There's a fearful term that's in fashion at the moment - closure. People apparently believe it is desirable and attainable.

You learn a lot, writing fiction.

I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation.

I have had to empty two family homes during the last few years - first, the house that had been my grandmothers since 1923, and then my own country home, which we had lived in for over twenty years.

All I know for certain is that reading is of the most intense importance to me; if I were not able to read, to revisit old favorites and experiment with names new to me, I would be starved - probably too starved to go on writing myself.

I am addicted to arrivals, to those innocent dawn moments from which history accelerates.

There's a preoccupation with memory and the operation of memory and a rather rapacious interest in history.