Get Booked – Amanda Robson, The Unwelcome Guest 160821

Hello, I'm Hazel Butterfield, and this is Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. Here on Get Booked, we love talking to authors about their new releases, going into detail about the topics covered, their inspiration, the mental health and well-being elements, and giving you the extra special insight into a different book and the author each week, opening discussions and offering support via the incredible writing community out there. Come and join get involved, and if you want to catch up on previous shows, you can at womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked and on our SoundCloud. Now joining us in the studio this week, we're going to be talking to Amanda Robson about her latest release, The Unwelcome Guest. Now Amanda has not disappointed with her latest domestic suspense novel, which hones in on the darker side of our primeval instincts and what happens when we let them take over, crossing the lines of acceptability, and when pushed, how that line can be used a little bit like a skipping rope. Jealousy and the need to protect the ones we love can be a very, very dangerous emotion, especially when mother-in-laws are involved, which is what The Unwelcome Guest is about— now, she had the perfect marriage until her mother-in-law moved in. Saffron vowed to love Miles no matter what life threw at them both, but when her mother-in-law moves into their happy family home, Saffron's shiny life begins to tarnish. Even as Caprice, the mother-in-law's, barbed comments turn to something more sinister, Saffron hopes the new nanny's arrival will shield her from the worst of it. Does that happen? Here's Amanda Tu talk to us about her latest novel. How are you? Yeah, I'm very well, thank you. Yes, I'm excited about my new novel, which is about the mother-in-law from hell, and I do think the mother-in-law-daughter-in-law dynamic is all too frequently a very difficult one. So because of the numbers of people who have had bad experiences, close friends, my own mother, I have actually really, really enjoyed writing this. Oh, I bet you have. I mean, I'm intrigued as to where the inspiration came from, or do you have a delightful mother-in-law? Well, my mother-in-law is sadly no longer with us, and she wasn't always easy. She made the mistake that I think a lot of mother-in-laws do, in that she didn't really make me feel welcome in the family to begin with, and she was quite cold, but she wished everybody well, and she was never like any of the people in it. She was nothing like as bad as the creature, the monster-in-law I've created in my novel. There are 3 scenes in it which are based on truth, and I would challenge the reader to guess which they might be, but most of it is obviously just made up. No, my own mother was ostracized for many years. In fact, her mother-in-law so disapproved of her son marrying my mother that they didn't speak to my mum and dad for 5 years. So they didn't until I was born. So, you know, my own mother's had a terrible time, and so have a lot of my close friends. But I mean, you know, as I get older— I was 40 years old when I first met somebody who really liked their mother-in-law, mother-in-law, so that was quite an unusual experience. But as I have got older, and I'm 60 now, 61, I have met a number of people who do have really good relationships, and they'll probably just think I'm, you know, bat mad crazy. But no, it's come from the heart really, because I do think a lot of mother-in-laws, particularly mother-in-laws that dote on, say, a youngest son, who have one particular favourite child, or maybe they're not particularly happy in their own lives or their own romances. So, you know, you know, lonely— I think a lonely widow or a very lonely divorcee is far more likely to be a bit bitchy towards the younger woman coming in. I think there's a lot of competitiveness between mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws, which that can be two-sided, you know. It's not always the mother-in-law's fault. I mean, I used to get a bit cross with my husband used to say, "Oh, my mother-in-law's cooking is the best in the world," you know, and things like that. And they can be a bit petty over things like that. So I think daughter-in-laws sometimes can be a little bit sort of feisty. I mean, now I'm getting older and my son's— I'm very lucky, I get on really well with my daughter-in-law. I almost wonder— I'm sorry, I'm giving you quite a lecture really rather than letting you interview me— but I wonder sometimes how much of it is the son's fault as well, because my son makes it very clear that he really loves me and he loves his wife, and we're just not in competition with each other at all for his affection. Um, so whether that's partly that some men make, I don't know, too much fuss of their girlfriends in front of their mum or something, or too much fuss of their moms in front of the girl, I don't know. What do you think, Hazel? I don't think there are any hard and fast rules, because at the end of the day, if you have a perfectly normal parent, you do not need to appease them. Whereas it's very hard to acknowledge as a child and see the faults of your parents and therefore be able to deal with it appropriately. I mean, the, the character Saffron's husband is quite unaware of just how bad she is, and you need to tread very carefully when explaining to your husband that your mum's a balls-out psychopath, because it doesn't always go down too well. Well, you know, it's very interesting. When I was researching before I did the novel, I was researching, and they said that one of the main signs of an abusive mother-in-law is that she bullies the daughter-in-law in private, you know, behind the son's back. And so that when the daughter-in-law tries to say, look, your mum's not been very nice to me, the son will just look a ghast. So one of the things my mother-in-law used to do was to not speak to me, not want to talk to me. So my husband