Inspiration in the Desert

I'm just back from a research trip to Egypt. It was an amazing experience. However many times I had studied pictures of it in books or on TV, nothing prepared me for the impact of stepping into my first ancient Egyptian tomb of a Pharaoh.

It is utterly breathtaking. The artistry, the exquisite beauty of the carvings, the mystery and the sense of timelessness are overwhelming.

Because of the political turmoil in the country at the moment, there are barely any tourists there, so I was privileged to see the great sights of Egypt without jostling crowds or impatient queues in the hot sun. Hatshepsut's temple, Tutankhamun's tomb, Saqqara and Karnak, the glorious antiquities inside the Cairo and Luxor museums, all lie quietly undisturbed by chatter or clicking cameras.

But what turned out to be good fortune for me is of course causing Egypt's economic downfall, as they badly need tourists to return with their dollars and euros. The Egyptian people are warm and welcoming, and I experienced no difficulties of any kind, despite being in Cairo during the protests in Tahrir Square. And I ended the trip with a real highlight - a hot-air balloon flight at dawn over the desert and its treasures. Now I can write my new book with the amazing inspiration and energy I drew from those ancient tombs.

THE WHITE PEARL

The summer months flew by in a blur of broken knee, followed by trips to Italy (stunning scenery) and Germany (wonderful wedding), but now I am deep into research for another book - which I am loving. An inside peek for you - it will be set in Egypt.

But that's for the future. The big news at the moment is that my next book, THE WHITE PEARL, will be published in December in large format, and in usual paperback size in February 2012 in the UK and in March 2012 in the US. I am thrilled with the cover which says it all - the sweltering heat of Malaya, a young woman caught up in the danger of enemy airplanes and the passion of a love affair that changes the course of her life forever.

To explore Malaya (yes, I know it's Malaysia now but in 1941 when the book is set, it was called Malaya) was an exciting change after my last three books in Russia. I loved the challenge of learning to understand somewhere completely new to me, a different culture, a different world. I chose Malaya and I chose 1941 because it was a time when this astonishingly beautiful country was poised on the brink of catastrophe and when internal conflicts were preparing to tear the country apart as it tried to throw off the heavy yoke of colonialism.

So what's the story about?

Connie Hadley is my heroine. Warm and passionate but flawed. As the glamorous wife of a plantation owner, her life appears pampered and comfortable. But she is hiding a devastating secret that could destroy her marriage. Her world is blown apart on the day of the infamous attack on Pearl Harbour, when the Japanese army also invades Malaya. Connie takes the decision to flee on the family's yacht, The White Pearl, so she sails with her husband and son and a handful of friends in search of safety. But on the yacht, in constant danger, fear strips away good manners and anger causes divisions until .....

Enough, enough! I won't tell more. Don't want to let spoilers slip out.

This is always a difficult time for an author. The new book hangs in limbo, the writing finished, copyediting done, cover and blurb decided on by the publisher - just waiting for launch day. It's a nervy time. Early pre-publication copies have gone out to reviewers. Which magazines and newspapers will pick it up for review or even an article? And my head is still half in Malaya with Connie, but at the same time I am rummaging around with Howard Carter in Tutankhamun's tomb for the next book.

I try to be patient but I am itching to see THE WHITE PEARL on the bookshelves. Not long now.

On TWO shortlists!

What a super jamboree the RNA can throw! Champagne at 10 o'clock in the morning in the simply stunning setting of the RAF Club in Piccadilly, London, to announce the RNA Awards shortlist. And what better historical venue in which to be selected for the shortlist for the Best Historical Novel of the Year, as well as for the Best Romantic Novel of the Year.

The Jewel of St Petersburg is flashing its scarlet skirts in celebration.

What I love about meeting other writers is their boundless enthusiasm for their books, like mothers with precocious offspring, which meant the party in the President's Room buzzed with energy. When you get a host of writers, publishers, agents and media together - as well as trayfuls of champagne flutes - you get so much fizz your ears start popping. I think writers just don't get out enough!

I am impressed by the competition that Jewel has to face, a formidable line-up of talent, but I was particularly drawn to a book that for me stood out from the rest - titled Amazir and set in Morocco. It enchanted me. Okay, I admit it might be the gorgeous author, Tom Gamble, who did a bit of the enchanting, but I promise you he's one to watch.

Lunch with my agent afterwards at the V&A gave the celebration even more zip, though the subject of what my Next Book will be about raised its querulous head! But the day belonged to The Jewel of St Petersburg and we raised glasses to wish it success on March 7th when the winners will be announced.

Highlights & Lowlights

The highlight of this week has been the arrival in my son's home of Mishka (see above). She is a 13-week tabby-point Siamese kitten, but as her favourite game is 'fetch' with a fluffy ball and her preferred pastime is hurling herself up and down stairs while barking at full volume, I sense there is some confusion in that triangular little head of hers as to whether she is a cat or a dog!

The highlight of this month - and a great start to 2011 - is that The Jewel of St Petersburg has been longlisted for the RNA's Historical Novel of the Year Award, as well as its prestigious Romantic Novel of the Year Award. The shortlist will be announced in the splendour of the RAF Club in Piccadilly, London on Feb 10th. So watch this space.

And the lowlights? Still struggling with the end of The White Pearl. Endings are tough. I have some theories about this but will save them for a later post, as when I get started on discussing the pitfalls that lie in wait for a writer there is a distinct danger that there is no off-button!

