S2. Chapter 9 - Interview with Carmel Harrington

 Welcome to season two, chapter nine of another chapter of the podcast. And in this episode we caught up with the wonderful and hilarious Caramel Harrington. So, Rebecca, what did you enjoy the most about our chat with Caramel? She is Absolutely fascinating. At one point during the interview, you will hear me asking her, like, would she ever consider writing a book about her own life? Because the stories we were getting about her background from writing her family, all of these things were absolutely fascinating. There was a couple of times that our jaws literally dropped as we were listening to her stories. Absolutely. And something that kind of stood out to me was just how natural storytelling is for her. she is an enthralling person to have a conversation with, Um, is there any question that you like? Sometimes we're, like, worrying that maybe just you couldn't come up with an answer. Is there anything you kind of want to discourage? Okay. There might be 1 or 2 kind of other ones. That's the general gist of what we'll be asking anyway, so if that's okay. Brilliant. Um, so, Claire, I think you need to introduce this episode. I think I introduced the last one. Or do you want me to do it? Yeah. Perfect. So we currently what we do is kind of. After we do the interview, we put a pop back on and do a little summary of what's coming up for this episode. So we do a little bit more of a chat there. Um, so I'll just get straight into your biography and introducing you, and we'll go on with questions from there if that's okay. Brilliant. guest chatting to us. Um, Camilla Harrington is an international bestseller from Wexford, where she lives with her husband, children and rescue dog George Bailey. Her Perfect. Absolutely novel, and perfect. several books have been shortlisted for an Irish Book Thank you. When you read it like that, it kind of sounds a bit all right, doesn't it? Really? You know, but when you're living that, know, when it's over the span of. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing what you pluck up in 12, 13 years. Yeah. No, I think you did a really great job, Rebecca. I think you've covered everything there. And, um. Yeah. That's everything. Um, it's 12 books in total, and the most recent being, um, The Little Secret. So, yeah, it's been a busy 12 years. One book a year. Mhm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. No, I'd love to. Um, well, it's my full time job. I suppose that's first and foremost is that, you know, and it is a job to me. Like, while it is my passion and my books have been my passion, which I know we're going to get into, and we start talking about favorite books. But books have been my passion, um, my entire life. So I feel very, very privileged and lucky to do what I do. But it is a job. At the end of the day, um, I write books because I want to be paid and I want to be able to put my kids through university in a few years time, you know what I mean? So it is a job, so I have to show up every day for that purpose. But what I've managed to do over the years is I've managed to kind of align my working year with the kids school year. So really at the beginning, the 1st of September, when the kids go back to school is when I start a new book and I get a new notebook and I open up a new, um, document, um, on my desktop, and I start writing, and I will write the first draft of that book right up until, um, around Easter time. And then I will So there will be 3 or 4 different versions of that book, completed with edits from my, um, publisher, and I work on all of that. Um, and then, um, I try to always take a month off during the summer. So when the kids are off in the summer, I'll take a month off and do all the kind of bits and pieces with Um, but I'm kind of writing in my head at that stage as well, because I'm thinking about what I'm going to do on the 1st of September, and then it starts all over again. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I will be publishing a book, too. And as you mentioned, you came to see me speak in Cork. Well, that that was just one of many events. So for about six weeks, I'm just literally at the other end of it. But for about six weeks around publication, I'm pretty much doing something nearly every. Every day at least every couple of days. So it can be quite busy. But, um, but I do take as well as well as the month. In the summer I always take a month off of Christmas, so take kind of the last two weeks in December, first two weeks in January off. Um, so while I do work hard, I play hard. You know, I make sure I have plenty of downtime as well, but that's how my schedule works. