To celebrate three years of Books in my Handbag Blog, I invited a special guest to join me. Sue Moorcroft was the first guest on my blog three years ago and is renowned for her captivating escapist fiction. I asked her about her latest novel, Summer on a Sunny Island, and where she finds her stories and characters. Get the kettle on, join us for a chat and let’s indulge in a short break to Malta where sparks are flying.
Jessie: When did you get your big break in writing?
Sue: Securing my agent Juliet of Blake Friedmann. She sold two books to Avon, HarperCollins and they got the first, The Christmas Promise, to #1 on UK Kindle in December 2016.
Jessie: Did you dream of becoming an author when you were a child?
Sue: Yes. I was six or seven when I realised someone created what went between a book’s covers and decided I’d like that to be me.
Jessie: Have you ever been tempted to chat to readers if you see them buy your book in the supermarket?
Sue: I was once in W H Smith in St Pancras Station, talking to a friend where A Christmas Gift stood on the shelf. A lady picked up a copy. I froze but my friend said, ‘Would you like to meet the author?’ We chatted and took photos and members of staff joined in and another guy came up and said he knew me from columns I wrote for Writers’ Forum. It was a lovely experience. Ideas come from all over. I began my new book, Summer on a Sunny Island, after visiting Malta with my brothers and sister-in-law for a service kids’ reunion.
Jessie: You have written an amazing number of novels. Where do you get your ideas from? Are you constantly searching for characters?
Sue: I made Rosa’s mum and Zach’s dad army kids who’d lived on the island. Another spark was a sweet anecdote I heard about a celeb cook, which made me make Rosa’s mum a food writer. Zach’s troubled past comes from my memory of a guy at school. Part of Rosa’s from something that happened when I worked in a bank. I’m lucky to have a plotty head that weaves together things I remember/hear about.
Jessie: How many times do you draft a book before you send it to your editor? How many rewrites do you go through before the book is ready to release into the wild?
Sue: Two or three drafts before I send the book in. Then comes a structural edit (probably another two drafts), a line edit and a copy edit. Sometimes two of these edits are combined into one.
Jessie: Your novels always have distinctive settings. Did you visit Malta before you wrote the latest novel, Summer on a Sunny Island?
Sue: I was brought up there for several years and return whenever I can. Last year, with Summer on a Sunny Island in progress, I visited four times! I wrote about a quarter of the first draft there, which was an enriching process.
Jessie: What are the themes and contemporary issues in Summer on a Sunny Island?
Sue: Characters standing at a crossroads in their lives; online gambling; young people pulled into the wrong crowd; family dynamics; negative equity traps; responsibility.
Jessie: The opening lines of your novels always hook me. Please share the opening lines of Summer on a Sunny Island.
‘Rosa twirled her wine glass, trying to choose her words over the chatter and clatter of Gino’s pavement café and the rumble of traffic along the seafront road. Here in the busy area of Sliema, old buildings outnumbered the new and the promenade was filled with people selling harbour cruises to tourists. Rosa preferred Ta’ Xbiex, where she was staying, about a mile along the coast, with its traditional stone villas. Sliema’s air was punctuated by the sound of car horns but in Ta’ Xbiex you could sometimes catch the mellow sound of church bells rising into the blue sky above the boats bobbing on the sparkling sea.’
Jessie: I am so grateful to you for writing such great escapes. What do you read when you want to escape?
Sue: I read in the area I write – authors such as Jules Wake/Julie Caplin, Kathryn Freeman, Rhoda Baxter, Christina Courtenay – and romantic suspense such as Toni Anderson, Suzanne Brockmann and Linda Howard. I also love books on Formula 1!
Jessie: What message would you like to give to your dedicated group of readers?
Sue: THANK YOU. There are few things give me more pleasure than readers enjoying my books. And thank you, Jessie, for inviting me onto Books in my Handbag!
As an international bestselling author of escapist fiction, Sue Moorcroft is the perfect writer to visit my blog. As I can’t travel, I fancy an escape to Malta because we need an ‘uplifting happy read’ at the moment.
Sue Moorcroft is a Sunday Times and international bestselling author and has reached the coveted #1 spot on Amazon Kindle. She’s won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award, Readers’ Best Romantic Novel award and the Katie Fforde Bursary. Sue’s novels of love and life are currently released by publishing giant HarperCollins in the UK, US and Canada and by an array of publishers in other countries.
Her short stories, serials, columns, writing ‘how to’ and courses have appeared around the world.
Born into an army family in Germany, Sue spent much of her childhood in Cyprus and Malta but settled in Northamptonshire at the age of ten. An avid reader, she also loves Formula 1, travel, time spent with friends, dance exercise and yoga.
Website [www.suemoorcroft.com]
Blog [http://suemoorcroft.wordpress.com]
Facebook profile [Sue.Moorcroft.3]
Facebook author page [https://www.facebook.com/SueMoorcroftAuthor
Twitter [@suemoorcroft]
Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/suemoorcroftauthor/] @SueMoorcroftAuthor
LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/suemoorcroft]
Please see all my author interviews at My Guests and my website and blog at JessieCahalin.com.
A copy of my novel is available here.