would be at work and I'd be at home with the baby or something, and she would just hardly speak to me all day. And then as soon as he came through the door, she'd say something like, 'How are your parents, dear?' or something like that. And she's— for the last 6 or 7 hours, she'd been monosyllabic with me. And I used to find that, you know, and I told your mum's not been very friendly, and he wouldn't believe it because while he was there, she was lovely. There you go. They're so incredibly manipulative. I mean, I've had so many different experiences. I mean, I actually got on really well with my mother-in-law until the divorce, but she was completely convinced that her son was the best thing since sliced bread. And, you know, she would, she would never belittle me. She was not manipulative. She would listen and whatnot. But, you know, she She adored him so much, which you're supposed to adore your children, but she so much so that, I mean, his ego was off the charts. He went to private school while his sister went to comprehensive because he was just so amazing and lovely and so clever and da da da. And, you know, she wasn't a problem for me, but I did used to struggle with the fact that she put him on such a pedestal that it was, it was potentially quite dangerous, whereas You know, I've, uh, an ex-boyfriend of mine, he doesn't know any of his family apart from his mum and his dad because when his mum and dad got together, evidently his mum was from the wrong side of the tracks and said to their son, "If you continue with this relationship, we no longer want anything to do with you." And 50 years later they're still married and he does not know the rest of his family. Oh, that's terrible, isn't it? They stuck to their guns. And you— but that— this is a— this is a man who turned around and said, fine, well, she's my wife and I'm putting her first. So there's so many different sides, so many different ways that people deal with these situations. And, you know, it's— emotions are involved. Emotions are very, very hard. And when someone's manipulative and narcissistic You know, one of the traits of these people is to be quite sneaky and conniving about it. There's so many people who are probably listening right now going, "Oh, I need to read this. I need to know whether this woman is as bad as the one that I've got to deal with." Well, yeah, and there may be some people who feel deeply offended as well, you know, on the other side of it, you know. I do worry a little bit because I'm sure there's an awful lot of really lovely, loving mothers-in-law who would hate being typecast, stereotyped, you know. And, you know, as I get older now, some of my friends do complain about their daughters-in-law, and some, you know, and you can't always disregard it, you know. I wonder if we— I work— because my mother-in-law has been dead quite a long time now, and I sometimes, you know, think, should I— wish I could wind the clock back and wonder how much of it, you know, was me being a bit I don't know, underconfident or something, you know, with my— I don't know, you just wonder. Usually things are six of one. For all that I've enjoyed writing this so much, and I generally tend to blame the mothers-in-law because I think they're the person with more experience, they should be kind, and you know, the daughter-in-law's coming into their family, so it's up to their family to make that one other individual welcome. I think it's interesting because I think Because of, you know, my experience with my mother-in-law goading on him so much so that he didn't see, she didn't even kind of acknowledge his faults, or reading books like this, or hearing about other people's terrible mother-in-laws, I hope that I would utilise that information to make sure I'm a little bit more mindful with when my son, my sons, sorry, are old enough and they give me a daughter-in-law to hopefully get on with. But again, it's not always down to the mothers, sometimes you just get a dud daughter-in-law. Well, I mean, I'm just so lucky. From the very first moment I met my son, he's now married to his wife, they've been together 11 years, but from the very first day I met her, we just got on, you know. We both think we're very lucky. Well, she might be worried that if she doesn't get on with you, you might write the next story, which is about a nightmare daughter-in-law. I haven't even started, and I haven't started getting my books published when I met her. I have got a sign on my office door, was it, you know, be careful what you say or you behave or you might be in my next novel? But I don't really mean it. But, um, oh, you so do. The other thing that's interesting about, you know, toxic relationships, because there's quite a lot of different definitions of toxic relationships on the internet, but one of my friends is a psychotherapist, and she says that her definition of a toxic relationship is a cruel relationship that you actually can't get away from, that you're tied in for whatever reason. So a lot of when it's male-female, husband-wife abuse, the wife may be frightened to leave because he may threaten to follow her and harm her, or he may— he or she, they may not be able to afford to live apart, you know, they've got to stick together. And so many— it— but it has to be a reason that you have to stay, because at the end of the day, if you have a toxic friend who's a bit distant from you, you just stop seeing them. But with a mother-in-law, you don't choose each other. And you know, that relationship, even if it becomes estranged, it's still— she's still your mother-in-law, that if you're married to that person and you love that person. So you— it is an absolutely rife for becoming toxic because you can't get away from one another, can you? I suppose the same with any close family member. Your father's always your father, your mother's always your mother, and, you know, it makes these sort of relationships very, very painful when they don't work. Well, but you've got to remember, you