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think for me, now that I've had, you know, book and in to take a second to kind of go, oh, who was, what was that? You know what I mean? And it does take me a beat. So you tend to kind of remember the most recent 4 or 5, I think, and it's impossible. And then you will remember, I don't mean you. I remember the main characters and of course the storyline, but, um, I can be sometimes surprised. And somebody sent me a message there recently about the second book I wrote, and they mentioned a very, very minor character. I had no clue who they were talking about, and they were asking me a question about a plot, and they were saying, you know, I'm really dying to know whatever happened. And I said, I'd like to know. I have no clue what you're talking about. And I had to go and I had to literally open up the book and flick through either. Oh yeah, her, you know, and it was kind of funny. And I think that's what happens. Yeah. I hadn't a clue what I was doing, Rebecca. I swear to God, I made it up as I went along. And I do feel that my first 3 to 4 books were like an apprenticeship. And I was very much, you know, I was learning how to sort out the u-bend. I had no clue what I was doing. I was doing this apprenticeship and I was making it up, asking questions and trying to learn as much on on the go as I could. But when I started out, I actually when I got my first book deal, I had two books written. So the first book deal was for two books, and I actually had both books written. So I kind of gave me because I had been trying to get a book deal for a little bit, so that gave me a little bit of a head start. So while I have published a book, one book a year, for the first 12 years, I actually had it's now five books that we've settled on this kind of early think that it's like everything, the more, the more successful you are, the more kind of power it gives you. And you can Mhm. ask questions like, so now I kind of say to my publisher, I need to make sure that I fit my edits and everything around family life because like the first thing, the most important thing to me is my family, my husband and kids. And that's first and foremost. And, um, this is a job, as I said, I Mhm. love my job, but it's a job. So they come first. So I have to make sure that I can still be the mother that I want to be and the wife that I want to be. You know, as well as being the author that I want to be. So it's kind of worked out, but I do Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Oh thank you. Thank you. Well I mean it's all true because I literally was in my way for years. I had when I met my husband and I didn't meet my husband until I was 35. I've always been a little bit slow to the party was the last to arrive, but I do get there in the end. But, um, I was 35 when I met Roger and we got married, you know, 18 months later, we didn't hang around. We got married fairly quickly. We knew, I suppose, that we were right for each other. And then kids came. By the time it took a while to have kids, not by choice. It took a while to get there, and then when I was 40, I had a media 41 date, so that was all good. But by the time I met Raj, I'd already written, um, the first book, which became Beyond Grace's Rainbow, but I showed it to nobody. It was literally in a pretty folder, and I had it under my bed. And I told him fairly early on in our relationship, I kind of confessed to him that I wanted to kind of pursue this career as an author, but I wasn't quite sure if I was brave enough to do it. And so he would say it to me every couple of months. He'd bring it up. And then, um, when I was, um, I started to write the second book. Then shortly after we got married and I had two books before it finished, as I said, when my daughter was born and I was on maternity leave because I had quite a busy I was quite a senior, um, I was a sales and marketing manager for an American multinational, and it was a fairly full on job with an expense account, a company car. I mean, jeepers, it was a very different life, you know? Really. Um. But I but I wasn't. I didn't enjoy it. I was good at it, but I didn't enjoy it. And I was on maternity leave. And I exactly as Claire shared, I was looking at my daughter, I just put her to sleep and she, you know, when they're very small and you both know that you have smaller kids now than I do. But she was asleep with her hands above her head, and she was just so peaceful and looked so beautiful. And I was so charmed with myself that I had finally managed to have this beautiful baby, because I'd wanted to have a child for so long. And I was so charmed. And I remember looking at her and just literally that thought went through my mind like, what will your special talents be? What will your dreams and hopes be for the future? And I promise you, whatever they are, I am going to do everything in my power to help you achieve those. And I will be your biggest cheerleader. And I was saying this to her as she was sleeping. And then it just struck me, I am the biggest fraud ever because I had wanted to be an author my entire life, and I had this stage, two I hadn't Mhm. allowed myself to be rejected because I hadn't been Being brave enough to tell anyone, this is who I am. This is who I want to be. So I went out to my husband, and, um, it really was for Amelia. I thought, I need to lead by example. So I went out to my husband and I said, I think I'm going to go and I'm going to try and get this book published. And I just always remember it. He just got up and he said, um, I'd better open a bottle of wine. So. So we opened a bottle of wine on a school night, you