Born in Cyprus to RAF parents, Marianna Holmes is a woman who spent her earlier years bouncing between the UK, Germany, Kuwait and Belgium, before finally basing herself in London, bar some years spent in the Peak District.
Marianne Holmes opens up for readers
Now, she's released her debut novel A Little Bird Told Me, so we caught up with her to find out 7 things she wants all of her readers to know about her.
1. I love getting older. I had my first child at 40 and my debut, which feels an entirely unsuitable word, novel published at 51. The timing feels entirely right and appropriate for me. Life still holds plenty of challenges but there’s something reassuring about having a heap of experience to deal with it.
2. Don’t ask me where I’m from! My father was in the RAF and we moved around a lot as a family, so I always struggle to answer this question. If pushed, I say London because that’s home now and where I feel most comfortable, but I was born in Cyprus and then lived in the UK, Germany, Kuwait and Belgium.
A Little Bird Told Me is partly set in 1976 because that’s the summer we returned to the UK from Germany, and I have a very strong memory of what it was like here.
3. I’m a night owl, so it takes a couple of large mugs of tea in the morning before I feel human. My ideal day would start with a great deal of tea, a swim and then a comfortable chair and a good book.
4. I will read absolutely anything, although I’m trying harder to put down books that I don’t enjoy because there are so many books for all tastes and moods out there and life’s too short! But I do get a thrill from falling in love with a book that I hadn’t expected to be my thing.
I loved reading with my children when they were younger and still do when I’m allowed. Both kids read on their own now and can often be found under their duvets late at night with several books and a torch. I have to wait in line to read the 10 year old’s books after her, and I’m already making a list of all the great looking YA stories ‘we’ can read in the years to come!
5. I’d always wanted to be a writer, but it took a long time for me to take it seriously. When my youngest started attending a playgroup, I began writing purely for my own pleasure and gradually gained confidence through sharing my stories with writing friends. Over time, I started to pull these stories together into A Little Bird Told Me and that’s when the serious editing began.
6. I’m a secret ancient-history and dead-languages nerd. I fell in love with the old myths and legends as a child. That then turned into a fascination with what we can learn of the true histories through archaeology and how ancient languages and stories are translated and interpreted.
7. I have a terrible memory for details and would be useless on a trivia quiz team. I find it much easier to think about how a period looks or feels in my imagination than remembering specific dates and events. I am, however, excellent at Monopoly.
Marianne Holmes' debut novel A Little Bird Told Me is available now.