Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I write heart-rending, gripping contemporary women’s fiction, which I’m hugely flattered to say has been compared to the legendary Maeve Binchy with ‘edge’.
My stories are multi-generational family dramas with a touch of romantic suspense and mystery. Born in England and bought up in Dublin, my novels usually have a very distinctive Irish flavour – I love writing about the landscape of my homeland.
To date I’ve written four full-length novels – three in the Heartfelt Series – The Hollow Heart, A Change of Heart and Secrets of the Heart. Plus my latest That Summer at the Seahorse Hotel – a standalone romantic suspense.
I’ve also written a highly acclaimed collection of short stories and poems entitled Fur Coat & No Knickers.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
That Summer at the Seahorse Hotel is my brand new, full length standalone romantic suspense. Many years ago I read a story about a young girl who inherited the entire estate of a movie star she had never even heard of. This started me thinking, imagine if you never knew who your father was and this happened. And so the tale began …
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I write longhand – as did the great Jackie Collins – but I’m left handed so I write from back to front in my notebooks, making comments like chapter headings and character traits in the front of the book so I don’t forget them. I write anywhere and everywhere, on trains, airplanes, anywhere I can be left alone for a while in my own little world.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
One of my favourite authors is PG Wodehouse, his lightness of touch is incomparable. I love F. Scott Fitzgerald, Evelyn Waugh, Maeve Binchy, Mary Wesley and Winston Graham – who created the wonderful Poldark.
Jackie Collins, Penny Vincenzi, Adele Parks, Jodi Picoult and JK Rowling are more modern influences and Nora Roberts is a goddess in my opinion.
What are you working on now?
My new romantic suspense, called A Most Deadly Affair, features a beautiful Dublin socialite who inherits the family business – a funeral directors. Her younger brother is furious and sets up in competition. He’s determined to ruin the long-standing family firm and has enlisted the help of a man his sister finds not only impossible to trust but completely irresistible. Yet she’s determined they won’t succeed, and if they do, it will be over more than just her dead body!
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Blog tours hosted by book bloggers are invaluable, plus Twitter and Facebook.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Get a team of supporters around you and stick with them. Writers, reviewers, friends and family, people you can rely on to support you on social media and keep talking about your books in lots of different ways. For instance, highlighting characters, research, places, food anything of interest featured in the story. I’m often surprised by what attracts people to become fascinated by what you have written.
Be honest, helpful and true to yourself. Try and reciprocate whatever kind deed someone has done for you – a review, a retweet or a pat on the back. And try to connect with your readers, it’s a wonderful when they tell you how your book made them feel – hold onto that when you’re gazing at that blank page!
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Write bananas. Seriously, when you’re stuck write bananas over and over again. You’re brain will soon get fed up and form a proper sentence … then … off you go!
What are you reading now?
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. It’s a wonderful book. Original, poignant and surprisingly funny in places, I’m really enjoying it.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I’ll finish A Most Deadly Affair and hope my publisher likes it, but I’m being nagged to write a prequel for That Summer at the Seahorse Hotel, and it’s not just reviewers who are nagging me, it’s the characters! I may be left with no choice.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
This selection would change every time I was asked to make it, you do realise that don’t you?
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Poldark by Winston Graham. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and The Oxford Dictionary – love reading dictionaries.
Author Websites and Profiles
Adrienne Vaughan Website
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