know, which we wouldn't really join, but we had a bottle of wine and we sat there and we kind of talked about it, and. And then it was like, what the hell are we going to do? And of course, I had no clue what to do because I knew nobody in the industry. So even the fact that I'd said that out loud, I then had to try and work out how to do it. But but yeah, it was, it was. And and I hope now that my daughter knows that story, she's heard me kind of sharing it before. Um, but I would say to both my kids, to Amelia and they'd quite often, you know, saying that you have to fearlessly chase your dreams and, um, you can't necessarily you're not going to achieve all of them, but you're going to get some of them, and you certainly won't achieve them if you don't try. And I think it's really important to fearlessly chase them. Really? Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. And it isn't easy, is it? Like, you guys know this to be working mamas? I can it's hard to juggle at all and to kind of do it all. And, you know, when I started, I literally was like, Amelia, Amelia say, would have been about six months old at that point. And, um, and then because we knew we wanted more than one and because I was 40 when I had Amelia, we couldn't be hanging around like it was kind of like we kind of get going again. So I had two on to, you know, to me. And I had two babies under two. So when I made that kind of big decision, oh, I think I'm going to, you know, I'm going to do this. I was actively trying to change my career, this huge, life changing, um, moment in my life with two babies under two. Um, so I was really busy. You know, I, I can I can remember and I tell you, and it wasn't always easy. I remember having I had been looking for an agent and I had minutes because the kids were crying. And what did you want me to do, leave them in a room and let them cry it out, you know? But I remember putting down the phone and thinking, well, this won't work for me because I, you know, I never called him back because I thought if he cannot appreciate that I'm a mother first, and I was always going to be a mother first. So he kind of went and I thought, that's the end of him. And and that was probably the right thing because I eventually found the right agent, you know what I mean? But a but person it wasn't to easy listen at to to you and say, okay, look, this isn't a good time. I'm actually interrupting her. And oh, yeah, I'll talk to you in 20 minutes. Not even to have the decency along those lines like you could. Ah, he's no longer in England either, you know. So they go, yeah, yeah. So yeah. Yeah. That was it. Rebecca. I mean, if he had have said to me that at that time I would have understood him being frustrated if he had have said, I'm going to ring you. And then I wasn't ready for him, and I would have been ready if he if I knew he was calling, I would have, as I said, got my mother to come and take the babies. But it wasn't that. It was just he rang off spec anyhow. It was that was my kind of first interaction with an agent and I thought, oh God, no, this is really not going to work. How are we going to go from here? But thankfully I am my agent now. I have the most gorgeous agent and she's actually a single mom, and she really gets it because she's a single mom. So we have like, it's amazing. Oh my God, we've become such good friends as well. You know? She understands what it's like to have that juggle struggles. So that's great. Um. Uh. I tried to get an agent first, and I had 47 rejections, so it didn't go very well. I just kept going. And at the stage, at that stage for me. And this was bearing in mind this was, um, 2010, 2011, that kind of timeframe. Um, and it's very different now. It's all, you know, you can do digital submissions so it can all be done through email. But for me, it was like printing it out and posting it. Most people wouldn't take email submissions. So I had bought the Writers Year Handbook. So if any of your listeners are writers, that's kind of still, it's printed every year with a new update of all the agents and I go through them literally one by one. And then when I got to know, No. I cross it out and go to the next. So it was a slow process, but I just I kept at it. But back then as well, you you weren't supposed to supposed to contact more than one at a time. It's changed now. It's now assumed. You just say to them, I'm actively submitting to several agents, whereas then you had to apply to one. And then if they said no, then you went to the next. So it was a different kind of system than it is now. And I really, um, I was getting nowhere fast. So on the 47th, I can still remember the 47th rejection. And not all of them were rejections, as in that I got a letter back. Some of them just ignored me. I didn't hear from them. And I count that as a rejection because they just ignored me. And I give them, they would say on their 50s. submissions kind of format in this yearbook, um, you know, if you haven't heard back within six weeks, you're not going to hear back, you know? So it was slow. Some would come back quickly, so quick you kind of felt like they probably didn't read your work. But but it went on and went on. And then, um, James had just published, you know, self-published. Um. What is it called? 