know, people don't grow up in the same villages and live as close to each other, and my mum lives 200 miles away, and if you really don't get on with your parents-in-law, there are definitely ways around not having to see them too much. You can live as far away as you like, or be as inaccessible as you like, you know, times have changed. I think though, even if your parents live on the other side of the world, it's such an important pivotal relationship that if it goes wrong or you feel that your parents don't love you or you feel that it stays with you forever. I mean, you know, I know loads of people who've had difficult relationships with their parents and the parents might have been dead for 20 years and they, I think, they're still suffering from, I know, underconfidence or sort of flashbacks that just, I just don't think you can ever quite pull away from that sort of thing. Yeah, it's such a strong bond. Yeah, so, yeah, I mean, I think your childhood affects you so much, doesn't it, for the rest of your life, your childhood. Yeah, and I think it's only relatively recently that we've realized such effect it can have, which is why people are doing, are undertaking therapy more to kind of unpack things and kind of relearn and recondition and learn new habits if something has, you know, even the most fantastic fantastic relationships that we've had with our parents, they can still affect us in negative ways because we've got such high expectations or, you know, possibly mollycoddled and whatnot. There are so many different areas that can cause issues. Now, what I want to talk about is this next level in terms of the unwelcome guest, because you've got to remember that yes, you might not get on with your mother-in-law, or you might get on with your mother-in-law, and it's exactly the same with if it's just, if it's your parent as well, that we all might get on, but if you have to live with them, which is what happens in The Unwelcome Guest. Now, what I found interesting about this is that I get on with my mum. I speak to my mum probably every other day. We have a laugh, we talk a lot, she speaks to my kids virtually every day, we're chatting on Instagram, sharing pictures, doing this, that, whatever. The second she walks into my home, I turn into Kevin and Perry. Oh dear. And I'm like, "Oh, Mum, you're so annoying." And she winds the— I mean, it's not uncommon for the second— because my mum, 200 miles away, she'll come, she'll stay for 3 or 4 days. It's not uncommon for me to just go, "Hello, Mother," and either hit the pub or go and stay in a hotel for a couple of days so she can spend time with the kids because she just— gets me seething, absolutely seething. And, you know, it's— she's quite neat and tidy, but in my house there's cups left on the floor, there's this, there's whatever. She sleeps, uh, in with the kids' beds, uh, in with the kids in their beds, and she just leaves mess everywhere like, like an errant teenager, even though she's in her 60s. And I'm just like, She just drives me absolutely potty. And it's been that way for about 10, 15 years because it's my space and it's all a bit— it just doesn't work. We know it doesn't work. And when my mum next comes to stay, which is from next Sunday, I know we won't speak for a week after she's gone home. Oh dear. And we know that. We know that. Absolutely. We know what to say about this. Well, it's bonkers, but my brother's the same. He's like, "Oh, she's great, I love speaking to her on the phone, but God, if she's in the house—" because we're Northern, so that's why there's the accent. And it's just, it's ridiculous. So imagine if you genuinely despised and didn't get on with a family member, and then they're living with you in your personal space undermining you. Now that's a different level completely, isn't it? Oh yeah, it is. And I do think it's difficult. I think everybody needs their personal space, and particularly, you know, yeah, I mean, of course we all need our personal space. I do admire people who do have, you know, like their elderly parents to live with them and everything. It must be a huge trauma, really. I don't know how people manage, and yet I don't know, after what's happened lately with all this COVID in the care homes, I don't know how anyone could— it must have been heartbreaking for everybody with their parents in the care homes, you know, watching people die through windows and things must just have been awful. So, I mean, this is one of the disadvantages, isn't it, of our modern life with all the way we all travel to different parts of the country for jobs and things. I mean, if you live— if you do live closer to your family, you can pop in and out, you can see each other for an hour or two, you can just do equivalent to what you're doing on the telephone, just sit and have a nice chat for an hour or two and then you're back in your own personal space. And with modern life has removed that, people tend to live a long way away and then when they do get together they, they do have to just stay there for too long. Yeah, it's such a toughie, isn't it? I mean, um, it's interesting because my brother lives about 5 minutes away from my mum. She does a lot of his childcare, pops in all the time. Even if he just wants to go to the pub, she pops down, or he drops the kids at hers, and they see each other all the time. Whereas, especially over the last 18 months, she's not been allowed to travel. She's not allowed to come and stay with me. She most definitely wasn't in my bubble. There are some benefits of COVID Not gonna lie, it wasn't the worst thing. So it was rather— it was definitely interesting. So I've seen my mum twice in the last 18 months, and I used to see her every 6 weeks or so. And so that has been interesting, although I moved into a new place during COVID and the only time that she could come, and she had to make sure she got there pretty soon, was when the restrictions had lifted, so she decided to come and stay 2 days after I'd moved into my