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BOOKS You know the question I really dread? It's people asking what kind of novels I write. I find myself muttering shiftily that I write about, oh, birth, sex and death, really. Doesn't everyone? Also God, dogs, adultery, D-I-Y, suicide, Morris dancing, incest, murder - you know, everyday life in North Yorkshire. With jokes. No prizes for spotting the whacking omission in this rattled-off list. Yup, the L-word. Sad what an educated girl will do to avoid admitting that, yes, as it happens her intricately-wrought plots do seem to hinge on the mating rituals of Homo sapiens. OK, on the blossoming relationship between a man and a woman - oh, dammit, that she writes about love. There, I've said it. I'm out of the closet and my lit cred's down the plughole because, as we all know, romantic novelists wear chiffon, turquoize eye-shadow and have the brain capacity of your average newt. But I don't do moody, magnificent brutes, heaving bosoms and surging passions on moon-kissed Caribbean beaches. The odd chilly paddle in Llandudno, maybe. And the only bodice I can recall ripping was being worn by the hero at the time - with corsets and crinoline. No sex-discrimination when it comes to dishing out costumes and storylines to my characters, thank you very much, I'm an equal opportunities author. But if the idiots will go falling in love or bed or the Irish Sea in spite of my best endeavours to interest them in higher things, well, hell - don't we all?
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