Can you tell us a little bit about your new novel Better Together?
It's the story of a feisty national newspaper reporter, Sheridan Gray, who loses her job, her flat and her boyfriend at the same time and who has to take a termporary job on a regional newspaper to make ends meet. She's not one bit happy about moving to the sticks but she hopes that she'll be able to dig some dirt on the local big shot businessman who also happens to own the paper (and who was indirectly responsible for her losing her job in the first place). However investigating his past also means hurting people that she's come to know, as well as potentially ruining her chance of love, so she has to weigh up her priorities.
Where did the inspiration come from for the novel?
In the current recessionary times lots of people are losing their jobs and having to start over and I wanted to write about how hard that is and how much it can knock even a very confident person. I also wanted to write about having to make hard choices. I don't normally have mysteries in my novels but there's a hint of one in this which was fun to write (as was Sheridan's head-over-heels relationship).
You used to be a female financier, what made you want to change your career?
Working in a bank was working for other people. Writing was always what I wanted to do. In the end I had to follow my own dream and it's been absolutely worth it.
What made you want to write about families, relationships and finding love?
I find families and how the people in them interact and connect endlessly interesting. The most important things in our lives are really our relationships with other people. As for love - well, it's wonderful to succeed and to be happy with what you're doing in life. But it's even better if you can share that with someone you love. Not all of my heroines find the man they're going to spend the rest of their lives with, though. However they're all hopefully in a better place at the end of the book than at the start.
What advice could you pass onto someone wanting to write in a similar way to yourself?
Write the story you want to write. Don't be influenced by other people, other writers or what you think is popular. Don't spend ages talking about it - just do it!
Your novel devles into the lives of two women and their struggles, how important is it to have more than one or two key characters in a book?
Some of my books focus more intently on one character than others, but it's good to have a balance in the book so that various events can be seen from different perspectives. Also, it's interesting for me as the writer to have to weave two different character's stories together. But the number of key characters really depends on the plot.
How do you handle keeping each character and their lives separate without confusing the reader?
I hope that I manage to make them seem as distinct individuals, so that the reader always knows who's who - rather like being in a big group of friends where everyone has their own story but you know who each one is! For myself, I keep notes on each character, adding to them as the book develops.
What plans do you have for a further novel?
I'm currently about halfway through writing my next novel which is also about family issues. In this case though they all end up in court, so I've had to do a lot of legal research. I flirted briefly with the idea of a career in law but I think I would have found it too frustrating.
You read the financial times readily, but who have been your main influences in your writing?
I read everything readily and so, being totally truthful with you, every single book I've ever read has influenced me in some way or another. When I was small I read the usual children's books of my time - Enid Blyton and Angela Brazil school stories, for example, which had huge casts of characters but which always held my interest. I used to write school stories myself when I was about twelve and read them to my sisters in exchange for them doing my household chores.....The Irish writer Maeve Binchy was probably the greatest influence in making me think that I could get a book published as, until she emerged, nearly all books set in Ireland were about farms and alcohol and that wasn't really my genre.
Who do you love to read?
I'm a really eclectic reader - I like different authors depending on my mood. I read a lot of crime and thriller novels because they're very different to my own work - Harlan Coben and Lee Child are favourites. If I want something gentle, Alexander McCall Smith's No 1 Ladies Detective Agency books are simply lovely. Anita Shreve and Joanna Trollope are both elegant writers. I'm also a fan of CJ Sansom for atmospheric writing and Sophie Kinsella for laugh out loud funny writing.
Better Together by Sheila O'Flanagan is published by Headline on 5th July hardback/ebook £13.99
Female First Lucy Walton
by Lucy Walton
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