new place, which I'm sure you can imagine, that was just fantastic. But yeah, so it just shows that even the best relationships, it can put a lot of strain on our emotions and our psyche when they're in the house, and yet she was, you know, the unwelcome guest was in the house. And there's lots of twists and turns, there always are. And it's— you do a lot of kind of domestic noir, don't you? It's— you had Obsession, then Guilt, then Envy, and My Darling. And they're all based around, you know, normal situations where it all just goes a little bit Too Much to the Other Side. That's right. And all of them are so addictive. I mean, I was so looking forward to The Unwelcome Guest. They didn't disappoint. And also there's an extra layer of it for me because I'm a South West Londoner, and at least, so 3 to 4 of them, no, 3 of them were based actually in my home village, and the other one was based in my home village but actually called a different name. And then this latest one is still in the area but just slightly wider down in Esher. Yes, yes. Oh, because I mean, I live in the same area as you, so I tend— it's nice to write about an area you know, really, isn't it? It's nice to have a scene in your head where you know. It's nice to be able to describe something that you know. Well, I enjoy that. Oh, well, I love it because I think at one point when they were having the conversation in the Bear, and I've been to the Bear in Esher, Love it. Yeah, no, I love Eastshire. I love Eastshire, and of course I wanted them to be in a very beautiful big posh house, and there's so many— I mean, I know obviously Twickenham's lovely, lots of lovely houses, but some of those huge modern houses in Eastshire, they're just stunning, aren't they? So, oh yeah, they're absolutely— and also it is quite funny because that pub on the corner just going off from the high street is where you get all these women dolled up to the nines trying to bag themselves a footballer because they're the local brand. I mean, The Chelsea training ground's near, isn't it? That's why they live out there. Yeah, and it used to be so funny because I remember the first time I ever went in that pub and I was like, why are people in this kind of scabby little pub dressed up to the nines as if they're going out, you know, in the King's Road? And they're like, yeah, footballers are here all the time. I'm like, right, okay, that explains it. But it was, it's fantastic. I mean, it is, I can't wait for the next one. I assume you've already got another one whirling around there, or have you already started writing it? Well, yeah, I've got another one supposed to be coming out next year. I've, yeah, I've got to hand it in in November. It's called A Week in Amalfi at the moment, that's my working title, but it's about, they go away for somebody's 40th birthday, a family, a bit there's a lot of heartache. Anyway, it's going to be a lot of heartache in the family. But I, yeah, it's a bit of unrequited love and a divorce and, you know, envy of the second relationship type of thing. And so obviously I'm not going to be getting my fix of the local area then if it's a week in Amalfi. I'm having trouble. You see, I went to this wonderful birthday party in Amalfi 2 years ago and I was people watching watching. It was all lovely, but I only had a few days there, and then I came up with the idea for the novel. But I was, I know I was really hoping to go and have a week there again, you know, and walk all these cliff paths that I'm making up in my head and just really feel the atmosphere. And that would have been a good excuse for a holiday in Amalfi, but I just obviously haven't been able to travel, so I am finding it a bit tricky to to write it in a way, because I'm so used to writing about something that I'm very familiar with. Yeah, maybe I should have it, change it and have it slightly different. A week in Bognor. A week in the White Swan pub or something. A week running the White Swan pub. So you're not back in South West London at the moment? I've not seen the dog walking around much. No, we've been in Wales a lot of the time. We've got a house here and we We lived here all through lockdown and we're spending a lot of time here. So, but I will be coming back soon. I will. Oh good, because I do want to meet the dog. I need to grab a copy of the book off you. Yes, I've got copies now. I mean, I can send one, but we have always said we're gonna have a drink together in the White Swan pub. So I do think I'd love to do that. Yes, and I want to meet the dog as well, obviously, because I see lots of pictures of the dog on Facebook and it's a deliciously fluffy little dog. Little thing, big thing actually, and what better place just on Twickenham Beach. Yeah, no, it's lovely, yeah, we'll definitely have a drink and I'll definitely give you a copy of the book and everything. So, I mean, have you got other ideas as well from other than a week in Amalfi? You seem to get your inspiration from things that are definitely happening happening? Do you sometimes just sit there, say in a pub, or get your friends around for dinner and just say, "What's happening in your world? What's annoying you? What's sending you a little bit loopy at the moment?" Is that what you do and just kind of grill them a little bit? The idea has just come into my head. Well, I've got a book that I've written that I really care about, but I need to sort of send it out to publishers. It's about a woman who's been in a car accident and she's in a coma, and she's talking, and the two, she's has two personalities in her head. She's the woman, she's not even sure which personality she is, but there are two women. There's the woman herself and there's her alter ego, like the woman who she always wished she could be, and they're both swapping notes about their lives. And so the sort of, the thread of the novel is, you know, whether, two threads really, well, there's the threads of the ladies' lives and there's the thread of whether she's going to survive