50 shades. And it was everywhere. It had gone like. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Do you remember? It was like huge. Was it in 2012? Yeah, it was in 2012. And it literally blew up the world. And a friend of mine, one of the few friends who knew that I had written books because I didn't tell anybody and she, um, sent me a link. Um. Oh, it must have been a link 2012. But she sent me anyhow, a screenshot maybe of of an article in, um, one of the supplements talking about E.L. James, how she'd self-published this book. So anyhow, I just decided, I thought, well, maybe I need something to get an agent to notice me because at the minute I'm getting nowhere. So I decided to self-publish as an e-book only. Um, Beyond Grace's rainbow. And I had no interest in self-publishing and having, like, boxes of books under my stairs so that if somebody came over to the house, would you like to buy my book? I just did not want to do that. I was, like, mortified for myself that I didn't have to try and sell it, you know? So I thought if I do e-book only, I can tell nobody. I'll just do it. And this is no word of a lie, girls, I so I found out how to do that and and I'm, you know, I'm fairly computer savvy anyhow. So I worked it out fairly quickly and it wasn't a huge amount of money. Um, because at this stage I had quit my job to become a writer, and it wasn't going very well. Um, so we talked it over with my husband and with little investment because it was e-book only. We weren't paying for loads of print books that mightn't sell, you know. Um, so published it, but I didn't tell anyone again, I told nobody So Beyond Grace's Rainbow self-published version. The first version I wrote, self edited think about it. And I created on my iPad. I created the cover on my iPad myself. It was a Blue Peter job, literally a Blue Peter job. But I self-published it and it went to number one on Amazon. Like it literally went to number one. And I couldn't believe it. Yeah, I know, I in Donegal, had been at the hairdressers and they were talking about my book in the hairdressers and my mother was saying, they don't know, you know who you are, but they're still talking about your book. So, That's how I got my agent. Am I within three months of that, within three months of that book going to number one, I had found an agent who had found me a book deal with Harpercollins. So we took the book off the platforms and then Harpercollins republished it. Um, so it was republished. Then a few months later, you know, with, with their back in they edited it and published it. There you go. Thank you. I did, but I didn't tell anyone. It took off. But, you know, it's a real romantic weepie. It's that book. It's kind of different to the others. There's still a mystery in it. And there's still. Because I always So going back to that first novel, do you want to tell us a little bit about the inspiration, you know, where the ideas came from, so on? Yeah yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Let's see. Kind of already 30. Um, I had come out when I was 30. I'd come out of a kind of a long term relationship. And I had time, I suppose, because I wasn't ready to kind of get back out there. Um, so I just started to write, like, the book is nothing to do with my relationship. Like it completely. Nothing to do with anything to do with that. But it was just that I had talking nonsense. But I went to Florida and, um, on my own, and I decided I'd write this book, so I wrote, I had been writing it for about, say, eight months, kind of weekends and evenings, and I decided to finish it. And so I went over and my mom and dad were like, what do you mean? You want to write a book and you can't go to like, my dad was convinced someone was going to murder me over there like I'd never be found again, but, um, but I was like, I said, I'm 30. I can do this. So we went on my own and I literally lay by the pool, and I did about 30,000 words to do to finish it. But I did it in the two weeks, and I remember coming home with a really nice tan and a finished novel. That was it. And some new shopping. I chose to be shopping. So yeah, it was great. I had a great holiday, was brilliant. It's a great holiday. which is a rare blood type, and she's adopted, so she needs to find a family member. told I'm not interested. So now she's trying to kind of go back to her birth mother and find out, like, would you please help me? Who's my father? And of course, there's a mystery. So who the baby daddy is the mystery. So this big mystery in this story, and whether or not she can find her birth family. And there's definitely influences of friends that I was watching a lot of back there, because she's one of six friends and they are so close to, you know what I mean? So that you can there's some influences there, you can see it, but it is a real friendship novel and it is definitely a romantic weepie. And um, but when I went back to write Grace Grace's scenes with her son, like I was able to do so much more justice to those, um, you know, when I'd had children myself, you know, but, um. Yeah, it's a it's a nice story, actually, and and I. