A Book Full of Jolly Japes you say? Oh F...flip!

 When I asked my publisher what were the hot new trends in the book market, she answered 'joy and cheerfulness' and I thought 'GREAT' because my new book is set between a death and a funeral and features some very dark themes.

But...

Also in her list of 'wants' was the word 'hope' which I consider an essential in books of my genre. You can drag a reader over hot coals, but you must leave them with hope that we can overcome just about anything. This is what our readers want, some of them even need it because they look for guidance in our words.

It's the fault of a lady I was sitting with at an event why Together, Again turned out the way it did. She was sweet, ordinary - in the nicest way, warm, the sort of person you think would be an affectionate mother and granny. And as we chatted, our discussion got very deep. I have a theory that people like to tell authors their stories, not because they want them turned into a book but because they feel understood, because we deal with big issues sensitively and with insight and they sense that we are safe places (that may be bollocks of course). But certainly in my experience, people I talk to tell me their innermost secrets even though I have just warned them that I harvest any information that may be given to me. Anyway, the story she told me of her early life was horrendous. A mother who pimped her out to her boyfriends, who was cold to her but strangely much warmer to her brothers. Only one day of the year - Christmas - did her mother defrost and she was given a load of presents... that promptly disappeared on Boxing Day. She left home when was just sixteen and has never seen her mother since. Yet she confessed she loved her mother and people couldn't understand that. I got it. Something inside us tries to compel the force of shared blood and though we may feel love for something, we may have to resist having to do something about it. We are often at war with our feelings. Our heads and hearts are not always congruent.

I felt as if it was a story I had to write, even if the market was crying out for jolly japes. My last book - The Woman in the Middle - was about a loving family, a matriarch who would kill for her offspring. What fun to write the total flip side of that, about a narcissist mother who had children for reasons other than to love them and care for them. To have a family who had everything on paper to those looking in, but for the children to be starved of that most essential of nourishment growing up - love.

And more importantly, as the three girls grow up, feeling they are failures from the off, what are the repercussions of such a childhood, born to parents who create them but can't be bothered putting anything but minimal effort into them? 

There are many who blame their present failures for their backgrounds, but there are more who are determined to shake them off, to never put their own children what they went through and that requires a lot of will because the propensity must be to repeat patterns, exhibit learned behaviour. The woman I spoke to over tea and scones showered her family with the love she never had. She might have classed herself as someone unspectacular but I marvelled at the resilience and strength I doubt she even knew she possessed. She was an embodiment of hope that children can come through the most horrific upbringing and rise from the ashes like a magnificent phoenix. 

So, my story is about three women who have never really bonded because they were born seven years apart and what happens to them when they are free from the shadow of their mother, even though she continues to play with their heads from beyond the grave - an enigma to the last. It pulled the lungs from me writing it, I couldn't get it right at first and I was frightened I had attempted something beyond my capabilities. I could see what I wanted to do, but I couldn't get to it. Then I met that lady and everything just slotted into place.

I had a LOT of letters from readers about The Woman in the Middle because it touched a nerve with so many of them that they were women in the middle, swimming in a sea of familial duty and feeling as if they were getting nowhere, and berating themselves for everything they got wrong yet ignoring everything they got right. I am preparing for many letters from people who read Together, Again and recognise themselves in the pages - sadly. And I just hope their letters tell me that they too have survived and become strong and found happiness. Because it's more than possible for any wound to heal, to escape the past, savour the freedom of the present and look forward to the future.

Together, Again is Milly's 20th novel. Please check out her website for news, appearance dates, how to get hold of signed copies.