or not, and also which personality will survive. Because quite sometimes when people have been in a coma, they do wake up with quite a different personality. You know, I've even read a case of somebody who'd never spoken Chinese coming out of the coma speaking fluent Chinese. Oh yeah, I've heard that. They were an Olympic athlete or whatever. But so that's why I've written it. It's always fascinated me. And also there's such a sad situation with people who smoke skunk from a very young age where the brain's developing, of mental illness and psychosis. So these two women both have to deal with a teenager taking drugs, and they deal with it differently. And then you sort of— so by the end of the book, you're wondering what the woman whose son is terribly damaged, and the other woman's managed to, you know, hopefully for the grace of God or whatever, the other boy survived. Okay. And, you know, one woman would like to swap with the other woman. There's a lot of power play. But also it's because I feel very strongly that a lot of people don't quite realize how dangerous skunk is for young people. They think it's just like smoking a bit of weed, you know, weak stuff, like when we were younger. And it is, and it's, you know, it's caused a lot of damage to a lot of young people, like really serious, irreparable damage. And so that's the other reason why I wanted to write this book. So it's this book that I have written that I'm trying to, you know, trying to market. It's a much more literary book, really. I mean, it's still a thriller, still a thriller, a psychological thriller, because you don't know what's going to happen to each woman, but there's no crime in it. So it's not along with my genre that I'm writing for HarperCollins. So anyway, but it's just something I really care about. So I've been working on that for quite a few years. So I'm going to read it through and see what who I should send it to or what I should do with it. I'm very happy to read it in alpha or beta if you need an alpha beta readers. I mean, he sounds very kind of Sliding Door-esque, and the thing is there's so many of those. It is, I love that film. That's the sort of thing that I absolutely love. I love timeline thrillers and I love that film Sliding Doors, and it is a Sliding Doors concept book, yeah. Have you read Matt Haig's book, The Midnight Library? Yes, I really enjoyed it. You see, he's— that's fascinating. I thought that was a very clever book. Did you like it? I thoroughly loved it, and what I liked is because there is, you know, there's such an emphasis on mental health, mental well-being, and accepting who we are, and the focus on that. And what I loved about The Midnight Library is because it sometimes we go, "Maybe if I'd have just done this, maybe if I hadn't have made that mistake, maybe if I'd gone down this route," and we spend so much time thinking about things that cannot happen. You cannot go back in time, you know, you can always change your path, you know, the next minute, the next hour, the next day, the next week, and there's no point constantly thinking about the past because that's what forms depression. And it's, it's, I thought it was such a powerful book. And I think there's so many of us, I mean, I've made some ridiculous and horrific mistakes, but I wouldn't take any of them back because if you went down a different path, it's an unknown quantity. No, I, I thought the book was really fascinating. I mean, I did find it particularly interesting because I'm so you know, because of my own book really, and I just thought it was such a clever idea to just keep changing, changing, and changing. And then at first, when I first started to read it, it was so sad, you know, how depressed she was, you know, that made me very, very sad. So to begin with, I thought, oh, I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy it, but of course it was just fascinating. And I like the end, and I just thought it had so many different philosophical ideas that were important. No, I thought it was absolutely brilliant. Well, I think because he's had such issues and battles with mental health, he understands it, and he understands, you know, the thought processes, which helps it be a little bit more relatable and a little bit more accurate. Yeah, I'm sure all of that, but on top of that, I just thought it was a brilliant piece of literary fiction. Absolutely brilliant. Yeah, I think it deserves a prize or, you know, top prize or something. It's probably got one, I just don't know. I love reading something like that that's just a bit different, you know, with a bit more thought to it, you know. There's so many— very different— you know, genre fiction, and they're hard to write, and the people who write them are very clever, but it is just refreshing to read something that's just got a completely different take to it. I think, I'm pretty certain I read somewhere just before I started, I was going to say read it, but I actually listened to it on Audible, which was a fantastic way for it, that it's been optioned for a film, but obviously anything that's been optioned, the whole industry kind of ceased for a little bit, and hopefully things are getting back on track a little bit more, but it's so hard for people to do movies at the moment because all it takes is for one person to ping, and bing bang bosh, everyone shuts down for a few days. And it's very expensive. I just thought it would make a good film. I mean, I would have thought they always seem to do a good job, but I'm one of these people that tend to, when I've really loved a book, I never quite enjoy the film as much, you know. It's just me, that is. I've always imagined it so carefully in my head, and I've always felt there's a bit more depth to the book? Oh, you've always got to read the book first. I think it's dependent on the book as to whether you're interested. Like, for example, I'd want to watch The Midnight Lie because I'd be intrigued as to how they put it together, how it's produced. And