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BOOK: Love Is a Thief

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I think my overriding obsession is with people reaching their full potential. People so often write things off, or decide to just make do, and life doesn’t have to be like that. It’s not about shooting for the stars or doing something ground-breaking. It’s just about people taking time to think about the simple things in life that make them happy, in the absence of love, and making a little time for those things. I’d also like to make people laugh a little bit.

Where do you find your inspiration?

As a general rule, through spirit-crushing heartbreak. Every book I’ve written started with me weeping about some guy. The questions I ask in this book are the questions I asked my broken self aged thirty; questions about love, about kissing, about the calorie content of Quality Street Strawberry Creams and about why handsome men can be so goddamn distracting.

What do you love most about being a writer?

Sitting and writing is the only time I feel a hundred per cent like myself, like the person I was born to be. I don’t feel like my brain was wired to do anything else. My mum always said
there is nothing better than being the person who loves what they do
and I have spent the last ten years slowly working towards that goal and I hope I am starting to make steps towards that. I also like the fact that as a writer I can legitimately work anywhere in the world, including on a sun lounger by a pool; that it’s ‘important’ for me to spend hours and hours lying around daydreaming; and I like that I have a whole other bunch of other friends and handsome men living in my head.

Where do you write? Are you a paper/pen girl or a laptop in a coffee shop?

I don’t like white paper at all, so I always write on yellow. Paper is for planning and brainstorming. The rest of the work is done on laptop. I write anywhere and have always had a full-time job while writing, so I work on train journeys, in coffee shops before work, in the tiny spare room at my dad’s house at weekends. In fact my parents held an intervention because they didn’t think it was normal the amount of time I spent by myself typing. They didn’t know about all my imaginary friends and boyfriends in my head.

How often do you write?

After my first novel was rejected I didn’t write much at all for nearly two years. But slowly I started again. I used to spend my annual leave sitting on mountains developing different ideas, but was never totally convinced any of the stories were quite right.
Love is a Thief
gave me a better work ethic, because I felt like the universe had dropped something in my lap. I felt passionate about it in a way I never had before. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I didn’t write it. So I reorganised my life to make it happen and lived for two years on blind (borderline crazy) faith that if I sacrificed to make it happen everything would work out OK.

One piece of advice to aspiring writers …

I don’t in any way feel like I’ve got it sussed, so I’m reticent to advise anyone. I can tell you that, for me, the moment I took myself more seriously and said ‘I am’ rather than ‘I will be’ things started to change. Also I had, and have, a very clear vision about what I want to achieve. I have always wanted to be commercially successful. I have never wanted writing to be a hobby. I asked my agent early on, ‘Can you sell this?’ and she said, very,
very
nervously, ‘I think so’, so I said ‘Cool, I’ll send you the book when it’s done’ and did so about eighteen months later. If she’d said it wasn’t commercially viable, I probably wouldn’t have written it.

Do you believe in love at first sight?

I want to believe in love at first sight. My natural predisposition is towards the idea of one great love, one that transcends universal time, space, geographical boundaries and fluctuating weight issues. But the older I get, the louder the niggling voice of doubt becomes as I hear more and more people speak of love and relationships in a way that sounds very much
‘settling’. I want The Thunderbolt, but I’m starting to feel like a little girl at Christmas who is about to find out Santa doesn’t exist. I want to keep leaving out mince pies.

Do you believe in happy-ever-after?

I watched a TED talk recently about happiness. In it the speaker said that even when humans end up with their second choice they grow to love and prefer it. They did an assortment of different tests, including tests on amnesiacs who kept forgetting what their preference was, and in every scenario people came to prefer, love and then be grateful for the things they ended up with. So on that basis yes, the science says we will all inevitably end up
happy ever after
. Which is pretty cool. It certainly takes the pressure off my next boyfriend.

What was the first book you loved?

Roald Dahl’s
Revolting Rhymes
. Does that count? My mum used to read it to my brother and me before bed. We’d all end up weeping with laughter. That and
The Enormous Crocodile
. It’s Roald Dahl all the way for me.

Champagne or a cup of tea?

Champagne.

Winter or summer?

At a push winter, but not a British winter. I’m thinking snowy mountaintop in Canada or France.

Topshop or Gucci?

Topshop.

Do you have a guilty pleasure?

My guilty pleasure is that I have so many guilty pleasures. I’d wrestle a man to the ground for an After Eight or Ferrero Rocher. The soundtrack to my early twenties was Phil Collins. I feel a lot of guilt about
that. Teen Fiction. How am I expected to get through a copy of
Lolita
when I could get in bed and read the
Twilight
series?

Tell us a bit about your next book …

At the moment I am quite preoccupied with the idea of having it all and what that means for women. My ovaries are also quite preoccupied by that. So the next book is looking at that theme.

PLAYLIST TO
LOVE IS A THIEF

These are the songs that either I was listening to on repeat when writing and editing the book, or that contain lyrics that I felt resonated with the story or scene I was writing. I’m not exactly at the cutting edge of the music scene, but they are for me irrevocably attached to the book. There are actually more than the ones listed below, but I’ll be honest—they are all quite slow and depressing … The two in bold are the songs that for me sit at the beginning and end of the book.

I’m Not Calling You a Liar
–Florence & The Machine

High Love
— James Vincent McMorrow

This is What Makes Us Girls
— Lana Del Rey

Clocks
— Coldplay

Babushka
— Kate Bush

Keep Your Head Up
— Ben Howard

Never Tear Us Apart
— INXS

Every Teardrop is a Waterfall –
Coldplay

The depressing extras …

Turning Page
— Sleep at Last

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
— Coldplay

Colourblind
— Counting Crows

Old Joy
— Noah and the Whale

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Harlequin MIRA is a registered trademark of Harlequin Enterprises Limited, used under licence.

Published in Great Britain 2013
Harlequin MIRA, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1SR

eISBN 978-1-472-01079-7