Goodness! Too much like therapy, this is going to be tough. When I’m asked this question to break the ice, I usually search for misdirection. Maybe that’s why I write fiction! But here goes:
Caroline England
- I tell people I started creating stories around ten years ago. But that isn’t really true. From being a small child I made up stories in my head before sleep - romances of course! Sizzling glances, stolen kisses and numerous obstacles in the way of true love! The dashing hero of the story would be my pop star crush of the week, and the heroine was, obviously, me. There’s nothing like a good romance; Hm, I wonder why I turned to the dark side…
- Like King Lear (Matt Damon, Bruce Willis and Harry Connick, Jr too, apparently) I have three daughters. I’m hoping the first two will be a bit kinder in my dotage than Goneril and Regan were.
- Talking of King Lear, I studied it for English A Level at school. My friend Liz and I liked walking to the English master’s rooms so we could pass two brothers we fancied. We never got anywhere with the boys. Liz recently sent me a fridge magnet from Shakespeare’s Globe saying, ‘Nothing can come of nothing: speak again.’
- In my early teens I was lucky enough to see Ted Hughes in the flesh. I can still picture him explaining the back story to The Thought-Fox, then reading the poem with that distinctive deep moody Yorkshire timbre. I was transfixed, enthralled, inspired! He would have made a perfect Heathcliff.
- Carrying on with the Brontë theme, I inadvertently called my daughters after three of them - Elizabeth, Charlotte and Emily. Though Elizabeth Brontë is not that well known, her father described her as the daughter with ‘sound good sense’. Just like my Elizabeth!
- My ‘meeting a real celeb’ moment was limited to Geoffrey Boycott on my honeymoon (I know! But at least he’s from Yorkshire). But things vastly improved at Theakston’s Crime Festival this year where I made a pitiful attempt to chat to Val McDermid, had a selfie with Mark Billingham, an intense handshake with Lee Child and to top it all, I was photobombed by Ian Rankin!
- I was a lawyer in my previous life. I enjoyed being newly qualified, wearing smart suits and high heels. One lunch time I was walking across St Ann’s Square, feeling important, and I spotted James Nesbitt. I saw him clock me, so when we passed each other, I turned. Woo hoo, he was still ogling and smiling! A few strides later, I discovered why. I had trodden on half a Jaffa and it had caught it in my heel. Orange speared stiletto was not a good look. No wonder he was laughing!
- I love all my characters. None of them are perfect by any stretch. They have fears, weaknesses, frailties, secrets; they might cheat, lie and betray their loved ones and friends. But they're all just human (and they’re mine!)
- Though I love reading contemporary authors such as Maggie O’Farrell and Kate Atkinson, my holiday reading is always crime. There’s nothing like a good whodunnit or how they dunnit, or how they're going to catch the guy whodunnit…
- My own novels are under the umbrella of ‘crime’ too, but they're at the ‘domestic noir’ end of the spectrum. Expect a slower more nuanced read than a pacy police procedural, and as one reviewer put it, ‘Be prepared to pay close attention to the twists and turns in this story so you’ll understand what’s really happened.’