I know that Richard Osman's The Thursday Night Murder Club, I know that that has been optioned as well. And again, because I've read the book, I'd want to see the film because I want to see who plays the characters. Well, I should imagine that would make a good film with all the characters. I think a lot of people would enjoy that. But I mean, I enjoyed that as well. I thought that was good. But I enjoyed that. But I think the Matt Haig thing for me was just in a different league because it was just such an intellectually clever idea. But the Richard Osman was brilliant. I thought he captured it beautifully. Beautifully written, a lovely atmosphere with the old people and had light-hearted, funny, you know, the way they were always having a drink or getting up to something they shouldn't. I thought it was very refreshing. Yeah, especially in terms of what's been going on in all the care homes and assisted living facilities during COVID I think it was just, you know, sometimes we have a— we forget or we have a very different view of what goes on in these care homes when in fact these are people who have lived fantastic lives and often still have everything intact. They just need a little bit of help and assistance to help them live safely, or they're living with their partner who needs more assistance. And it— I think he, he really brought that element home beautifully. You know, it's, it's people with 60, 70, 80, 90 years of experience in the world Yes, and I just thought it was stunning, absolutely stunning. I just want to point out as well too, no, he's done ever so well. He won the— was it Novelist of the Year or something? And some people were being catty and saying, oh, because he's a celebrity and this, that, and he didn't deserve it. I think how bitchy people are. I mean, it's a really good book. He sold millions and millions of copies. It absolutely deserves to win a top award, 100%. People are very catty towards novelists, I think. I'll tell you another book on that theme about elderly people being minimised, which is one of my most favourite books, is Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively. Now that, I think that won the Booker Prize in the '80s, I'm not quite sure what year. No, anyway, it's a 1987 novel, but that is brilliant. That starts with an old lady in an old people's home being sort of tucked into a chair, or, you know, tucked into a blanket around in a chair by a nurse who's, you know, just talking to her as if she's just a silly woman, silly old woman, or, you know, just she doesn't have a brain. And all the time she's writing the history of the world in her head. And she was a history professor or something, she's a very, very clever woman. So there's a thread of what she's writing in her head about all the history she knows. And it's so clever because she's also slowly telling the reader the history of her life. So it made me really think, this book, because at the time my mother-in-law wasn't very well and she was in a home. And she had been obviously a very clever woman and, you know, she couldn't speak very well by then and she couldn't communicate much with us. And there's a huge tendency then to think that that person's not able to think properly. And so this book with the nurse sort of talking down to— starting with the nurse sort of slightly talking down to this woman when she was obviously in her head, she was just so with it. And it really made me think, and it's a brilliant book, it's one of my favourites. I'm so impressed that you remembered that it was 1987, because it definitely was. Oh right, well no, I just looked it up on my iPhone actually. I thought it had won the Booker Prize in '82, I knew it was in the '80s, but I just sort of checked it on my iPhone in case I'd even got the title wrong, because my memory's so bad. But it's a great book. I'm just looking at it now, I've just put it in my basket. Oh, I think, I think, I think you would enjoy it. I think I would as well because I like books that kind of stretch the mind and just— we're so busy and sometimes we don't even have time to think about things that should actually be obvious and books help us to kind of broaden our minds and open ourselves up to other people's lives and situations and what actually other people go through. Yes, that's why I've always loved reading, for exactly the reason you just said. I think it does give you an insight into how other people think, and that's always fascinated me. Have you been reading anything lately? I've been reading quite a lot of all my friends' books, which I've been really enjoying. I've read The Serial Killer's Wife 'Life' by Alice Hunter, which I really enjoyed. I've read a book by C.E. Rose, 'The House at the Water's Edge', and another one by Libby Carpenter, 'The Vacancy'. But these are all my writer friends' books, and the thing is, I think because they've now been published a while, I've just been enjoying every single one of them. I just, I think they've all sort of developed. I mean, I've always enjoyed read everybody's books, but I think they've become such proficient writers the more books they've written. I've just been, you know, instead of just thinking, "I better read this and see what it's like," I've just been reading one after the other and loving every single one. It makes me sad. You've been devouring them. Yeah, I have. I mean, they're all lovely. I think there's a lot of very high-quality work coming out right now. Oh, I think so too, and what it is, is it's debut authors as well that are smashing it out the park, and I'm I'm so in awe of all the writing communities and the D20 groups out there that are just producing something fantastic, and everybody's really been supportive of each other. I've written down some of your suggestions. I've got C.E. Rose and Libby Carpenter. What was the first one you said? Alice Hunter. Alice Hunter. It's The Serial Killer's Wife. It's really good. Oh wow. I'm just going to put that on there. I have to write this all