie. He was born to be a star. The fact he ended up being a dog is sort of by-the-by…”

So if you’re after a Christmas present for dog-loving friends, then Uggie, the Artist: My Story is just perfect. Look out for the Uggie the Artist app too.

PS. Going back to Paul O’Grady, he told chat show host Graham Norton that he loves dogs so much so that when he filmed For the Love of Dogs, his series about Battersea Dogs Home, he insisted on a ultra-strict clause being inserted in his contract.

“Under no circumstances was I allowed to go home with anything – two-legged, four-legged, three-legged, anything. I knew it would be fatal,” says O’Grady.

It didn’t work, of course. At the end of filming O’Grady broke his own self-imposed rule and ended up adopting a chihuahua/Jack Russell cross called Eddie…

School reunions - heaven or hell?

“You must be mad,” said my husband when I told him I was going to a reunion at my old school. “I can’t think of anything worse.”

He had a point, of course. The idea of meeting up with pals from your youth more than a quarter of a century later is weird - but curiosity got the better of me. That, and a flurry of emails from friends saying they’d go if I did. One put it in a nutshell. "It's so not my sort of thing and I keep looking in the mirror and wondering if I can have some Botox or liposuction or just a designer brown paper bag to wear," she said. "But if I don't go to this one I probably never will, so it's now or never - and at least I don't need to bring a Zimmer frame yet."

My sentiments exactly, so I summoned up the courage and agreed to go. My husband refused point-blank to come with me. “I hated school so why on earth should I want to go to your school reunion?” he said crushingly.

As I trundled up the tree-lined drive in the rain I felt like a nervous 16-year-old arriving at the place for the first time.

I was worried I wouldn’t recognise anyone but actually, apart from a few grey hairs and the odd bald patch (only the men!), no one had changed much. It was a bit disconcerting to find that the new school head looked younger than the rest of us put together, and that loads of the tough-guy rugby players we all worshipped had turned into besotted dads, with toddlers trailing round their ankles. But apart from that, and despite my husband’s doubts, I’m glad I went.

2012 New York City Marathon cancelled

As New York battled to cope with the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was adamant that the city's marathon would still be going ahead on Sunday as planned.

The mayor said the event would give the Big Apple a chance “to show solidarity with one another,” while New York Road Runners president Mary Wittenberg declared that the marathon "really epitomises the spirit of New York City – the vitality, the tenacity, the determination of New Yorkers.”

It was fighting talk and reminded me of the 2001 New York marathon, which took place just seven weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

My husband ran that year in aid of Mencap and it was one of the most memorable, moving events of his life. On the Sunday morning, just before the race began, he was in the crowd when the then mayor, Rudy Guilliani, told the competitors: “Freedom is going to win.”

The band played God Bless America and the whole 26-mile route was lined with cheering spectators. Many of the runners were taking part in memory of loved ones who had died and my husband was moved to tears as he ran alongside competitors with photographs of friends and relations taped to their chests.

But tonight, with more than 69 people dead, the lower half of Manhattan still without power and many homes, schools and hospitals completely uninhabitable, the 2012 event was cancelled. It was a sad, but wise decision.

Parties - from Gloria Gaynor to electrofunk

I’ve never seen my best friend look quite so stunned. It was her birthday and instead of walking into Carluccio’s for a quiet dinner with her husband she was greeted instead by a noisy crowd of family and friends. “I had no idea,” she kept saying over and over again – completely staggered that we’d pitched up from all over the place to celebrate her big day.

For some reason I’ve been to lots of birthday parties recently. Some have been very posh – one was in a marquee, complete with speeches and a fancy menu – while my favourite was held at a working-men’s club in Lancashire, with hot pot and mash and a live band.

But right now I’m agonising over my daughter’s 21^st and my son’s 18^th.  They want to throw a joint bash but can’t decide on the venue, let alone the music (electrofunk or blues) or the guest list. But one thing I do know is that it will be very different to my own 21^st, a very sedate affair in Dorset. My dad ordered a keg of beer, we played Gloria Gaynor nonstop on my mum’s old tape recorder and most of my friends slept under the stars.

