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" My mother was born on February 8, 1944, in Lucknow, India. Her father, Albert, was half-Indian and half-Portuguese. "

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" I married someone I didn't love. I was too polite to say no. "

" I was made redundant from a job as a PA in a shirt-making company in 1996. I was devastated. I had been there for three years, and it was a job I really liked. "

" My husband loves having his own room. "

" I tried to write about my first marriage in a fictional version but got two pages into it and realised it was too personal. Then I came up with an old-fashioned love triangle, which became the plot for 'Ralph's Party.' "

" Whenever I watch any kind of competition, my immediate reaction when they call out the name of the winner is to look at the loser. "

" Writing a book is not easy. "

" If one of my romantic-comedy colleagues had written and directed 'Love Actually,' they would have been torn limb from limb. I thought it was awful, contrived, dreadful. I could see every twist and turn. I thought it was despicable. It was the writing that got me. "

" All my main characters have got bits of me, bits of my family, bits of my friends. "

" It wasn't until I was 23 and got married to a guy who was really bookish that I got completely hooked on reading and writing again. He had so many paperbacks, I didn't have to buy a book for four and a half years. "

" I don't really get into a writing routine until March or April, when I'll write a few hundred words a day, often in a cafe in the morning after the school run. "

" My publishers find me really challenging, as a lot of the time, I don't even know what I'm going to be writing about until I sit down to do it. "

" There's a weird contrast between my usual daily routine and then my book coming out. It's like someone's just suddenly opened the curtains in a dark room, and everyone's looking at you. "

" I think that not being proactive is a good thing. I like life to unfold on its own. "

" I always wanted to write psychological thrillers. "

" My marriage is far from perfect. We're not hand-holdy and soft. We are snippy and bickery. We sleep in separate beds because we have no tolerance of each other's night-time idiosyncrasies. "

" If you have a calling, you need to let it find you. "

" That whole idea of chick lit being a thing that you just lump all the commercial female writers into - it went on for years.I'd switch on the radio, and I'd hear, 'Two female authors are here to discuss chick lit - is it dead?' and I'd think, 'Argh, no, not again. Are we seriously still having this conversation?' "

" Everyone thinks they've got a book inside them. "

" I never had one of those glorious young bodies that make older men and women weep. So I don't tend to look back with nostalgia or yearn for what I've lost. Because it was never all that. "

" In 1995, I was 27, and I completely got caught up in Blur and Oasis and the fashion of the time. "

" For a very long time, I thought everyone I met through the process of getting an agent and a publishing deal had made a mistake. When they agreed to pay me for the book, I thought they would ask me for the money back. "

" A strange side effect of sudden success is the sense that if you can succeed in one field, then it might well be worth trying to succeed in another. "

" Don't do a hard sell or try to tell the agent that you're going to be a bestseller or the next John Grisham. This goes down very badly. If your work is good, then they are skilled enough to know this within a few pages. "

" When I travel, I can leave everything at home apart from books. I curate my holiday reading rigorously and would be devastated if I found I'd left one at home. "

" I changed my mind about being a famous pop star when I realised that it meant I'd never be able to get on the Tube again. "

" My mother died in 2005. She was 61 years old. "

" Ever since 'Single White Female,' the 1990 novel which was turned into a supremely scary film, the idea of a seemingly normal woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants has become an abiding literary trope. "

" My mother had breast cancer when she was 39. "

" I am the oldest of three girls and the only one not named after one of my father's ex-girlfriends. "

" 'Ralph's Party' was supposed to be a psychological thriller, but I fell in love with all my characters and wanted only the best for them. "