down, my brain's like an absolute sieve at the moment, it's why I write everything down. So obviously you've been talking about some of the hardest parts of writing is when you can't actually go to some of the places like the Amalfi Coast to go and do your research. What are your favourite parts of writing? Well, I do love Write, just, I love it when I'm imagining a new scene in my head. I love the creativity of it. I love that because as I'm writing, I imagine, you know, I used to love amateur drama. I pretend I'm acting out the scene. I act the scene out in my head. I love that. I love the beginning when you're planning a novel, the creativity. I love all that side of it. But I just love playing with words. I've always loved words, you know. I love the sound of words. So I just love, you know, sitting down devising sentences and things. I think, and I quite like editing. Tightening it up. But I get a bit more bored later on when it's like the copy edits and all that, you know, when the— editing, and then you have to start, you sort of have to start proving, you know, because I always check every point before I put it in, but then they double-check and they say, did you really? And I should keep more notes, you know, I should write notes. I've started writing timelines because then they check the timeline. So is it really 20 years? Is it really? And I haven't done it all in in the first place. And then I lost— I carried this sheet around on this one of when everything happened, and it was in the back of my folder, and then I lost it just before the copy edit, and I had to go and make it all up again. That's the sort of thing I get sick of. Those sort of things annoy me a bit. And sometimes deadlines I find tricky, but the actual process of writing a novel I really, really love. Well, you're obviously quite a dab hand at it at the moment. As I said before, there's Obsession, Guilt, Envy, and My Darling, before The Unwelcome Guest, which is, uh, launched on the 19th of August. How long does it take pretty much from start to finish on average, say? What, what, for me or for the whole procedure with the publishing house? Um, to the, the whole procedure in terms of when you actually deliver it to somebody else to do their work? Well, I I deliver my next one on the 1st of November and it'll probably come out the same time next year because they, you have, first of all you have a structural edit from your editor who she reads, they read it through and if there's any major changes, they don't go through every sentence, they just say, well, I think you need to expand these characters more or I don't like the ending or something like that. It's just generally And that's often the worst one because, you know, sometimes, I mean, for example, Guilt. With Guilt, I'd written it as if the twins were 18. And, you know, same story. And I'd done all the research. I've been back to my secondary school in Form B. I thought that two twins at 18 would be so well connected together. And if one of them messed up their A-levels, you know, they'd be so protective of one another. But my editor said to me, "I'm sorry, that's not the dynamic. We should have talked about this before you wrote it. We should have talked about it in more detail. Your audience are not going to be interested in such young teenagers. You need to make the twins about 30." So that was like— so I lost 15,000 words, and that was a really big rewrite. What I did was, because I'd set them around A-level going to to university. So I made that one the less successful, and it was, you know, one was much more competent, successful, academic, so I, you know, I changed it, and one of them had been working 10 years and the other one had been at home not doing very much, had had a breakdown, hadn't, you know, and had finally managed to get to university as a mature student 10 years later. So I kept those scenes about, because I could keep some of the scenes when they were in the university town, because I'd set 'In Bristol,' and I, you know, done so much work, so I managed to sort that out. But I think that was the worst structural edit I've ever had, because it was just, you know, a huge shock. Because the thing was, they bought my book before they'd— they hadn't— my editor just hadn't realized I was writing about such young people. I suppose I'd never told her. She was just so keen for me to write my next book, because it was the next one after Obsession. She was just so keen for me to write another book that she'd I didn't really check up what I was doing. And then when I'd done it, she felt she had to say something. It's all a learning curve, but I think it's quite nice for other people, especially who have written books or are in the midst of writing books, to hear about the experiences of other authors. And it can kind of not only help them and remind them what they should be thinking of, but also if they've had the same issue, to just sometimes keep on trucking, keep on going. Yeah. You know, we all have setbacks, but keep on going. But then I think then you have your line edit, your copy edit— I get a bit mixed up— and then the proof editor. So you have all these different edits that I— you get to the point later on where it's mostly commas. They put loads of— always put loads of extra commas in my work, and some of my other writers say they do the same. But, and I, you know, I thought I was getting better at putting more in, but I still got a load more last time. Just start throwing commas in here left, right, and centre. They just break the sentences up much more to make it more accessible to the reader. Whereas my husband's my first reader, and he's a lawyer, and he is very sparse with commas because they have to make sure the sentences make complete sense with as few commas as possible. For there to be no ambiguity. So I think because he's my first reader and he's helped me quite a lot to learn how to— he's helped me a lot with telling me which grammar books to read because I didn't even