For best-selling romantic novelist Erica James, it all began with a love of reading, writes Zita Collinson

“I certainly have my schmalzy side. I can be very sentimental but equally I’m quite pragmatic”

“I’m like a magpie picking up anything that’s bright and shiny, not knowing whether I’m going to need or use it”

Never mind Valentine’s Day, novelist Erica James always has romance on her mind.

She has published 16 novels to date and has fans all over the world eagerly waiting for the next book.

Speaking from her home near Congleton, 51-year-old mother-of-two Erica says she finds inspiration in the most surprising of places – and admits she is a romantic at heart.

“I pick up things all the time, I’m like a magpie picking up anything that’s bright and shiny, not knowing whether I’m going to need or use it,” she says. “All sorts of things can trigger me off for an idea.

“With my latest book, The Real Katie Lavender, it came from watching the programme Who Do You Think You Are?

“I don’t normally watch it particularly but it just got me thinking. The book is about identity and knowing who you are. I always feel that I know exactly who I am and I don’t need to look back several hundreds of years to find out who I am now.

“But I began to think about a person who might need to care very deeply about the past when she discovers that the man she thought was her father wasn’t actually her father.

“So from something as simple and innocuous as watching a TV programme, the seed of an idea is sown.

“I certainly have my schmalzy side. I can be very sentimental but equally I’m quite pragmatic.”

For Erica, writing started as a hobby, one which, she says, has got “thoroughly out of hand”.

She has turned a snatched few hours of writing for her own pleasure into a successful career.

He latest novel, published by Orion – who Erica has been with since the launch of her first book, A Breath Of Fresh Air, in 1996 – has been well received by her legion of international fans.

And at the end of last year, she spent two weeks touring New Zealand and Australia to promote The Real Katie Lavender. As well as book signings and back-to-back radio interviews, the tour also included an appearance on the TV show Good Morning – the New Zealand equivalent of This Morning with Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby.

“It was a lot of fun,” she says, “although it’s not my favourite thing to do.

“I’m quite private and television is quite a daunting medium, although the studio staff were lovely and made the experience so enjoyable.

“My sales are very good in New Zealand and Australia. I also get a lot of emails and letters from readers asking me to visit, so it just seemed the right thing to do. It’s amazing that I can go to the other side of the world and meet readers who love my books.

“It’s always lovely to receive the letters, although it’s difficult to reply to all of them. But what I can say is that I have the nicest readers.

“They’re just lovely and always such good fun.”

And she will have the chance to meet more readers this summer at events to promote the paperback edition of The Real Katie Lavender in May.

Erica has certainly come a long way since she first turned her hand to storytelling. She grew up in Hayling Island in Hampshire and moved to her current home in Cheshire with her two sons – Edward and Samuel, now aged 27 and 25 respectively – around seven years ago.

“I originally moved to Cheshire when I was married – I’ve been divorced for many years,” she says. “It just so happens that this is where I’ve stayed. Sometimes in life you’re led to a place and I just can’t imagine living anywhere else now.”

After working as a secretary at an estate agents, she eventually left the world of work to become a stay-at-home mum.

But the writing bug soon took hold and Erica made a promise to herself one New Year’s Eve in the early 90s that she would turn her attention to that longed-for first novel.

“I got into writing through a love of reading,” she explains.

“I love to lose myself in a good story and I wondered whether it would be as much fun to lose myself in creating a story.

“As a child I loved to read as well. I’ve always been very self-contained and reading is all about being self-contained in another life. I think it’s just in my DNA. So I made myself a New Year’s resolution to write a book, and I did.

“I loved it and I actually found that the more I wrote, the more I loved doing it and the more I looked forward to having time on my own to write.

“And of course, I didn’t have a lot of time because I had two young children, but wherever I could, I managed to apply myself to writing.

“It might have been an hour a day or two hours a day. Sometimes it would not even be every day. I’d dip into it just like I would with a book.

“Actually I’ve since written a story called Promises, Promises (which made the Sunday Times top 10 bestsellers list). It was about three characters who made resolutions. The story follows them to see whether it is possible for them to stick to their promises.

“So I’m a great believer in making New Year’s resolutions and the best one I ever did was my promise to write a book. Without doing that I wouldn’t be where I am now.

“My first book was published when I was 36.

“I was told by one of my writing tutors that when a woman hits 30, she’s had enough life experience to have something worthwhile writing about.”

And although it took her three years to complete, by the end of it she had secured a literary agent and a publishing deal.

Her debut went on to become a bestseller.

To finally see her name in print was the stuff of fantasies, although Erica admits she was the last person to ever expect success.

Still, success has followed nonetheless.

In 2006, the Romantic Novelists’ Association awarded her the Romantic Novel of the Year for her book, Gardens Of Delight. “It began as just a hobby for me,” says Erica. “I honestly wasn’t writing with the intention to get published. I took my time over it so in all it took me about three years.

“I was doing it just as a challenge for myself. During those three years I did go on a few writing courses, which I would always recommend to other aspiring authors.

“Those encouraged me and kept me thinking. It was nice being with like-minded people who also loved writing.

“I did decide to send some chapters off to an agent who loved the book and sold it to my publisher.

“Once my first book was accepted for publication, it was a very exciting time. I almost didn’t know which way was up and which way was down.

“I got a two-book contract at that point, which was wonderful but it then meant I had to start writing something else – and quickly.

“The books that I write now are very different to the books I wrote at the beginning, because I’m that much older and my experiences have changed.”

She has now sold more than a million copies of her work and is able to split her time between England and George Clooney’s favourite haunt: Lake Como, in Italy.

“I went there when I was researching Gardens Of Delight,” Erica says. “I just fell in love with it, and kept returning, so now I’ve bought a place there.”

“Because I was a secretary and learnt how to touch type, typing is not a problem for me and I can do it without thinking so it’s always easier for me to use a computer.

“When I first started out I wrote by hand and then I moved on to an electric typewriter.

“If I’m away, then I’ll still write by hand. If I’m on holiday and I feel like writing a chapter, I just sit on the beach with a pen and a notebook.

“And then it doesn’t feel like work at all.”

And Erica isn’t about to take it easy. Work is well advanced on her 17th book, the title of which – The Hidden Cottage – has recently been revealed.

“I think that if you’re going to be a writer and produce the number of books I have produced, which is a book a year, you have to apply yourself with great dedication,” she says.

“To have that output you do have to be very disciplined. It’s difficult at times but if you are naturally a creative person, and I believe I am, although I’m not saying I have the greatest talent in the world, there is a desire to keep creating.

“That doesn’t mean it gets any easier with each book I write. In fact in many ways – and a lot of writers would say this – it gets harder.

“Each novel for me is like climbing a mountain and each year the mountain gets higher and steeper. There are other external pressures. There are more expectations from readers and publishers. But then with any job there are always pressures and it’s about finding the right balance.

“My books have been translated into many languages, and they’ll even be out in Turkey soon.

“I am just tickled pink that there could be a woman in Latvia reading one of my books.”

The Real Katie Lavender, priced at £14.99 for a hardback version and £7.99 as an eBook, is out now, and is published by Orion.

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