It's been said that the men in my books have been absent, or weak, or creepy.

Become such as you are, having learned what that is.

She doesn't believe in dogs," Bridget said. "Dogs are hardly an article of faith," Sylvie said.

Alternate history fascinates me, as it fascinates all novelists, because 'What if?' is the big thing.

Because I write fiction, I don't write autobiography, and to me they are very different things. The first-person narrative is a very intimate thing, but you are not addressing other people as 'I' - you are inhabiting that 'I.'

Probably not needing to be published would give me more time to think about a book.

The past is a cupboard full of light and all you have to do is find the key that opens the door.