Why Every Girl Deserves a Secret Wardrobe

In my debut novel Miracle on Regent Street, the main character, Evie Taylor, is a shy, unassuming stockroom girl. And just like Hardy’s, the faded, forgotten old department store in London that she works in, she feels utterly overlooked. But behind her plain clothes and duffel coat she hides a big secret: a passion for vintage fashion. At home she has an antique Armoire full of beautiful, individual pieces from every era, each garment has the potential to change the way people see her. But she has never worn any of the clothes in ‘The Wardrobe’ as she believes her life isn’t good enough for them. Instead she patiently hangs them up and closes her closet, dreaming of the day when she’ll have the opportunity to step into them – and out of the shadows.

I believe that every woman has got a secret closet - even if you don’t own a beautiful Armoire, like Evie’s. Perhaps your unworn garments are hanging next to your every day work clothes, or maybe they’re still in their shopping bags with the labels still attached or packed away in the loft. Just like the wardrobe that leads to Narnia, the clothes in our secret wardrobes hold the key to the lives that we want to live. Like the ‘thin’ clothes we buy that we can’t actually fit into, the special, can’t-breathe-it’s-so-beautiful evening dress we own ‘Just in case we get invited to the Oscars one day’ or the chic designer top we bought to wear to an important business meeting with the bank (if we ever get off our butts long enough to do something with that business idea we’ve had for years). There’s our wedding dresses, worn once but never forgotten. The beautiful shoes that are too high to walk in but we splurged on anyway because buying them made our day brighter somehow, the expensive handbag we’re too scared to use in case a pen leaks inside it…

You’d think these garments in ‘The Wardrobe’ would haunt us with their presence, reminding us of everything our life isn’t. But for me, they hold the key to possibility. They embody my hopes and dreams. There’s the beautiful 1950s style citrus bright Louis Feraud dress I spotted in the window of my favourite vintage shop and bought, even though I knew my social life, which consists of an occasional a dinner at a local pub, would never be good enough for it. And the skinny jeans I bought when I was pregnant became something to aim for once I cared enough about my body again after giving birth to try them on. My glorious Christian Louboutin wedding shoes have pride of place on my shoe shelves because they hold memories of that day that are better than any photograph could capture – and I get to look at them every single day. I’m keeping them for my daughter in case she wants to wear them on her wedding day. If not, I’ll give them to a vintage shop in 30 or so years time and maybe, just maybe, someone like Evie will have their life transformed by them.

So don’t ever feel bad for having a secret wardrobe. Like Evie, you may suddenly find the day finally comes when you need to open it. Remember that beautiful vintage Louis Feraud dress I bought thinking I’d never have anywhere to wear it? Reader, I wore it to my first ever book launch!

The Inspiration behind ‘An Autumn Crush’

Autumn isn’t a typical month to set a book in, I’ll grant you.  I think most people associate it with things dying – which doesn’t make for a good romantic start.  However, last autumn, whilst I was writing An Autumn Crush, I saw the season through very different eyes.  How beautiful it is, how rich in colour, and how much goes on in autumn: bonfire night, Halloween, Harvest Festival... it’s a riot of activity and a feast for all the senses.  And, I realised that it’s actually not a season about dying at all – it’s a time when the fruits are all picked, the flowers have all been admired, the trees and plants have done their duty and it’s nature’s time to wind down and sleep, ready to spring into bud again next year.  What better message then for characters who feel that their big chances to be happy or successful are gone?  Never to underestimate life’s abilities to grow the bud that will one day be a big fat blossom.  Autumn is not the end, it is the rest before the restart.  Why would it be so beautiful if not to inspire a message of hope?

In many ways Autumn Crush is my most poignant book.  There is quite a tragic thread running through it which the season reflects perfectly.  However, if I’m going to write a book which is intended to inspire a Kleenex to be applied to a reader’s eyes, the last thing I want is it to be wallowing in misery, which is why I also made sure there was a lot of fun in it too - you need to employ both the light and dark of tragedy and comedy to accentuate the other.  The characters in this book are amongst my favourite ever:  Guy who despairs at himself for being clumsy and always saying the wrong thing, Coco who thrives on drama, Steve who all bluff and bravado on the outside but inside just wants to be part of a family, Floz who is a gentle bud waiting for her time to bloom – and Juliet, who was the second lead character in the story, but is so bolshey that she wouldn’t take the ‘bridesmaid’ role (you’ll forgive me if I talk about my characters as if they are real – to me they are!) and became the real head female.  She was marvellous to write – a big, feisty bird who you just wouldn’t mess around, but with a very soft heart and vulnerabilities – even if they are well hidden.    

