I started writing to rid myself of a niggling storyline that I couldn’t shake, yet my husband’s suggestion that I should try writing a book was initially met with mocking laughter! Five chapters in, and I was hooked, determined to see what Abbie and Joe got up to and where their story would end.

Early on, however, I realised that the tale of a young man’s obsession with an older woman was not going to revolve around her love of board games (she doesn’t actually have a love of board games…), so I would need to write about that which we should not speak of; yes, I was going to have to write sex scenes, and NO ONE wants to do that, unless you’re writing erotica, and I DEFINITELY wasn’t writing erotica. I persevered, and the more I wrote, the easier it became, but then, no one else had read any of it…

I wanted to write realistic characters, realistic scenarios, and as such, my novels, A Proclivity To Prurience, The Course Of Conviction and The Depths Of Deceit, are harsh, uncompromising and direct, yet still full of emotion, much of which, however, is anger, but there is still enough to tug at the heartstrings. There are no heroes, no happy endings, but this hasn’t put my readers off. It became very clear, very quickly, however, that what might put them off was sex. Whilst television programmes and films are not complete today without some kind of sex scene, it seems the publishing world is several steps behind, but that appears to be in recognition of readers’ tastes.

Despite the huge success of the Fifty Shades series, we still don’t really like books that are too graphic… it’s just not British! Consequently, I have been told by countless readers that knowing my first novel was so explicit made them nervous, but braving the uncomfortable language, the voyeuristic tone, they enjoyed it and couldn’t wait to read the sequel, and when they did, they were less troubled by the detail and language. There was also the question of writing about distressing, unpleasant events, disturbing plotlines that blurred the lines of morality and the law, but there are many that have experienced such times, and so, these stories deserves a place, and when I’m asked if that was my intention, to argue the inarguable, my response is, my intention was for you to ask the question, and then more. I wanted to draw people into a world they never wanted to enter, to encourage a different perspective.

Living in a rather closed world, I want to open the doors and force the sheep into a different pasture, to taste different grass and experience a different view, because there is SO much more to see if you open yourself up to the peripheries and don’t confine yourself to the vision of tunnels; too much can be missed by not looking at the entire landscape of opinions. Sex is a huge part of life, and an extremely interesting subject if you actually take the time to think about it, so including it in writing is necessary, but that’s not to say there will be the same level of carnality in my next venture; if it’s not essential to the plot, it won’t be there; if it is, however, I have absolutely no qualms about including it, and the same goes for those tricky storylines, the ones that unsettle, that disconcert, they’re not obligatory; who knows, there may even be a comedy one day!

Whether I can encourage people to read A Proclivity to Prurience and my other writings, I would hope, if nothing else, to encourage them to open their minds to something else, especially if it’s outside of their usual genre, their comfort-zone, because only then will they start to question things, question the barrage of information we are told and sole on a daily – even hourly – basis.

By defying stereotypes and highlighting our own personal hypocrisies, that side of us that allows our nearest and dearest to behave as they do but condemn the very same behaviour in others, we may just become a little more tolerant of the differences in real people, not just those that reside between the pages.

A Proclivity To Prurience available from Amazon: http://amzn.to/2Z1XW11

The Course Of Conviction available form Amazon – click on the cover

Available from April 23 2021…

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