Check out my latest interview with the W6 Book Cafe about my inspiration for A Girl Called Summer - along with some dreamy photos!
Well, Bella and Andy had to go somewhere with their baby, so I chose my favourite place on earth – Ibiza. I’ve known and loved the island for years, and Andy (yes, that is my husband’s name!) and I spent our honeymoon there. We were staying close to San Carlos in the North East – exactly the location of Bella and Andy’s dilapidated old finca. Most days we had our first lunch, which comprised jamon serrano, olives, bread and a bottle of rose, at Bar Anita, while pondering which of the many beautiful beaches on which to enjoy our second lunch – which generally involved seafood, more wine and swimming in the unfeasibly clear, clean water. Heaven on earth.
Summer is based on a girl we met on a beach in Goa – her hippy parents actually do run a place called the Art Resort - and she was so pretty, friendly and unpretentious that I wanted to make a proper character out of her.
Then I needed a complete contrast to Summer, so I came up with Tamara. I didn’t like her at all when I started writing her, but you know what? You can’t really hate your characters if you want them to find happiness! I found myself getting fonder and fonder of her as I wrote her.
I’d introduced both Jack and Lars in Vanity and thought that they each deserved a love story of their own – I hope I’ve done them justice!
It seemed only natural that Poppy, Damian, Ben and Natalia would by now be living it up in LA – enormously rich, successful and having the time of their lives. It was nice to have them as a foil to some of the more traumatic elements of the story – and besides, they’d all had their own dramas in my previous books.
The finca is pure house porn – I’ve always wanted to do up an old place and make it my own. I lived in a 13th century hermitage in Majorca until I was five. Dad had a pool built (they chucked me in when I was 6 months old) so the idea of living as ex-pats in the Balearics must have come somewhere from there.
I also spent a lot of my childhood and teenage years in the South of France, so that’s the St Tropez scenes accounted for. Funnily enough, I don’t count any A-List movie stars among my closest friends, so I guess the research is a combination of an idyllic youth frolicking on stunning beaches – and an unhealthy obsession with celebrity gossip magazines!
Summer is based on a girl we met on a beach in Goa – her hippy parents actually do run a place called the Art Resort - and she was so pretty, friendly and unpretentious that I wanted to make a proper character out of her.
Then I needed a complete contrast to Summer, so I came up with Tamara. I didn’t like her at all when I started writing her, but you know what? You can’t really hate your characters if you want them to find happiness! I found myself getting fonder and fonder of her as I wrote her.
I’d introduced both Jack and Lars in Vanity and thought that they each deserved a love story of their own – I hope I’ve done them justice!
It seemed only natural that Poppy, Damian, Ben and Natalia would by now be living it up in LA – enormously rich, successful and having the time of their lives. It was nice to have them as a foil to some of the more traumatic elements of the story – and besides, they’d all had their own dramas in my previous books.
The finca is pure house porn – I’ve always wanted to do up an old place and make it my own. I lived in a 13th century hermitage in Majorca until I was five. Dad had a pool built (they chucked me in when I was 6 months old) so the idea of living as ex-pats in the Balearics must have come somewhere from there.
I also spent a lot of my childhood and teenage years in the South of France, so that’s the St Tropez scenes accounted for. Funnily enough, I don’t count any A-List movie stars among my closest friends, so I guess the research is a combination of an idyllic youth frolicking on stunning beaches – and an unhealthy obsession with celebrity gossip magazines!
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