The one thing I won’t be doing is consulting Pippa Middleton’s new book for party tips. The Duchess of Cambridge's younger sister has come in for a lot of stick following the publication of Celebrate, which she was paid £400,000 to write. I haven’t got a copy but I sneaked a look at Waterstone’s and while the photography (by David Loftus) is stunning, the words leave a lot to be desired. I don’t want to be mean, because Pippa sounds lovely, but they’re along the lines of “tea bags should go in a teapot, rather than individually in mugs” and “flowers are a traditional Valentine’s token and red roses are the classic symbol of romance.”

No wonder a spoof Twitter account called @Pippatips has attracted 9,000 followers. Recent @Pippatips tweets include “a good way to keep warm when heading out into the cold weather is to wear winter clothing like jumpers and coats and hats” and “save time by doing things more quickly.” Take a look – it’s hilarious.

Middle-aged men in Lycra

At 9 every Saturday morning a posse of cyclists speed down the street, clad in sleek (and very chic) black and white biking gear.

They’re all part of the local cycling club, heading for the steepest hills in the district. When he’s home, my teenage son is out with the peloton like a shot – and now my husband’s caught the cycling bug and signed up too. He’s had his 20-year-old bike overhauled (“where on earth did this come from?” said the man at the bike shop, marvelling at its retro yellow and pink paintwork), bought a ton of Lycra and begun stockpiling energy bars and flapjacks.

The first weekend he returned four hours (and 80 kilometres) later, ashen-faced and stunned by how tough the ride had been. He hadn’t taken any food, got caught in a downpour with no wet weather gear and suffered a puncture. But his fellow cyclists were kindness personified. They shared their food, lent him a jacket and patiently waited for him to sort his tyre out.  

My husband’s clearly not the only one to have turned into a cycling fanatic. Fired up by Bradley Wiggins’s triumphs, middle-aged men all over the country seem to be getting on their bikes. In the FT’s Life & Arts section at the weekend, editor Lionel Barber wrote about his gruelling weekend bike trip across the Pyrenees – wittily titled “Blood, sweat and gears.” And thanks to his article, I have now discovered I’m married to a “MAMIL” – a “middle-aged man in Lycra.”

But friends down under have coined a different term for middle-aged cycling enthusiasts. My friend Virginia emailed from Brisbane to tell me: “We call them VOMITS - very old men in tights!”

Two films for half term - Madagascar 3 and Private Peaceful

For the first time in 18 years I haven’t got a clue when half term actually is. It might be this week but then again it could be next. In the past I’d be rushing out to get Halloween pumpkins and planning what to do on Bonfire Night – but now my son and daughter are at university I don’t have to do any of it (sob).

But ironically I was invited to two film previews recently – both for new children’s movies being released in time for half term. Actually, when I pitched up for the screening of Madagascar 3 - Europe's Most Wanted at the Empire in London's Leicester Square I nearly made my excuses and left. The vast auditorium was filled with harassed looking parents and small children clutching balloons, Chupa Chip lollies (they were being handed out for free) and geeky 3D glasses. I felt a bit like a spare part.

But I stayed – and I’m so glad I did. With its stunning animation and madcap characters, Madagascar 3 is 80 minutes well spent. Children will love the crazy tale of New York zoo escapees Alex the lion (voiced by Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), while adults will chuckle at the in-jokes and witty script.

The plot is silly to say the least, but it doesn’t matter a jot. I hadn’t seen the two earlier Madagascar films but the latest instalment takes up where the previous ones left off. The four animals are living in Africa but they’re bored stiff with their natural habitat and are desperate to head home to the hustle and bustle of New York. So that’s what they do, except along the way there’s a manic car chase through Monte Carlo, a train ride across Europe (where they join a travelling circus) and a dazzling circus performance in London. Best of all, it’s got the best movie villain I’ve seen in a long time –  the utterly terrifying Chantel Du Bois (voiced by Frances McDormand), a French cop who looks like Cruella de Vil and sounds like something out of  ‘Allo, ‘Allo.

