I'd love to see a new form of social security ... everyone taught how to grow their own; fruit and nut trees planted along every street, parks planted out to edibles, every high rise with a roof garden, every school with at least one fruit tree for every kid enrolled.

Books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat it because it's good for you. Books drag you in because they are fascinating.

I don't read like other people do - back and forth, across the page. I tend to scan a page at a time.

When someone is missing the really hard thing is that you never really do give up hope, even though the inquest says that she is dead, even though right from the beginning we already knew that we wouldn't see her again.

Death had ruled my life till I met Lady Dance. Her dance had set me free.

Often the true hero and heroines of my books are the houses, the places, the communities where people find a home.

Very much in my books people find not surrogate families because they are real families. We've got families that we're related to by blood but we've also got families that we acquire. And those too I think are pretty much part of my books.