I'm excited to welcome Annie Lyons on Sky's Book Corner today. I've actually had the pleasure to meet her a few days ago and that has been great! She's such a lovely lady!
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1. Did you always
dream of being a writer?
I didn’t really. I always loved words and books but I
didn’t think about becoming a writer until I became a mother.
2. Your newest novel Life or Something Like It was published this year, what is it about?
It’s about Cat Nightingale, who is at the height of
her career in PR and very happy with her life. She is unashamedly single and
definitely doesn’t want children. When a PR launch goes badly wrong, Cat has to
take step back from her job for a while. This coincides with her brother
needing someone to look after his children for the summer. Suddenly, Cat’s
world is turned upside down and nothing in her life will ever be the same
again.
3. What was your
inspiration for the book?
I wanted to write about a woman, who thinks she has
the perfect life until she is forced to look at the world again. I also wanted
to consider the theme of women becoming mothers
and how society puts pressure
on women to have children.
4. Can you tell us
more about the main character(s)?
I describe her as a reluctant heroine, who doesn’t
want to be swept off her feet. She is happily single and doesn’t want a
relationship. She loves her job, her 5-star lifestyle and the comforts that go
with it. She thinks she has everything. It’s only when she steps outside this
world that she realises that work, the iPhone, Twitter and so on, aren’t quite
as important as she originally thought.
5. Where and when do
you write your stories?
I fit everything around my children so my key writing
time is between 9 and 3, Monday to Friday during term times!
6. What do you do and
enjoy when you’re not writing?
I have recently started to play tennis again and I
love this, I go swimming as well and I’ve joined a choir, which is so much fun.
Most of all, I like to hang out with my husband and kids.
7. Your debut novel is
called Not Quite Perfect, can you
tell us more about it?
It's about the Darcy sisters - Emma and
Rachel. Emma is an editor for a book publisher, about to get married and on the
cusp of a very promising career. Rachel is her older sister, married with three
children and very much the stay-at-home Mum. They're both at very different
stages of their lives but are both wondering if this is it or if the grass is
greener elsewhere. Temptation arrives for Emma in the form of emergent writing
star, Richard Bennett, whilst Rachel begins some ill-advised flirting with her next-door neighbour, Tom. There’s a supporting cast including
their overbearing mother, genial father, bossy godmother and a crazy Swiss lady
called Christa. There are plenty of laughs and quite a bit of heartbreak too.
8. If you could switch
places with a characters from a book, who would it be and why?
I’ve always wanted to jump into a P.G. Wodehouse novel
and meet Bertie Wooster, so any female character who gets to don one of those
amazing costumes and dance the Charleston with Bertie would be perfect!
9. What books have influenced your life most?
Wuthering Heights was my favourite book as a teenager – it was nothing like I’d expected
and I loved the dark drama of it.
P.G. Wodehouse
has always been a favourite writer of mine and I particularly love the Jeeves
and Wooster stories – the comedy is perfect.
I am a big fan
of Anne Tyler too and find her writing style so brilliantly understated – A Patchwork Planet is probably my
favourite.
One Day by David
Nicholls was the book which made me want to write because it had everything I
love in a book – believable characters, humour, truth and sadness.
10. Dear Lizzie was published last year, what is the story about?
It’s about two sisters - Bea and
Lizzie, who are devoted to one another but very different. Bea is the
confident, accomplished one with a brilliant career, loving husband and young
son. Lizzie is lonely and alone, estranged from the rest of her family but
still in touch with her big sister, who acts as her guide and confidante
through life. When Bea dies, Lizzie is devastated but her sister leaves her a
parcel containing twelve letters to be opened, one a month, for the next year.
They contain Bea’s final wishes for her sister; wishes which she hopes will
make Lizzie happy but which will ultimately change her life forever.
11. What are you working on at the moment?
I am working on an idea for a new series, which is
still playing out in my head (with the occasional scribbled idea in my trusty
notebook). That sounds a bit mysterious, doesn’t it? Promise I’ll tell you more
once I know myself!
12. What do you enjoy most about writing?
When a readers tells you that
my stories touched them, or made them laugh or cry. That’s job done for me!
13. Imagine Life or Something
Like It would be turned into a movie, who would you cast for the main
characters?
Cat Nightingale would be
played by Emily Blunt and I think Christian Bale would make a good Finn – he
needs to be able to wear facial hair well.
14. Pick three authors you want to have dinner with and
tell us why.
Anne Tyler for the reasons
stated above – she is my writing heroine. Stephen Fry because I’ve been a fan
since I was a teenager and I have dreams every now and then that we’re best
friends. I need to meet to him because I’m pretty sure we would be best friends
if we met.
Stephen King because I am
fascinated by him as a writer and a person, and I think he’d get on really well
with Anne.
I would just sit back and let
them tell me everything I need to know.
15. Tell us about your journey to being a published
writer?
It really began in a stuffy classroom
on a creative writing course in 2008. Our teacher used Harlequin as an example
of good practices in storytelling and I started to play around with an idea. It
was my first real attempt at writing a novel and was never really supposed to
be published. However, I showed it to a friend who was also an agent and she
tried to find a home for it. I got lots of ‘we really love this but women’s
fiction is really tricky and we’ve got too many other similar authors’ so I shelved it for a time (during which I
wrote another book, received more rejections and almost gave up!). Then an old
work colleague suggested that I go on Linkedin and I got chatting to Jenny
Hutton (aka the supremely talented Jenny Oliver) who told me about Harlequin’s
new UK digital first imprint, Carina. She thought it would be perfect for them
and would I like her to introduce me? I was flabbergasted but managed to say
‘yes please’ and three months later Not Quite Perfect was unleashed on the
world!
16. Coffee or tea?
Coffee, far too much coffee.
17. Paperback or e-reader?
Both.
18. Mountains or the sea?
Sea.
19. Summer or winter?
Winter with lots of snow and
nowhere to be.
20.Sweet or salty?
Salty.
About the author
After leaving university, Annie
Lyons decided that she 'rather liked books' and got a job as a bookseller on
Charing Cross Road, London. Two years later she left the retail world and
continued rather liking books during an eleven-year career in publishing. Following
redundancy in 2009 she realised that she would rather like to write books and
having undertaken a creative writing course, lots of reading and a bit of
practice she produced Not Quite Perfect.
She now realises that she loves writing as much as coffee, not as much as her
children and a bit more than gardening. She has since written another two
novels and is about to start work on her fourth. She lives in a house in
south-east London with her husband and two children. The garden is somewhat
overgrown. One day she hopes to own a chocolate-brown Labrador named John and
have tea with Mary Berry.
Website
& social media
Twitter: @1AnnieLyons
Facebook: www.facebook.com/annielyonswriter
