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My mother had breast cancer when she was 39.
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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 am the oldest of three girls and the only one not named after one of my father's ex-girlfriends.
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Agents and publishers are always looking for something 'different,' a fresh viewpoint and a new voice, not just re-hashed versions of stuff that's gone before.
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Every time I've written a book, I'm like, 'Oh, it's so different from the last one. Are they going to like it?'
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I married someone I didn't love. I was too polite to say no.
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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.
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I think that not being proactive is a good thing. I like life to unfold on its own.
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My mother died in 2005. She was 61 years old.
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Writing a book is not easy.
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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.
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I always wanted to write psychological thrillers.
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I write in cafes, never at home. I cannot focus at home, am forever getting off my chair to do other things. In a cafe, I have to sit still, or I'll look a bit unhinged.
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I look about my house and see there are lots of lovely things in it, but I constantly buy more.
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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.
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I was brought up in the same house I was born in, and I lived there until I left home as an adult. I also went to a Catholic school, which was full of Irish girls whose parents never split up, so everyone I knew had these big family set-ups.
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When I was a little girl, I was a real, drippy bookworm. But when I went into fashion, I stopped reading.
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People with big ideas worry. They lie awake at night and fret as they try to climb up the social or financial ladder. They probably feel proud of themselves for what they've achieved, but I'm proud of the fact that I've done very little - and hence have little to worry about - and I've still got somewhere.
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You feel undervalued when you write the kind of fiction I write.
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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.
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The older I get, the more I love psychological thrillers.
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My parents' marriage was, on an aesthetic level, very pleasing to behold.
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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.
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Publishers have published women's fiction into a corner, and now we are all trying to punch our way out of it. We just have to write the best books we possibly can and hope that, once the pink covers and Bridget Jones have faded from memory, we might finally be allowed just to be called writers.