Yes, I know we've already had an author interview this week, but - call it end of November madness - here's another. Anna Davis is the author of The Shoe Queen, which, if you like books and you like shoes (and, let's face it, who doesn't?) should be right up your alley. Review coming soon. (Do you know, I actually thought about writing "shoe-n" then. I need a holiday.)
Please describe your latest book in 15 words or fewer:
Passionate affair between a married society woman and a famous shoe designer
in 1920s Paris.
Where do you like to write your books (in bed, a coffee shop, an office)?
I would LIKE to write them in a sparsely furnished house at an exotic location with a great view of mountains, sea etc. I ACTUALLY write them in a very cluttered, dusty study that I share with my husband, while looking out the window at the hideous cladding on the house across the road.
Your favourite chick-lit book?
I don't really read chicklit. If you can include historical fiction in that, I'd say Suzannah Dunn's The Sixth Wife, which I read recently.
Your favourite female heroine (if different from above!), and why?
Undine Spragg in Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country. She's a kind of Footballer's wife on the loose in the genteel society drawing rooms of early 1900s New York. She's sort of hideous but you have to love her for it.
What tips would you give to any of our readers who want to become writers?
One of the things that makes a really good novelist is the ability to edit and rewrite (over and over if necessary). Writing the first draft of a novel can be fun, but it's when you reach the end that the real work begins. Also, don't do it for the money - the money's usually rubbish.
What are you reading at the moment?
Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel. It's a spooky novel about a fat clairvoyant!
What are you working on now? (If you can give us a hint!)
A novel set in 1920s London, about a gossip columnist (she'd be one of the earliest columnists) who meets and falls for two charismatic Americans who are sworn enemies.
Do you have a theme song?
Nah. I've always got a song on the brain and today it's Franz Ferdinand's Take Me Out. More often than not it's something my 4-year-old daughter listens to all the time, like Bob the Builder or Alice the Camel. Argghh!
What question have you never been asked in an interview, but think you should have been? (Tell us the question and answer it too, if you like!)
Q: What's your guilty secret?
A: All of my heroines in my novels have a guilty secret. The secret
lies behind and at the heart of everything and is often the reason they
behave the way they do (badly). It's a question I should be asked but
which I probably wouldn't answer!
Thanks, Anna!