The man who has a massive crush on her, Steve, is an amateur wrestler – an untypical hero maybe, but the world of wrestling and I are fond friends.  My dad’s pals – and my granddad – were wrestlers and I’ve always loved the sport.  I’m friends with many of the wrestling fraternity and go to the twice-yearly reunions.  I’m great mates with the legend who is Klondyke Kate who out of the ring is the sweetest, gentlest lady you could imagine – (see Juliet).  In the ring – well that’s a different story.  I’m actually in the process of writing a factual book about Yorkshire wrestlers.  The stories I’ve collected have been very funny and I can’t use most of them because I’d be arrested under the indecency act.

Juliet is looking for love but a strong woman needs a stronger man, something she finds distinctly thin on the ground so she resorts to internet dating.  Ten years ago it was quite a new and slightly dodgy place to try and hook up with a new partner, but these days most single people I know have tried it.  Me included.  I’ve howled with laughter at some of the stories I’ve collected about online dating, and been very moved by the cruelty that can occur when honesty isn’t employed.  I never had as much luck as five of my friends who are now happily married to men they met on dating sites.  I landed a policeman who I dated for over a year who was secretly involved with a much older woman for the whole time.  Ouch.  Myself and my savings had a very lucky escape there.   I did meet the most perfect man in the world on it too who ticked every box but the one which asked ‘do you fancy him?’  And the truth was that I didn’t.  Oh how much simpler life would be if we could just fall in love with the people who fall in love with us.  Which is another theme of the book: that Love is a minx and will NOT be mastered by anyone.  That’s why our hearts often stick to an unimpressed steady rhythm for the nice guys in life yet boom for the most unsuitable people – like the ‘disappearing lover’ who is a feature in the book.  Things are going great then suddenly your calls aren’t returned and you are faced with a wall of silence and no answer to the puzzle.  These lovers have a habit of turning up just when, ‘you’ve got yourself together.’  And annoyingly your damn heart betrays you and starts thudding with excitement.  Love, eh?  An imp if ever there was one.  I’ve loved writing about the darker sides of love in this book.  It’s my most passionate book to date.  I needed a cold shower after writing some of the chapters.

Love can behave sweetly and conventionally, or wild without reason.  It can love can turn enemies into passionate lovers and bring people together against all the odds.  Love can be fickle and cruel, obsessive and fabulous – but it’s always powerful – and would life ever be worth living without its presence?     

         

'How I came to write BAD SISTERS'

Author Rebecca Chance

Rivalry, catfights, jealousy, stealing each other’s clothes, an unspoken competition that lasts your whole life… how could I not want to write about sisters for one of my bonkbusters? My subject, what I’m really fascinated by, is women – what we do to each other, good and bad, how we relate to each other, and there’s no richer place to find women loving and hating and scheming than in a family, the closest bond of all. I have two sisters myself – good ones, who I love very much – but there’s no way you can be a sibling and not be aware that for the whole of your life, you’re comparing yourself to the other girls in your family. Who has the best legs? Who makes the most money? Who’s Mummy or Daddy’s favourite? Maybe it’s because I’m one of three sisters myself, but that immediately seemed the perfect number – three means that two can gang up on the other one, it means you never have just two girls going head-to-head without a third perspective coming in as well. Because sisters always get in each other’s business.

I used to write crime novels under my real name, Lauren Henderson, and I always try to have a crime or mystery element to the Rebecca Chance novels. So as soon I’d decided that I really wanted to write about three sisters, I thought: family secret. I would give them something that tied them together even tighter than the blood bond that family members share, an awful, hidden secret that they would all have to keep buried for the rest of their lives. And there would have to be a twist to it, of course, some revelation that would come out in the last few chapters. I’d play fair all the way along, describing scenes as they had happened, but at least one of the sisters would have an extra, concealed motivation for everything she did and said. A betrayal that would be even more powerful, because she wasn’t playing fair with her own family.