I was recently asked by one delightful but misguided reader if I would offer him some thoughts and insights about writing. No reader should invite an author to hold forth about their thoughts and insights unless they are prepared to sit up all night listening! Writers are consumed by their characters and their stories - it's the only way they can ever get to the end of a book - and though writers try to look and act like normal people, their heads are seething with another life and another place. They sit smiling at you and nodding in the right places but don't be fooled! They learn to be cunning, so that you do not guess that their minds are far away, battling with the blank page that awaits them like a nemesis from their subconscious.

Maybe I'll get to the end of my current book faster if I learn from the kitten. Whatever lurks in the underworld of my mind needs to get out - even if it comes out as strange barks.

New Year

Happy New Year. It's that time again - an opportunity to get out the new broom, to make a fresh start, another chance to do everything better this time around. As optimism is my default mode, I number myself among that absurdly hopeful band who make new year resolutions and one of them this year is to give more time to my blog.

The problem is that Work and Life have a nasty habit of getting in the way. Towards the end of 2010 Life got in the way big time, disrupting my schedules, so that instead of finishing The White Pearl by Christmas, I have yet again missed my deadline. Which makes me so cross I kick the cat. But now that Life is taking a backseat once more, I am up and running towards the finish of the book.

My publishers at Little,Brown UK and Berkley US have been angels, shifting publication and production dates to accommodate the delay in delivery. Nevertheless I still feel a heel about it. This throws up the temptation to take shortcuts, to reduce the number of scenes, to make them shorter, get to the point faster. Of course this kind of self-editing is no bad thing. It produces a better, pacier book. Altogether more focused. I advise all would-be novelists to practise writing a scene to a time limit because it's amazing what pressure can produce. A different part of the brain kicks in.

Finding the right balance is the difficult part, between thinking time and writing time, but my heroine, Connie, is giving me a quick rap on the knuckles. She's impatient to strut her stuff through Malaya and get out there on the bookshelves for all to see.

My other new year resolution? Not to be a slave to my characters who stomp around my head as if they own the place. I'm threatening them with a new broom!

Publication Day

The Jewel of St Petersburg - today is publication day in the UK. A day of excitement and jangling nerves. A day for cruising the bookshops. Interviews, book-signing, photographs, talks - it's all part of the process of launching a new book. And my publisher, Little, Brown/Sphere, does it with style.

After a solid year of hard work - to be honest, in this case more than a year because I ran wickedly over deadline - it gives me a huge sense of satisfaction to see the book out there on the shelves in all its Russian glory. (On the cover, that's the white marble Jordan staircase from inside the Winter Palace in St Petersburg.)

I have an urge to hug it and pet it when I see its swathe of red on the display tables. But at the same time publication also brings a sense of closure. I can put it behind me and move on - which feels a bit like betrayal, abandoning one child and taking off with another.

I have been asked which of my books I like best and I know my answer will always be the same:- whichever one I'm writing at the moment. I fall in love with my characters and can't imagine my life without them - until the next lot come along. Such is the fickle nature of an author.

But it is also why I enjoyed writing a sequel to The Russian Concubine so much and now this prequel set in the glamorous tsarist times. It meant I could prolong my relationship with Valentina and Lydia and explore what it was that made them the people they became in the later books, as well as indulging once more my passion for Russia.

A flash of red dress and a flick of a page carry me straight back into that turbulent world, so that I have to struggle to detach my mind and immerse myself in the next book which is set in the tumult of Malaya 1941. But I have secret plans to return to Russia - at least one final time. Just don't tell my publisher yet!

Why a Prequel?

This is the question I am asked by readers: if you intended to write a trilogy about the Ivanov family, why not write them in the correct historical order? Why write the first part of the story last?

A simple answer: when I sat down to write my first book, The Russian Concubine, I had no plans to make it a trilogy. You have to understand that the convoluted processes that go on in an author's brain are mystifying even to an author! I had no idea when I wrote it that Lydia Ivanova would come to play such a large part in my life or that I would fall in love with her beautiful damaged mother, Valentina.

So when I finished the second book - The Concubine's Secret(UK)/The Girl From Junchow(US) which follows Lydia's search for her father - two things kept elbowing out all others in my mind.

1) Firstly, how did Valentina Ivanova become the woman she did? What happened? What gave this private, secretive pianist such strength and yet such crippling weakness?

2) Secondly, what was Russia like to live in before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution? I had shown Russia during its grim repressive regime under Stalin's communism and now I wanted to show the other side of Russia. The glamorous side. The world of the Russian Court, the most extravagant and decadent in all Europe, with the final days of glory of Nicholas II, Emperor and Tsar of all the Russias.

It sounds a straightforward task, doesn't it? No such luck. I quickly discovered there are even more pitfalls in writing a prequel than in writing a sequel.

Throw-away references to the past in the other two books plagued me and had to be shoe-horned into the new one - which meant two characters both called Nikolai (argh!) and Valentina aged 15 years old when she first met Jens, not 17, as I needed her to be in Jewel (aargh!). Constantly I was tripped up. Harder still was planting in my portrayal of Valentina the seeds of the person she was to become.

Nevertheless I loved writing The Jewel of St Petersburg and exploring Valentina's world, displaying the magnificence of Russia as well as its suffering. Giving a glimpse of how the two are twined inexorably together. So now I shall sit back and keep a sharp eye on Valentina as she flashes her red skirts in the bookstores.