• Congratulations on the 10th book in the Shipyard Girls series! What’s it been like writing these characters for as long as you have?

It’s been a total joy. They’ve also become a real part of my life. I have spent most of the past six years thinking about them, laughing with them, crying for them, wanting to pick them up when they fall down….. I feel lucky to have been allowed to have them all in my life for so long.

• How have the characters changed in your mind from when you first imagined them?

I think all of the characters have changed – quite a few of them in ways I hadn’t expected – or wanted to. Sometimes it’s as though I have no control over them! Helen is probably the character who has changed the most. Initially I really wanted her to be the women’s nemesis – but with each book she just kept becoming more of an empathetic person – although she’s still got a hard edge to her.

• How do you approach your writing? Do you have a tried and tested routine or ritual?

I have to be very disciplined because I write two books a year, so I tend to go to ground for three months to write the first draft of a book. The time around that is spent doing research and sketching out a very rough plot outline for the book I’m about to start, doing edits and copy edits on the book I’ve just delivered, and publicity for the book which is just about to be published.

• The WWII time period is such a richly detailed period of history. How did you go about researching what life was like at this time for these amazing real life women who worked on the Shipyards?

Initially I spent time going to the actual places where the shipyards used to be and walking or driving around the areas where characters lived and scenes were set. I went to the Sunderland Museum, and looked around the local history section – not just the rooms which had models of the various ships that had been built over the years on the Wear, but those with displays of local artifacts, paintings and photographs. The gift shop also had some brilliant books written by local authors and historians which I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

During the first few years I managed to find some real shipyard women who were still alive, and I went to interview them, which was invaluable. I also found a selection of audio recording on the Imperial War Museum website which I still dip into. They were interviews carried out in the 1980’s on women who worked in the shipyards during the Second World War in the yards along the Wear as well as those on the Tyne. It’s wonderful hearing their voices and tales of that time. As a writer what also fascinates is not just what they say, but how they say it.

• What’s been your favourite moment in the series so far?

There’s so many to choose from! With each book there’s always one moment which really gets me – with HOME FRONT it’s the last chapter, so I can’t tell you! You’ll have to read it and see if you feel the same!

• Can you tell us anything about the next book in the series?

Yes, ‘Shipyard Girls under the Mistletoe’, which is out on September 30th and is the penultimate book in the series, focuses on the women’s lives in the run up to Christmas 1944. Without giving away too much of the plot, the focus is very much on Dorothy and her love life, and on Helen and her visits to the local asylum to see her grandmother Henrietta. Charles Havelock is also very prominent in this instalment. He’s certainly one character who has not changed for the better – quite the reverse – his evil seems to know no bounds…