Last Voyage of the Valentina - author Q & A

Q: When did you begin writing? How did you know you wanted to become a professional writer?

A: I started writing children's books when I was about ten. Before then I had always written as a hobby and drawn pictures to go with the mini books I made. At school from the age of about 15 I tried many times to write a proper romantic book, but having no experience in love, they were all rejected. Quite rightly! I always dreamed of being a professional writer, but never in my wildest ones did I really believe it would happen. It wasn't until I was nineteen that I lived in Argentina for a year and found my first big love story. I loved it so much that leaving was heartbreaking. I returned to Argentina a year later to find, to my horror, that I didn't fit in any more. The young people I had hung out with on this beautiful farm on the pampa had dispersed to study in the US and other places. I was a tourist where once I had belonged and I couldn't bring back that magical year however hard I tried. I didn't write the story, which was an allegory of my love affair with Argentina, until I was 25. It came out in 2001, when I was 31.

Q: What sparked the idea for this novel?

A: This is my fifth novel, so I wanted to do something different. Having done four family sagas based in Argentina and Chile, I decided to move to Italy and write a murder mystery love story with a dramatic twist. The idea came from my aunt who lived on a houseboat in Cheyne Walk in London's swinging sixties, that had been a motor torpedo boat in the second world war. I immediately seized upon the idea of having a boat with a tragic history going back to 1945 on the Amalfi Coast.

Q: Can you tell us about your inspiration for Alba? Do you see yourself as Viv, the writer in the story? Are your friends' stories inspiration for your writing?

A: I am not either Alba or Viv. I wanted a heroine with a spiritual journey. A hedonistic girl who through her search for her mother and the various heartache that search involves, finds herself and the true meaning of happiness. My sister is very fiery and complicated, so knowing her was a help! I always have a Viv character in my books. I love writing those cameo rolls of larger than life people, they also add humor to my books, which are obviously sad. They give the books balance. I take inspiration from everyone I see! I am a sum of my experience - everything goes into the melting pot out of which I draw ingredients for my characters.

Q: Your writing gives your readers a very beautiful and clear picture of the Italian countryside. Do you have a personal relationship with the Amalfi coast that allowed you to write about it so intimately? Did you visit the coast during the course of your writing?

A: I studied Italian and Spanish at Exter University and spent a year in Italy. I spent a lot of time on the Amalfi coast and once you've been there, it never leaves you!

Q: The Last Voyage of the Valentina seems to encompass many genres, and could be described as both a murder mystery and a romance. How did you accomplish this so well?

A: I would never describe myself as a crime writer, the book is about love and the crimes committed in its name are a minor part of it. That said, I had never written about murder so I really had to plan it out very carefully as when you're revealing truths in the second half of the book, the seeds for those truths have to be sewn in the first half and then you have to decide who reveals what and when. Timing is important and how truths are revealed. It was great fun to do, having never written a book in this way before, and an enormous challenge. I hope the mystery aspect gives the book more depth and keeps you turning those pages!

Q: Do you think it's fair to say that there is an old-fashioned sensibility to your writing?

A: Definitely. I am an old fashioned kind of girl! I'm incredibly nostalgic for the past, my own past and history. Love over the photocopier doesn't do it for me! I like a great big canvas of both past and present and characters whose lives I can draw in their entirety. I love beautiful places you can smell, hearbreaking love stories and cuddly eccentric characters that stay with you after you've finished reading the book. I write the sort of books I love to read and I know my limitations and what I'm good at.

Q: There is a strong element of religious superstition in your novel as tragedy befalls Valentina after the statue does not bleed. What research did you do in writing of the religious implications of this occurrence?

A: I didn't have to do any research because I studied Italian literature at university, also having lived in Argentina, which is mostly made up of Italians, and Italy, superstition is all around you. I'm also a great fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende. I have seen spirits since I was small and have a strong, unwavering belief in spirit life after death.

Q: Who are your favorite writers?

A: I adore Fanny Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes is one of my all time favouites. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera, and Isabel Allende' House of the Spirits. I've just read Shadow of The Wind, which I adored and all Mary Wesley's are touching and funny. I'm re-reading Corelli's Mandolin because I admire the way Louis de Bernier writes. Anita Shrieve is good and of course Jodi Picoult is amazing. I cry and cry in her books, but she writes with such a light touch there's no heaviness there, just beauty. Nicholas Sparks is a good storyteller. Bridges of Madison County was so powerful -- that story has never left me. I love to read the classics: Anna Karenena by Tolstoy and the Count of Montecristo by Dumas are two of the best books I have ever read.

Q: What is the best piece of advice about writing you have ever received? And what advice would you give to a young writer starting out?

A: Write about what you know - don't think about how other people will judge you, just write from the heart without inhibition - be brave and extravagant with your writing, you have to find your 'voice' and however well you write your 'voice' will always be unique - write sensually, think smell and sound to evoke a sense of place and remember when drawing characters that we don't love people for their perfections but for their imperfections that make them different from everyone else in the world - never give up, it will happen, - however many rejections incur, remember, you only need ONE agent and ONE publisher. Starting a book is the most difficult part, once you've invented your world, don't leave it until the book is finished. OH and one more piece my husband told me: don't get it right, get it written - ie, wait until you've finished it before you start to polish it or you'll never leave chapter 1.

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