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. But Florida is there for that. It gets a good old mention there as well. Yeah. I always feel like that's like, now if I say to you now, tell me both of you know which is your favorite child, and you're going to say, caramel. No, stop it. And you're going to say, no, don't be, don't be stupid. You can't be asking me that. I think as well. Like it is literally sometimes the most recent character you've kind of lived with becomes your favorite because they have very much been. And I have to say, there are a few, though, that are kind of standards. Grace, because she's one of the first. And a lot of my really good friends feel like that. I would be a like like Grace they felt when they read Grace's character. They thought that she was like me. And I think you can't help it that your DNA is a little bit kind of, you know, in all of the characters. Um, I have a soft spot for Ruth in a thousand role at home, and Ruth was, um, inspired by. I have a very dear friend. Um, I have somebody very important in my life who is on the spectrum. And I had promised them that I would write a story with the lead character. Not a side character, not the sidekick, not the funny side. But the lead character would have, um, would have autism. And so, so Ruth's character is a is very much a love letter to that person. Um, so she's very special to me. Um, and then also, I have to say, Greta and my pear shaped life, which is probably my quietest novel, only that it came out during lockdown. And so it kind of didn't really get a chance to. I was still sold quite a few books, actually, but it just didn't really get a chance to have much mentions. But. But Greta feels like a little sister because Greta has very, very poor self-image, and her story is is very much one about learning to love yourself no matter what size you are. And that's a subject that's very close to my heart. Mhm. will marry a lighthouse keeper, as her mother did, and become a lighthouse keepers wife. And she's so desperate to live a life of excitement and travel. Um, and she's really, really been pressured by her family not to do that. And I kind of understood that. So I am while I wasn't why my parents didn't want me to marry a lighthouse keeper, but very much had kind of laid out my life what it should look like. And it wasn't anything, you know, I didn't want I didn't want that. So I the wanderlust that Beth has is all mine. And so she feels quite special as well. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Any time. Sure. I'd love to. Thank you. Um. Well, it's it's a dual timeline set between 1951 in Ireland and the present day in both barley cotton and East Cork, Ireland, and also Maine in New England in America. And it tells the stories of four lighthouse keepers wives in 1951 who commit a crime, cover it up and vow never to tell. And of course, because it's a novel someone does tell. And 70 years later, the granddaughter of one of those lighthouse keepers wives receives an anonymous note. And she's working. And she's a TV anchor, actually, for a breakfast show in America, in New England. And she receives an anonymous note saying, family secrets never stay buried. And this will ultimately bring her back to Bali cotton, um, to find her grandmother. Um, Beth that I've just been talking about, um, to try and uncover what happened in 1951. So there's kind Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Go to Trawler boys for your. You know, for your. Yeah. No. Do ghost trawler boys like. I mean, literally, because that's what I did, that, um, there's a scene where Molly and, um, Dervla, they have their fish and chips kind of picnic on the beach, but I did. That was what I did when I went there, and it was like the best kind of fish and chips. It was so delicious. Like, it really was. So. Yeah. Trawler boys look them up. They're great. Like, most of the places that are actually all of them in there are all real places, you know, um, and depending on when you go, because there's two gorgeous hotels, there's one in Gary, which is like right beside, um, right beside Barry Cotton. But the Bay view that the hotel that. The book. A lot of the scenes happen in the Bayview that's there, and it hasn't changed much since the 50s, so it'd be quite nice to stay there. Yeah. Genuinely, there wasn't like there really, really wasn't. I had just finished I just handed in a novel. And so we had it was, you know, it was kind of the in-between moments. Um, so it was a couple of months before I would have been starting, um, the 1st of September new novel. So I always have, like, I always write this minute. I have about four ideas for different books. I know already what I'm going to start. My next year's book is written, and I'll do edits now over the next couple of months on the 1st September, I'll start. 