It’s the middle of April-Friday the thirteenth no less-and it is still freezing cold outside, although it would be remiss of me not to be grateful that the sun is shining and the snow is gradually fizzling out.
I have been asked, on numerous occasions, what inspired me to write Alex and the Druids’ Eclipse: A Cornish Tale. Digging deep into my ideological beliefs I have tried to recognise and sift through what moves me and I truly believe that it was my inexhaustible passion for reading that made writing a hunger I had to satisfy. I have been an avid reader all my life, to the extent that I cannot go a whole day without digging my nose into a book for at least part of it.
There is no particular genre I prefer, it is whatever ‘speaks’ to me when I am at the bookstore choosing my next read. Some of my favourite ‘must-read’ authors include John Grisham and Dan Brown, who never fail to amaze me with stunning detail and suspense, M. C. Beaton, her Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth characters are, for me, comfort reading at its best, Hannah Dennison and the Honeychurch Hall series, which I discovered on a family visit to Cornwall last year and can’t get enough of, with its most civilised, murder-mystery, humorous, view of a village-life setting. I must admit to being a huge fan of Enid Blyton as a child and devoured each and every book she wrote, and even from a ripe young age I was reading six books each week from the public library-I think that was the maximum allowed at the time-so it was a natural progression that I felt the undeniable tug to write from an early age.
When my husband and lovely daughters came along writing took a place on the back burner, but I still continued to outline and play around with ideas and scenarios. It was not until my first grandchild was born that I knew I had to introduce him to the Cornwall I love, to help him feel the tug of his own Celtic roots and delight in the myths and legends that are sewn into the very fabric of the land. This was unquestionably my real inspiration for Alex and the Druids’ Eclipse: A Cornish Tale, and in crafting the story I found that writing full-time was not an option for me but realisation of a life-long dream and imperative to my own peace and satisfaction. I resigned from my employment to follow Alex as he lands himself in all sorts of impossible situations, in worlds where anything can happen, and always infused in Cornish legend.
Until next time………………
