Where were you born?
In the town of Montrose on the east coast of Scotland. My parents still live in the area on a farm, so I spend lots of time up there.

 

When did you start writing?
I’ve always been a writer, ever since I learned to write. I have volumes and volumes of diaries and notebooks (dating from age eight) to prove it! But when I was 28, I left my job to have a baby and that’s when I started writing my first novel.

 

What’s your routine?
I write best when my children are out of the house (funnily enough!), so I tend to keep school hours, working from Monday to Friday between 9.30-2.30. But sometimes, when it’s going really well or more likely, deadlines are looming, I write at night and through the weekends. But I try and take plenty of time off in the school holidays.A novel is thousands of words though, you have to keep going!

 

What’s next?
Lots! I’m just finishing off a book for 10-13 year olds which is due to be published in 2008. And there is more from Annie Valentine to come: a Personal Shopper sequel is due out in summer 2008. So, watch this space...

 

What advice would you give to novice authors?
Keep writing and writing and writing! We all get better with practise. Keep reading also, because you’ll learn so much from the writers you love.

 

Describe yourself in three words.
Very, very tall.

 

What are the sounds and smells of your childhood?
I grew up on a farm with two sisters, so the sounds are tractors, dogs barking, children laughing. The smells: machine oil, dusty barns, straw bales and my mother’s fabulous baking.
 
What was the first book that you remember?
My mother is German, so we had lots of German story books including the Brothers Grimm fairytales and ‘Schtrubel Peter’ which used to terrify me. Especially the story of the thumbsucker, whose thumb gets chopped off, because I used to suck my thumb.