And it would also be about each sister trying to break free from the family ties and find out who she was – because that’s something that we’ve all experienced. Deeley, the sweet, ditzy youngest sister, who’d been happily ensconced as a trophy girlfriend in LA, would be unceremoniously kicked out of her cosy nest and have to find her own feet for the first time. Devon, the gorgeous celebrity cook, would realise that though her marriage seemed perfect to outsiders, the reason she was comfort-eating was that she wasn’t really satisfied or happy. Deeley would be jealous of Devon’s success, Devon of Deeley’s freewheeling style and natural slimness. And Maxie, the oldest sister, the most successful and ambitious, would be jealous of the other two, because they had it easier than her; she’d done all the hard work to pull them out of the gutter and into a dazzling A-list life, and they’d just followed along in her wake.

I hadn’t even plotted the book out in detail, and already I had more than enough material. Over drinks with my editors at a club on Shaftesbury Avenue, we talked about the idea. Thankfully, they loved it and were brimming with great ideas and suggestions; we jabbered away for a few hours, I went home and the next day I wrote an eleven-page outline and sent it off to them. They approved it with hardly any changes, and I promptly started writing. It was barely even like work – when you have an idea that really flows, it comes very easily, and Bad Sisters certainly did. Ironically, the title came last, suggested by my editor! Well, someone else had already taken Three Sisters…

'Why I've decided to leave London'

Baby Be Mine author Paige Toon

I love living in London. Today I went with my family to Westminster Abbey, the place where thirty-eight monarchs have been crowned king or queen in the last thousand years. The history is breathtaking, and this incredible city is surrounded by it. 

Recently we took the kids to see the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, and in a couple of weeks I want to visit the Tower of London because I haven’t been since I was little. There are so many things that I still want to do here.

I’ve lived in London for years – ever since I went to the University of Greenwich where I met my husband. We got married at St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden and I used to work up the road at Heat magazine before I had children. I’d spend my lunchtimes wandering the streets, past Pineapple Studios where the dancers can be seen through the windows, through the packed market with its many buskers, down to the river and across Waterloo Bridge with its spectacular views. Other days I’d walk through Trafalgar Square, past the majestic lions and Nelson’s Column, down to the gates of Buckingham Palace, returning to work via St James’s Palace and the back streets. I felt like I knew it like the back of my hand, and I’m rubbish with directions, so that’s saying something. I still get a little thrill when I’m driving in town and know which way to go at Seven Dials.

Yes, I love London. I got married here, I’ve had two children here, and in the next few weeks I’m utterly determined to make the most of living here. Why? Because I’m leaving.

We’re moving to Cambridge. I love “the city”, but I grew up in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia, and I’m a country girl at heart. Cambridge is one of those places that has the best of both worlds. We went there last year for only the second time and I was struck with the sudden realisation that this was a place where we could live. We were punting on the River Cam and I remember seeing some random guy sitting on the grassy banks with his trousers rolled up, reading a book and drinking a takeaway coffee. I thought: that’s what I want to do, dammit! Maybe not with my trousers rolled up because I hate my legs, and the reality of it is that I rarely go anywhere without at least one child attached, but even if a relaxing solo afternoon by the river was just a dream, living in this amazing city wasn’t.

Cambridge is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been to. The architecture is stunning, the shops are all lovely and it’s still a city so you have everything you need. But then there are the surrounding sleepy villages, the river, parks and greenery.

It’s going to be hard leaving all of our friends – I know I’ll miss them desperately – and of course we’ll be saying goodbye to the city that has been our home for the past seventeen years. But until moving day comes, I plan to live London life to the full. I’ve too often taken it for granted. Isn’t that always the way with the place where you live? I know I haven’t made the most of living here and that’s something I’ll probably regret. I’ll just have to try not to make the same mistake with Cambridge.

'What it's really like to be a published author'

Tara Hyland

As a little girl, I would furtively read Enid Blyton well past my bedtime, hidden under the duvet with a torch, listening out for my parents’ footsteps on the stairs. I loved the magical world that authors created, how it allowed me to escape from my ordinary life, and longed to be able to do the same.

So seeing my first novel, Daughters of Fortune, being published is a dream come true for me. Yes, it’s a horrible cliché, and as a writer I should be able to come up with something better. But while it may be unoriginal, it’s also true.

The road to publication hasn’t been without its heartaches, though. It’s been three years since I finished the manuscript for Daughters of Fortune, so I’ve certainly had a long buildup to seeing it in print. And inevitably with all that anticipation, the actual event threatened to be an anticlimax.