2026 is novel, but I know what that is. I know 100% what I'm going to write, but I have ideas for 2027. I have 3 or 4 solid ideas, and I don't know which I'm going to go with. And I was in that situation. I had 3 or 4 solid ideas and I wasn't sure which I was going to write, and I knew I was going to spend the summer mulling it over and thinking about what works. Then we went to Bali Cotton and I went with my two sister in laws who. Well, we've dropped the in-laws. They're sisters now in every kind of way. They should be. And and they brought me there. And it was literally because I'd just been in the writing cave finishing this book. They organize the weekend, and I just said, tell me where to be, and I'll be there. And I genuinely it was literally the night before and I put the satnav on. I said, where am I going? How long, when do I need to leave? And I was like, oh, it's only two hours away. It's grand. I knew it was Cork, but genuinely didn't know where in Cork. Um, so when I arrived, I went without any kind of preconceived knowledge of it and I was blown away just seeing, I think, because the Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, there's something very mystical and romantic about lighthouses, isn't there? And they're kind of beacons of hope or something. So it appeals to my imagination immediately. But I genuinely didn't have any idea about the story until I spent the last week actually in, um, Tyrone Guthrie Center. I don't know if you for writers. It's for, um, for sculptors, musicians, whatever. But it's this beautiful remote retreat, um, with lake and woods surrounding it, and it's completely silent. And I just get. I've been going there for about eight years. Um, it's subsidised, so it's not expensive. So I go self-catering. You can go fully catered, but I don't do that because I'm too social. If I do that, I would be all chat and no work. So I go self-catering. So I just can lock myself away in the woods and kind of just go full right or feral and get work done. And I've every one of my books for the last eight years have been in part written there, and I always tend to find something, call it chasing the lovely. I always find the lovely moments when I'm there because I'm. I'm completely switched off from all duties, like there's no school runs, there's no school lunches, there's no, like, what, to come up for dinner every night? Isn't that like a nightmare? Trying to decide what to cook for dinner every night? Like with all those things that you're trying to do as a working mother. Gone for a week. I literally go with Marks and Spencers ready meals Yeah. Oh. I'll tell you a tiny bit about it. And it is actually set in the 1960s life of that family whose child was abducted and says, I have a theory as to what happened to that child. And this will, of course, unravel. Um. So many secrets and lies and betrayal. Oh my God. It is literally. It is very twisty. Very twisty. And. Yeah. So there's I can't wait. I'll tell you more. Do you know what? When when we're near at the time. Because I better not say any more. Because I don't know what else I'm allowed to Um. Yeah. Today. So far, I've kind of stuck the furthest. I've gone back to the 1930s, and so far I've kind of stuck to the timeline, those kind of timelines. Um, and I think the reason I've done that so far is that there is somebody in my life that I can touch that has lived those in those decades. So grandparents who have now gone. But I was very close to my grandmothers and, um, like, I think I've always been cursed the era that they were children in or the era that they grew up in, and I find that fascinating. I really enjoyed the 50s in particular, because my parents would have been kids in the 50s, and I found that really interesting. And, you know, to be able to ask them outright, tell me about this. And I can remember when I was doing a bit of research for the Lighthouse keeper, because it's all set in the 50s, and I was trying to understand what life was like in Ireland, in rural Ireland, kind of at the tail end. You know, was just wonderful that I was able to get the color to that. So some something that I found online, I could then actually fill in the details with my dad and yeah, and get context and just how important it was. And um, so I love that. So so far it's. um, who lives in Bermuda. And her partner, her. The love of her life is this woman called Esme, a black woman called Esme. And in my mind, I would at some point love to write her story because she is the descendant of slaves from Bermuda. And I think there's a story there that maybe they're mixed up with the Irish, the bowed Fenians, because it was all the Athenians, and over there the nationalists were sent over there. So anyhow, I feel I could do I could do that because you've got to be so careful. You've got to make sure you don't write about, you know, you've got to make sure there's no cultural misappropriation. But like, genuinely, that's a story for my own family. So I think that I could do something with that at some point in the future. Yeah. It's crazy. What you would you think people to be interested? Oh, my God, I wouldn't even I could, I'd never think my life is that interesting. Okay, I just yeah, I didn't. Wow. Okay. Well, maybe I might, and my English grandmother, she fought in World War two. She was a navigational officer. And, you know, she was one of the few female navigational officers. Right. And