She told fortunes for a living. It's a wacky book and was great fun to write. It is very much a look at what life was like for women in Australia in the 1960's.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
One of the more interesting challenges I face when doing research for my novels is to trace the lives of women who are vital to the narrative and try my best to give them back their voices.
What she did was to open our eyes to details of country life such as teaching us names of wild flowers and getting us to draw and paint and learn poetry.
The Spice Girl Victoria Beckham has just published the story of her life. I confess that it is not in my reading table.
We read on the foreheads of those who are surrounded by a foolish luxury, that fortune sells what she is thought to give.
Her book about the money in sex gives you the feeling of the sex in money.
I'm a commercial writer, not an author. Margaret Mitchell was an author. She wrote one book.
Dame Barbara Cartland was an endearing eccentric, and when I interviewed her, she wanted me to listen to her dictating to her secretary one of those romantic novels that she turned out fortnightly.
The first thing I read was of my character on the phone talking to Sydney's fiance. Though short, it was so beautifully written, and it made me laugh. I thought if I wanted to play a character, this would be it.
I'm mostly a historical romance reader, but I never miss a Susan Elizabeth Phillips book. Her characters are larger than life and heartbreakingly real at the same time. I don't know how she does it.
My kind publishers, Toby Mundy and Margaret Stead of Atlantic Books, have commissioned me to write the life of Queen Victoria.