With so much time on my hands, I made the classic mistake: I turned stalker. In an age when there’s so much information available on the Internet, it was hard not to sneak a look at how other authors were doing. From the news sections on their website, to twitter and facebook, I would read all about their fabulous reviews, tremendous sales, brilliant new book deals… 

Sitting alone at my computer, it made for depressing reading. How was I ever going to compete against all these amazingly successful authors? Nothing that great was happening to me! It took my husband to point out that people only ever publicize their good news, so I was inevitably getting a skewed idea of how well my peers were doing.

That made me feel better for a while at least. But there were also other unavoidable setbacks, which inevitably got blown out of proportion in this overly sensitive – i.e. totally neurotic – writer’s mind.

A few days before publication, I was invited to take part in a feature on debut novelists. There was going to be a photo shoot and an interview, so I excitedly booked my hairdressing appointment, arranged to go shopping with my mum for a new outfit, began to drink lots of water so I wouldn’t get that inevitable zit…

And then an email arrived telling me that my services were no longer required. Along with disappointment came those nagging concerns: why didn’t they want me? Was it because the editor didn’t like my book? Did she decide I wasn’t interesting enough? Or, worse still, that I was too ugly!

But as the publication date got nearer, things began to improve. I started to get excited texts and emails from friends who’d spotted posters of Daughters of Fortune at train and tube stations. It was named book of the month on CBS. There was a fantastic full-page advert in Company magazine.

And then there it was – Daughters of Fortune was finally in the shops! I confess that even now – three weeks later – I can’t walk past a bookstore without going in to check out if they stock my book! It’s pretty much everywhere, prominently displayed at the front of stores and in the book charts.

As my publishers have started passing on sales news, things got even better. People were actually going to buy the book! Lots of them, too. But most importantly of all, I started receiving emails from readers – telling me how much they loved my book.

My best moment so far? Being in a bookstore in Waterloo Station, and seeing someone actually going up to the counter to buy Daughters of Fortune. It didn’t even cross my mind to go up and say that I was the author! I wouldn’t have wanted to put someone on the spot like that. But I can’t help wondering what she would have said if I had…

Keep on Running!

Author Jane Costello

I was never what you’d call a natural athlete.

At school I could take or leave PE; it was an excuse to leave the classroom but certainly not something to get enthused about. I joined clubs and teams because my friends did, but excelled at precisely nothing.

When I look back, the only athletic enterprises at which I was considered vaguely passable were those which required as little actual movement as possible. Hovering behind first base in rounders, goal defence in netball. Oh, and javelin. I was very good at javelin - it only involved running fifteen steps and even I could manage that. Just about.

From an early age, I remember considering running a heinous activity, something that felt completely at odds with the natural functioning of the human body. It made my legs hurt, chest hurt, left me catastrophically puffed-out and with a stitch that felt as though I’d been jabbed with a knitting needle.

                 

So why on earth would I want to do anything other than avoid it?

I was scarred for life on one school trip aged ten to a place called Colomendy, an outdoor recreational centre in North Wales, which every year held a big cross country race.

We must have only had to run a mile but it might as well have been the Boston Marathon as far as I was concerned. Out of hundreds of competitors, I came a spectacular . . . second to last. Oh, the shame of it. The only kid behind me weighed eleven stones and had sprained his ankle halfway round.

As I entered my twenties, something shifted slightly and I became interested, not in sport exactly, but being fit. I had no alternative if my chronic sweet-tooth wasn’t going to leave me with a backside the size of a generous Habitat bean bag.

So I went to the gym, I did Step and I rode my bike. The one thing I wouldn’t touch, however, was running. I hated running. I was certain of it. I might not have done it since I was ten, but my views were entrenched.

How I went from there to where I am now is difficult to pinpoint, because there was no great epiphany. All I know is, as I entered my thirties, the gym started to feel repetitive and my bike not especially challenging.

I’d done a bit of treadmill running – for no more than ten minutes at a time – and enjoyed that, so decided to make it a bit longer. Then a bit longer. When I got to half an hour, I wondered what it might be like if I took myself onto the road.

With some great tunes on my iPod, a beautiful day and undiscovered scenery stretching ahead, it became am uplifting experience, one I came to genuinely look forward to – and miss when I couldn’t do it.

In the early days I was doing five, perhaps ten kilometres at a time, but at some point last year – at the grand old age of 36 - I did what you might call A Forrest Gump. I decided, out of the blue, to keep on running. And running. And running.

Okay, I didn’t get as far as Texas, but I did do 10 miles the first time, then a few weeks later 13. A few months after that I got to 18 miles with my brother (though admittedly that was due to a navigational malfunction and – technically – I didn’t run the last two miles, I crawled).

