Killer Queens
Killer Queens is my sauciest romp yet, involving a princess who faked her own death, and a princess & queen to be who have very different roads to the altar! With a lot of racy sex in palaces and on beaches… There's an amazing competition to win an all-expenses paid holiday to the Mayan Riviera, at the stunning resort where the king and queen honeymoon in the book. It really is paradise there, so you should definitely enter!
The book has been compared to Jilly Cooper so how does this make you feel?
Over the moon – I love Jilly Cooper, she's the mistress of the bonkbuster! My sex scenes are more full-on than hers, just to warn the reader, though – I go places she doesn't!
What was the appeal of writing about the love lives of Princes and Princesses for you?
It's always so much fun to pull back the curtain on lives that seem like fairy tales and show that often, contrary to appearances, famous people's lives are much more tangled and messy than we know. That's basically what I write about – celebrities' real lives and loves, not the cover-ups that they try to show us.
After living in Manhattan, what brought you back to London?
Manhattan's loads of fun when you're single and partying, but London's a much better place to settle. I have a garden here – that's near-impossible in Manhattan, the buildings are so high the gardens never get any sun! And I love being so close to Europe and all my friends there. New York's actually really far away from anywhere fun except, perhaps, Miami.
You wrote for various music magazines before moving to Tuscany, so who are your favourite bands?
I love anything I can dance to – latest spin playlist is Titanium, Big Girls Don't Cry, Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Material Girl… and I love country music, bizarrely. Women with great voices singing great tunes.
What is the appeal of writing about things that the average reader covets?
As with the question about princes and princesses, it's the fun of telling stories about people whose lives seem so amazing and dazzling on the surface, have all these fabulous possessions, but actually are looking for love in all the wrong places! These stories are about real emotions and people we can identify with, but they're told in a larger-than-life way.
Why are your books a perfect holiday read?
Because they're full of sex and fun and glamour, just the kind of escapism we all need on holidays – which are a sort of escape! - but centred on characters that we can all feel for. You can't tell big stories successfully if they're not rooted in real psychology.
What is your opinion of your Royal family?
The downside is that they promote the British class system, the upside is that they bring tourism to the country and that it's good not to have the head of government also be the head of state, as exists in America. I certainly think we don't need to spend a lot of money sending Prince Andrew around the world!
Who do you most like to read?
Agatha Christie, Victoria Holt, Anthony Trollope, Tanith Lee, Lee Child.
What is next for you?
BAD BRIDES, out next June! I'm writing it now. Clearly the spectacular weddings in KILLER QUEENS weren't quite enough for me!