07/11/2013 Meet the Author

busier. It is time now for this week's Meet

The Author with Nick Higham. Dorothy Koomson writes what she

calls emotional thrillers, novels which combine an emphasis on

relationships which you expect from commercial women's fiction, with the

injured `` intricate plotting of darker thrillers. Her latest book is

The Flavours Of Love. It is about a woman whose life is turned upside

down after her husband is murdered. Dorothy Koomson, your heroine

Saffron at the start of this book is in not a great place really. Her

husband has been murdered 18 months before. She discovers that her

14`year`old daughter is pregnant and not long after the book starts she

also finds she has a stalker who writes her threatening letters. You

really like putting your heroine is through the mill, don't you? I do, I

think it is great. I like putting people who are already in a fragile

place like Saffron is, under more pressure to see how they can stand

it to see if they do or they don't. She does not a lot of the time.

Several of your recent books have these dark themes but you did not

start out writing books like that. They were much sunnier. The first

two books were quite jolly. Why the change? My third book, my Best

friend 's girl, I decided to deal with the story of a woman whose best

friend dies. Her best friend had a one night stand with her fiance and

got pregnant by him and she did not find that for three years. She left

and two years later she hears from her best friend saying she is dying

and asking her to adopt her child. I wanted to deal with something which

was a difficult subject and put myself and the reader in a situation

where you are torn about what to do. From then onwards it became easier,

not easier, more interesting I suppose, to write about these tough

subjects. Saffron in this book is under tremendous pressure. Most of

the time she's not responding well to it. Yes, she is under immense

pressure. She knows something about who killed her husband but she does

not tell the police. I am not giving anything away because that is the

start of the book, a prologue between her and her daughter who

knows something and you do not know what they know all why they will not

go to the police. Because of that, she is stuck when she starts

receiving letters and all the other things which happen in her life. She

is under immense pressure. When I am writing the book I do wonder how I

would put up with a situation and how I would fare in a situation and

how ordinary people put up with these situations. People across the

world do find themselves in situations, not too similar to

Saffron, but traumatic situations or dealing with the aftermath of a

traumatic situation. A couple of years ago you had the experience of

seeing one of your books adapted for television, The Ice Cream Girls,

which was adapted as a three parter by ITV. Being back here, terrified.

It happened 17 years ago. It is over. No one remembers. But I do. It

is all coming back. Just think about mum, she needs us. These callous

young women stabbed him 11 times... Many authors are delighted when

their stuff is picked up and dramatised. I'm sure you were also

pleased but it was not an entirely happy experience, was it, because

what hit the screen was very different in several absolutely

fundamental respects to what you had written? Yes, I think they saw my

story as a nice idea of how they thought domestic abuse and violence

played out and also how relationships between young girls

and older men played out and decided I was not correct so they did their

version of my story. A key part of your book was the idea that a young

girl who was abused by an older man, first was groomed by him, it is

the man's fault which brings that about. Yes. But what happened in the

adaptation is she as it were led him on. Even if she did lead him on, I

applaud that phrase, he is an adult and he could say no, that did not

happen in the TV version `` I applaud that phrase. You have done a

lot of research on these abusive relationships and that was ignored

on television. The No I have read a lot on the subject and when I came

to write the book originally... I thought I had an idea of what

domestic abuse was about. As I discovered, as I was researching,

what I thought I knew was nothing like the reality. Domestic violence

in a physical sense does not happen without emotional abuse and

manipulation. One of the things I wanted to get across in the book was

it is fundamental, the emotional abuse and emotional manipulation is

fundamental to a domestic violence situation occurring. The other thing

I wanted to get across when I was writing The Ice Cream Girls and my

other books is it could happen to you. You do not necessarily have to

come from a single`parent family, be working class and, a lot of what I

felt with The Ice Cream Girls. In my book both girls are from 2`parent

families and they are both nice girls. The main crop of the story

was not knowing which one had killed the teacher, Marcus, because they

were both people you felt you knew or you could be. I think that was

ignored in the TV version as well. What do you want readers to take

away from your books? I want them to enjoy the story, maybe find out

something new about a subject they did not know about. A lot of the

time when I start a book I have an idea what the subject is about and

every time I have been proved wrong. It has shown me that I know nothing

and I need to talk to people and research as much as possible. You

started as a journalist and there is still an element of the journalist

in you, finding things out? I love that. I have always been interested

in talking to people and eavesdropping. The other day there

was a woman who had a fantastic conversation, it was one`sided, I

was listening to it all and thinking, that could be good in

books. Taking surreptitious notes? She saw me writing things down! I

love talking and eavesdropping and finding things out. Before I became

a journalist that was part of my personality I think. And you aim to

route your books firmly in real life? Yes, at the moment. I might

decide to fiction at some point, she says randomly! I can't wait! Dorothy

Koomson, thank you very much. Thank you.

Hello, and up and down spell of weather coming as we approach the

weekend. It is windy out there across the northern part of the

country. Some showers