In The Touch, the love scenes are the same as they were in The Thorn Birds or anything else Ive ever written. I find a way of saying that either it was heaven or hell but in a way that still leaves room for the reader to use their own imagination.

It's a dead give away of an inexperienced writer if every character speaks with the same voice

duty, the most indecent of all obsessions, was only another name for love.

...she looked like the sort of woman most men would want to get to know because they weren't sure what went on inside.

The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.

I am writing a sequel to The Touch because I want to further explore the Chinese question that I have raised. There will be more about that in a sequel.

The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five-year-old men more.