What do you love most about being a writer?

Creating characters who become so real I can’t believe they don’t exist.

What do you like least about being a writer?

Nothing yet, it’s early days and it’s all fab.

I lived in London for over 10 years and loved it, so that has to be one of my favourite places to set a novel. I imagine the more I write the further afield I might venture.

The first, Bought: Damsel in Distress – it was the one that came up through the ‘Feel the Heat’ contest and got me published so it’ll always be special.

There are too many to choose from!

Prudence by Jilly Cooper

The Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

The Oxford English Dictionary

Get your hands on a copy of Kate Walker’s 12-Point Guide to Writing Romance and join the RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme.

Anything as long as it’s something I haven’t cooked and there isn’t a mushroom within twenty metres. My husband, candles and red wine would have to be there. Alfresco would be nice, so a warm breeze is a must. Can I also ask for a sunset and fairy lights or might that be a little demanding...?

Can I choose Charade? I guess it isn’t strictly a romantic film, although there is romance in it, but it’s wonderful. The dialogue between Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn is simply magical.

If You’re Not the One by Daniel Bedingfield. The lyrics are beautiful.

Not long ago I was feeling fluey and lamenting the fact that I didn’t have a hot water bottle.The next thing I knew my husband had filled an empty wine bottle with boiling water, stuck the cork back in, wrapped it in his (clean) rugby socks and smuggled it under the duvet. Very unexpected and all the more wonderful for being frankly rather uncharacteristic.

Separate bathrooms.

Ooh, that’s a tricky one. Everyone has their own interpretation of what romance is - one woman’s bunch of roses is another’s makeshift hotwater bottle. So I guess it would have to be to remind yourself of what you believe romance is and then do it.

The Convento de Sao Saturnino at Cabo da Roca on Portugal’s Atlantic coast where my husband and I spent the first few days of our honeymoon. It’s a restored convent which nestles in the hills and overlooks the sea. Totally isolated and littered with nooks and crannies, it’s heavenly.

Besides writing, what other talent would you most like to have?

I’d love to be able to tango.

My mother, because she is an inspiration and eternally supportive.

No.

I’m not sure what they’re called, but they’re strawberry flavoured tubes filled with white sugary creamy stuff. They look a bit like pencils that haven’t been sharpened. Ruinous for the teeth and figure, but deliciously addictive.

Generosity.

Laser eye surgery.

Miserable. (Is this where I should mention my secret hankering to be a police detective?)

There are two maxims I try and live by but unfortunately don’t always succeed: Do as you would be done by; and if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all. I don’t know who said either.