About the author
INFLUENCES
I was born in Whitefield, near Manchester, in the north of England. As a child, I loved reading books more than anything else. I always wanted to be a writer but believed it would be impossible. When I discovered that Dodie Smith, author of One Hundred and One Dalmations had also been born in Whitefield I was amazed that such a being had once inhabited my own small town.
I loved writing stories, and recently a former teacher sent me one of my stories about a servant girl written when I was ten years old that spookily prefigures An Appetite for Violets. Despite winning the English Prize I loathed school and left as soon as I could, and thanks to the generosity of state funded grants I was able to study English Literature for my first degree. My course deepened my fascination with the Gothic, especially Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Herman Melville. I also love the more Gothic aspect of Dickens, especially Great Expectations and Bleak House - and of course Daphne du Maurier, Wilkie Collins, and Conan Doyle.
I also love contemporary crime fiction. Ruth Rendell’s A Fatal Inversion is one of my favourites, set in a dilapidated manor house during the long hot summer of 1976. P D James, Andrew Taylor, Sarah Waters, and Robert Galbraith are just a few of the many crime novelists I recommend.
I loved writing stories, and recently a former teacher sent me one of my stories about a servant girl written when I was ten years old that spookily prefigures An Appetite for Violets. Despite winning the English Prize I loathed school and left as soon as I could, and thanks to the generosity of state funded grants I was able to study English Literature for my first degree. My course deepened my fascination with the Gothic, especially Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Herman Melville. I also love the more Gothic aspect of Dickens, especially Great Expectations and Bleak House - and of course Daphne du Maurier, Wilkie Collins, and Conan Doyle.
I also love contemporary crime fiction. Ruth Rendell’s A Fatal Inversion is one of my favourites, set in a dilapidated manor house during the long hot summer of 1976. P D James, Andrew Taylor, Sarah Waters, and Robert Galbraith are just a few of the many crime novelists I recommend.
BAKING
Stories and food are invariably linked for me, and I taught myself to bake from my mother's tattered Good Housekeeping books. When I was a student I started baking to save money, by making local English specialities such as Bakewell Tart, biscuits and cakes. When more opportunities to travel arrived, I became fascinated by foreign foods and entered a Merchant Gourmet contest with a Spanish dish for a Smoky Asturian Stew. I prepared it at Leith's cookery school in London, won the contest, and the prize was a French cookery course in Provence. At Le'Baou D'Infer the chef was Alex Mackay, former director of the cookery school at Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat Saisons. I particularly loved learning to make excellent French sweet pastry for a variety of delicious tarts.
When planning to write An Appetite for Violets I needed to discover how my 18th century cook Biddy might practically go about preparing dishes. I was privileged to meet TV food historian Ivan Day from whom I learned an immense amount about historic cookery, using forgotten techniques and attempting the truly amazing sugarwork skills that evolved in the 18th century.
When planning to write An Appetite for Violets I needed to discover how my 18th century cook Biddy might practically go about preparing dishes. I was privileged to meet TV food historian Ivan Day from whom I learned an immense amount about historic cookery, using forgotten techniques and attempting the truly amazing sugarwork skills that evolved in the 18th century.