The moral of the story, if there is one, is that I hear so many people saying: ‘Oh, I’ve always hated running’. Well, me too.

                                                                                     

Only now I’m considering my first marathon – a prospect that fills me with as much excitement as it does trepidation. As long as I don’t come second to last of course.

An Open Letter to Kate Middleton

Dear Kate

RSVP author Helen Warner

Congratulations on your forthcoming marriage.  How happy you must feel, yet how terrified too.  Getting married to a commoner is daunting enough but marrying the future king of England propels you into a whole new stratosphere.  Or does it?

Marriage is so complex and difficult whoever you are and, especially if you have children, it’s so important to get it right.  But when it works, there is nothing like it for giving you a sense of security and unconditional love that makes you feel as if you can take on the world.  From the moment you say your vows, you will no longer have to face anything alone.  Forever more, you are part of a team and if that team pulls together, it will be indestructible. 

When I got married, it was to my childhood sweetheart, Rob.  I met Rob when I was 8 and he befriended my older brother, Ian, at school.  When I went on holiday with my little sister, to stay with my grandparents in Wales, it was Rob and Ian who accompanied my dad to collect us two weeks later.  I had spent the whole holiday crippled with homesickness, so when Rob displayed the same symptoms, much to the embarrassment of my brother, I was able to hold his hand and tell him I understood how bad he felt.  There is a photo of us from that time, standing on a cliff overlooking the sea, which we still have on our mantelpiece today.

We finally started going out together just as I turned 18 and Rob was 21.  When I left home to go to university, it was assumed that we would break up.  After all, we were very young and, just like you and William, there were lots of other exciting people to mix with.  But even though Rob had a dead-end job working for a shipping company in our hometown of Harwich, he immediately transferred to London to be near me and threw himself into getting to know my university friends.  In fact, to this day he has more friends from my course than I do.  He played in the football team, formed a band with some of the guys and even played tennis with my tutors! 

In the 3^rd year, when I was 21, one of my friends from university told me that she could guarantee that I would not still be with Rob when I was 31.  Rob was furious when I told him but I think we could both see why she had said it.  And our relationship did flounder, once I left university and got my first job in TV.  It was the culmination of a lifelong dream for me to get such an incredible opportunity and I threw myself into it wholeheartedly.  To be honest, I stupidly thought everyone in TV was far more exciting than Rob, who by now was working full-time as a musician in London. 

We started to drift apart and spend less and less time together, which is when we learnt the most important lesson for us as a couple: when things start to get shaky, spend more time together, not less.  So we booked a two-week holiday and spent those 14 days getting to know each other again.  On our return, we decided to get married.

Our wedding was small (not a luxury you will be able to have!) but I had no doubts as I walked down the aisle, that I was marrying the only man I could.  Just like Anna in my novel, RSVP, I knew that Rob was the one.

Over the next 7 years, as both our TV careers took off, however busy we were, we always wanted to look after each other.  We would fight over who did the washing up – not because we wanted to do it, but because we didn’t want the other to have to.  If we ever started to wobble, we would make a concerted effort to reconnect with each other and spend more time together.  It always seemed to work and reminded us why we had got together in the first place. 

Then, in 2000, our beautiful daughter was born and everything changed.  When you have children, you realise that only the other parent will truly understand how much you love that child and so even though Rob was by now working very long hours, having established himself as a film editor, our relationship entered a new, much deeper and more spiritual phase.

When, after a year, I got offered a high-powered job on a daily, live show, it made sense that we should swap roles and Rob should stay at home with Alice full-time.  We have continued to flip-flop ever since and although there have been some tough times, we have both learned so much from our slightly unusual set-up.  Rob says that when he is at home, he has learned not to tell me when the children are upset or asking for me because he knows that there is nothing I can do about it and that they will be quickly and easily distracted. 

In turn, I have learned to keep my mouth shut about things that don’t matter.  If the house is a mess or the children’s clothes aren’t ironed, it isn’t a big deal.  The fact that he is there for them, making them feel secure and happy, without letting his ego get in the way, is vital for all our wellbeing and I tell him all the time how much I appreciate what he does, as he does me. 

And that is the final lesson we have learned for a happy marriage: show each other how much you appreciate who they are and what they do.  Look at them every day and tell them if you think they look great.  Most of all, laugh a lot and treasure what you have. 

I wish you both a very long and happy marriage.

With Love

Helen Warner