she was an incredible life story, a really incredible life story. So she lived. She was she worked a life in service. You know, she was a maid in a big house and So my English grandmother was upstairs, my grandmother was downstairs. And I always thought it was really fascinating that, um, that my mum and dad met because they shouldn't really have met. Their lives were very different and they should. They lived very, very different lives and came they're together now in 1860, like there's I, I've always kind of said, and my dad is like, my dad is very much like he thinks that, um. The reason I'm a storyteller is because of him. He blazes because he's a story. He is a schnook like he's a storyteller. So he goes, oh yeah, she gets it all from me. So he's like, oh yeah, write that book. That would be a bestseller. Write a writer. And my mother said, you will not write about my family. She's like, no, you're not writing anything. So I need to get my mom on board. But she's kind of less, um, she'd be shyer than my dad. But I do think there is a story there, because I do genuinely two or in as it was, it was 140,000 words, you know, with just back, um, Esme and she's, um, Kate is this wonderful 90 year old woman, um, Yeah. I would love to. I did pitch it actually to an editor a few years ago, and I thought I might see if they're interested, and then I'll talk my mother into it afterwards. Um, but they weren't really interested in it. But it was before I had started doing these historical dual timelines. And when I wrote, um, when I did my first dual timeline, they were really surprised because they didn't, you know, kind of know that I could I didn't know I could do it till I tried it, but I, I really love the I love the historical parts of the stories I tell. I find them as a as a writer. They're the most exciting parts for me to write. They're really satisfying for me to do the historical research and to to bring the past to life, you know what I mean? And to add color to those kind of gray areas of our past. Um, and I really enjoy that. Um, so anyhow, I think my editor at the time remember her being quite surprised that I, she was like, I can't believe you've never done this before. So, um, I might do that in a few years. Maybe I might kind of go back to that to grandmother's story. I think there's something there. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is tricky, isn't it? I suppose what I have to remind myself the whole time is, is that it is fiction that I'm writing. I'm not writing a non-fiction book. So the most important thing is that I get the story told. But having said that, I do tie myself up in knots when I was writing. You've read Now and The Little Secret. So I'll say this without any spoilers for anyone who might like to read it, who haven't picked it up. But, um, I, I wanted to write the story that this thing that happens in 1951 to the four women and this, this event that happens in their lives. I didn't want any of their husbands or for Beth, her boyfriend. I didn't want rotor for like these fictional characters, but I had to make it so that that was genuinely the right thing. So I did a lot of, um, like, it's funny, the little things that you would get caught up in, like, I last half a day Yeah. Well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You learn that very quickly, I can remember. You know. Sorry, sorry. I know I was just going to say I remember very early on a reviewer saying to me or not saying to me, but doing a review, and they were very all they talked about. I remember Okay. aside from that because they want different things. But, um, but I always loved The Faraway Tree. But I think The Wizard of Oz would probably be probably my favorite. And, um, as a young child and then the Lord of the rings when I was an older child. So for my childhood, they were kind of the books. And I've always adored those kind of good versus evil epics. Um, and those, those stories that involve, um, an adventure, um, where, you know, you have quest. I love the ones with the quest. And definitely I've always kind of enjoyed those, and I've always been fascinated by those about, um, the person, the, the, the unsung hero, you know, the unlikely hero who is up against the dark Lord Sauron or, you know, the Wicked Witch of the West. And I've always been fascinated by stories like those. So they're the ones that stick out for me in my childhood. And I still have copies of them, multiple copies of each, actually. I tend to pick up, um, special editions if I see them and friends buy them for me as gifts. So I have quite a few editions of each of those, and I would reread them, you know, semi-regularly and love them. Yeah. You know what? I've thought about this question before, and there are many I could choose, but I'm going to go back to when I was four, and I'm going to go back to my first day of school. And what I can tell you is, on my first day of school, I didn't want to go. I couldn't see the sense in at home. I had this one sister who's a year older, and then there's twins who were a year younger, and I wanted to stay at home with the twins. I was like, I just didn't want to go. So I was