Hello Gina. Thank you so much for joining me today. Can you tell me about your novel, After the Husbands and what inspired it?

After the Husbands is set on a river cruise in Vietnam. I have always been fascinated by Vietnam, ever since I was in the USA shortly after the Vietnam USA War had finished. There I kept meeting men who had served in Vietnam and hearing their stories of this incredibly beautiful place torn apart by war. It gave me a real interest in the county but I always wondered what the Vietnamese thought about the USA. Then a couple of years ago we were lucky enough to win a Mekong Cruise; the basis for After the Husbands was set.

What’s your typical writing day like? Do you have a favourite place to write and any daily rituals?

I have three places in the house where I like to write, and one away from home. The first is my office, which is good in the summer or if there are too many people in the house, however it has a big drawback; it has three outside walls and is perishingly cold in the winter. My second favourite place, and where I do most of my writing is on the kitchen table. There I am definitely in the thick of things and I enjoy the general buzz around me. However, sometimes that gets too much and I retire to the only smart room in the house. It is very seldom used but is within the body of the house so it is warm. I like to sit behind the sofa on a little table and write. In that place I have a fabulous view of the garden and the world outside my writing.

Away from home I will write on my Ipad. My computer is very old and I don’t like to carry it outside the house, so I write on the Ipad and transfer my writing back there when I get home.

Most days I will write in the morning, but sometimes life gets in the way of writing and then I just take whatever moments I can get to write. Once I’m started I find it easy to concentrate, even when surrounded by people.

What were the challenges you found when writing your novel especially when it’s part of a wider series?

The biggest challenge for me in the series is remembering the exact timeline and not making children into adults too early or adults suddenly regress ten years. I do spend a lot of time working out what ages people should be.

What songs would make up a playlist for your book?

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