But if your children are older and you’re after a more serious movie, then Private Peaceful is just the thing.

Private Peaceful is apparently Michael Morpurgo’s favourite of all the books he has written. It's a shame that the film adaptation has been released so soon after War Horse because it covers – with far less fanfare - much of the same First World War territory. In many ways it reminded me of the Sunday afternoon dramas I used to watch on TV as a child. The story of two brothers who fall in love with the same girl and then both sign up, a decision that ultimately leads to tragedy, it’s moving, thought-provoking and beautifully done. Oh, and any film that stars the brilliant Maxine Peake (as the boys' mum) is fine by me.

Madagascar 3, certificate PG, and Private Peaceful, certificate 12A, are showing in UK cinemas now.

My Next Big Thing

I’ve been a fan of Karen Wheeler’s books about her life in France for ages so it was a pleasure to meet her on Twitter. I loved her latest book, Tout Soul, and I’m an avid reader of her blog, Tout Sweet, too. Her stories of how she hung up her fashion editor’s high heels and left chic west London to start a new life in rural France make me want to abandon grey, wet Oxford and cross the Channel right this minute.

This week Karen (@mimipompom1) invited me to take part in a web event called My Next Big Thing, where authors answer a series of questions about their latest project.

So I took a deep breath and here are my answers:

What is the working title of your book?

I am completely hopeless at titles but the working title is Three in the Morning.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

That’s such a hard question! My second novel, Moving On, was inspired by a newspaper cutting about two sisters who took over their family business. But for this one I had loads of ideas floating through my head, all of which became intertwined – family, bereavement, Fleet Street, Pendle Hill in Lancashire, teenagers, teachers… I’ve somehow blended all of them into the first full-length novel I've written since Taking Sides.

What genre does your book fall under?

Contemporary drama. It covers a multitude of sins but that’s the genre, I reckon.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

The main characters are three sisters. So my choice would be Vanessa Kirby (she was Estella in BBC One’s recent adaptation of Great Expectations) for Jess, the youngest sister. Helen McCrory could play the eldest sister, Flo, and Claire Danes for the middle sister, Finn. They'd make a very starry line-up...

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

The three Barker sisters never spend any time in the same country, let alone the same house – so how do they cope when a family crisis flings them together for the first time in years?

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Three years – in between novellas and journalistic work!

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I love Marian Keyes’s books because they combine heart and humour. I only wish I could write like her…

What else about your blog post might pique the reader’s interest?

My first three books, Hard Copy, Moving On and Taking Sides, were published in quick succession. They’ve never been available electronically before but Piatkus is publishing them as ebooks in January, February and March next year (2013), which I’m thrilled about. Also, Endeavour Press has just published my second romantic novella, School Ties. 

And now I’m going to nominate four fantastic writers to tell us about their next big thing:

Kate Lace (@LaceKate) has written 15 novels, including The Chalet Girl and Moonlighting, and two non-fiction books. Cox, her latest novel, is the unputdownable tale of two rival hotshot rowers and has been dubbed “Jilly Cooper in a boat.”

Liz Harris (@lizharrisauthor) is the author of The Road Back. Her debut novel is a love story set in a remote region north of the Himalayas. Liz writes contemporary and historical fiction and her blog is called Welcome to My World.

Jenny Smith (@jennysmithbooks) writes humorous fiction for children and teenagers. I adore Jenny’s titles. Her first book is Diary of a Parent Trainer and her latest is the hilarious My Big Fat Teen Crisis, both out now.

Kate Morris (@KateMorris1) is the author of three novels, The Single Girl's Diary, The Seven Year Itch and Seven Days One Summer. I love Kate's description of a writer's life on her blog - "I sit at my desk all day," she says, "trying not to get distracted by emails, Facebook, Twitter and what's going on outside my study window." Y