that child that was roaring and screaming and putting up a fuss. And I remember the teacher, her name was Mrs. Joyce. And she said to my mother, What is Kamal's thing? What's her jam? And mom said, books, you know, just books. And so Mrs. Joyce said to me, we're going to start today with storytime. You get to choose the book. And I remember thinking, oh, okay, this is this is a little bit something. So she brought me over to a bookshelf and I remember looking and I saw this book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Right. And I had never heard of it before. I remember seeing it and I picked it up and I thought, I want to read. I want that one, please. So then mom slipped away. But I remember Mrs. Joyce. She called everyone and she gathered everyone on the ground, and she said to me, you can sit by my leg. And I remember leaning into her leg and I can still remember the warmth of her. She just was such a warm, beautiful is my grandmother, like my English grandmother. If when you do read it, I promise you it's worth it. And Elizabeth, who is one of the central characters that she's my my grandmother, like, literally. And, um, I'm totally obsessed with the four of them. And I would love I love talking to people who are older than me, because I think that's where you get all the wisdom and you get all the knowledge and all the secrets. But I would sit down with the four of them. So that's my three. I know that's a little cheap because there's four, but but you, you if you read the book, you know what I mean. You couldn't. mighty. It would be great. Be great. And they'd love me. I would be their new best friends. We would, like, totally get on well. And they would absolutely adore me. We would be great friends. We would. We would see. Nobody would get word in edgewise. We'd all be telling stories. I know Hazlitt catcher would be disgusted. I know I should have chosen them, shouldn't I? You know? But yeah. No, no, they can have their own dinner. They can have their own dinner. I don't know exactly. Exactly. That's it. Mhm. Oh, yeah. I have it there, I think. Yeah. No. I can't see that ever being in the future for you. It's too natural for you. and I have spoken about this actually, because he, you know, we've kind of spoke when will he retire? And, you know, he's kind of thinking maybe when he's 62 or 3 ish, you know what I mean? But like, I'm too young anyhow and I'm early 50s, but at the same time, like, it's I can't imagine in ten years time kind of going, am I ready to retire? And I feel what I might do is in my head, what I've said to Raj is that when you do retire, I might go to a book every two years and then I might go eventually a book But I don't think I can stop. Do you know, one of the things I think is, you know, and, you know, if you were to win €1 million, like, is it it would you stop writing? No. No. So if I, Um. want to do is have a really like no questions off the table You'll Yeah. be delighted. You're as good. Yeah. you take it, you tell me when and if I can. I will find a time that I can do. But yeah, consider it done. I will go to your book club. I'd love to. I would love to pick a book that you want to do, too. Yeah. Be good fun. Oh, yes. Yes. Go for. Okay. Hardback. DNF. I'm just. I used to power through and I've stopped. Now I chapters. You know, I really, you know, I get a chance to really get into it. But if I'm not gripped, I'll stop. I might go back to it again, though, because sometimes you have to be in the right mood for a book. But no. Yeah. Isn't. Life is too short, ladies, isn't it? You know. Not often. Is that okay if an answer like I mean, I do, yes, occasionally, but not often. What I will do is usually what I do is I will about a month or two after a book has come out, I will just check the headlines and make sure that things have not. The the wheels have not fallen off the bike. And I would just as long as my average is kind of over four out of five, then I kind of can leave it. And thankfully it's never happened that I've gone below four. I'm actually okay with all of my books. They've all been four point something out of five, and so I might just do a quick scroll through then. But I try not to and for kind of but I do read, um, national Reviews, if they're like newspaper reviews, I read those um, and it was actually for my pear-shaped life. And they, they didn't slate it or anything like that, but they didn't love it. It was kind of an okay review, and it was kind of written as very much an okay review. I Are. their favorite book of the year. And You. another reviewer, not the one who had reviewed it during the year. Yeah, had really been upset and had lost time and worried about this kind of review, which four only read the first page of a book. Or just the last one. You're wrong. It just means we like different things. So anyhow. That's my review story. have an actor you don't really like, play the lead in an adaptation of your book or have an only read the first page, I suppose. I only read the first page. Never read the last before the first note. The first page only. That's a hard one. Yeah, only the first. Okay. Yeah. or own your own The dream. The dream.