learn much grammar at school. I think that's why I don't use enough commas. But I mean, they put a comma around each name every time because, you know, I write in that you tense all the time. So if I say you, Miranda, they always put a comma around the Miranda bit, they always do, and I don't always, so it's things like that. Now I just want to point out to our listeners as well that they can find out about all of your books on amandarobson.co.uk. I'm just looking up at the events at the moment, are you going to be doing a book tour? A book tour? No, I don't think so. Oh, we wanted to see you in Waterstones signing books and chatting to us. Oh, well, I know I'd love to, but I just, you know, with all the COVID thing, I'm wondering whether to just do a Zoom event on the launch, the 19th. But I mean, you know, maybe I could do something in September or something now because things are a lot easier, aren't they? So the book's coming out on the 19th August. I mean, no, I mean, I would love— maybe I should have an event in September or something. I've been feeling a bit, you know, nervous about everything, but I mean, things are increasingly looking better, aren't they? Well, yeah, and it ties in quite nicely with the new regulations about people not having to isolate after they've been double vaccinated and things like that if they're coming into contact with somebody. So it kind of means that there's— it means that more people can attend and there's less chance that, you know, the pingdemic is going to affect people. The pingdemic. Yeah, yeah, no, I was tending to think I wouldn't this time, but maybe I could in the autumn do something actually, because it'll only be a couple of months after my book's come out and I mean, you know, I have missed missed having all, you know, have missed everything. Missed— I'd love to see people. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, so many people at the Harrogate Crime Fest, and it was so nice seeing all the pictures of everybody getting together. And I just think that was lovely. Did you get to go, or did you just look at them? I did go, and I had a lovely time, and I absolutely loved it. But I— and the same thing happened to me last— 2 years ago when I went, I came back with with a sore throat because I've been talking so much to all my friends and I've been drinking too much. And I think you can, if you do drink an awful lot too much, like I stayed up till 4 in the morning on one of the nights at Chattering. And this happened to me 2 years ago as well. I always had a croaky voice, but it got me a bit worried, you know, because I kept doing COVID, you know, kept doing those COVID tests and I got back. But I do feel fine now, so I have recovered. From my intense chattering. It's quite funny though, because it was so lovely, it was such fun. But I— and also I think because it was the first time I'd been to anything like this for all this time, I was a bit paranoid that I'd come back with something and, you know, you don't want to give it to anyone else, or do you, or your family. So, but now I've— but it was wonderful, it was wonderful to be together like that again. I can imagine it though, put in a space with all these other people that have so much to say that they write a book and they're so creative and they've all just been sitting there in their rooms over the last 18 months writing and all of a sudden they're going, "Ah, it's my people!" I can imagine it's just incessant chatting and that's just, I'm so gutted I missed it. No, no, it's lovely. Well, hopefully, you know, things will be back to normal and we'll be able to do this every year. And, you know, let's hope everything's just really going the right way. Yes, yes, fingers crossed. Um, now, you have— you are the first ever person on Get Booked here at Women's and Men's Radio Station to appear 3 times on the show. Did you know that? No, I'm very honored. That's lovely. I love talking to you, Hazel, so I'm very great. It's great fun. I always love talking to you. It flies by so quickly as well. Like, it's the show— the show is an hour long and we're running out of time already, and I still like to ask my, my, uh, standard questions because I love these questions, just kind of helping, um, our listeners with mental health, mental well-being hints and tips and about positivity and looking out for the right people out there to kind of boost our energy. So the first question, which I hope you remember, is who at the moment are you admiring in the public eye? Who should we be looking out for and absorbing their fantasticness? Oh gosh. Well, you always flummox me with this one. I know it's a toughie. There's so many, I've had some fantastic ones recently. There's been Jacinta Arden, which I just think is absolutely fantastic. There's been Marcus Rashford, because I like the whole idea that there's so many people out there that kind of make people feel a little bit alone. But then, so I think it's really good to just remind people of some of the incredible people out there to actually look out for and take in. Well, I mean, I know I said this last time you asked me, but the people that have cheered me on the most during lockdown are the radio DJs. There's a high level of professionalism. I listen to radio too a lot, and my two fave— well, I love Jeremy I've always loved Jeremy Vine, but I think Steve Wright in the afternoon, he's just so funny and cheeky and lively and bouncy, and it just makes you— listening to him in the afternoon, if I'm feeling a bit low, it really makes me feel better. He sings along, he says silly things, and he says silly things in just the right way that's silly, but it's not too silly that makes you, oh God, what's he doing now? It's just fun, and you know, just absolutely So I mean, he's one of my most favourite, and I have to say that, you know, these DJs are always interviewing other people and, you know, making a fuss of them, but I think they— I actually think they deserve a huge thank you. So they're definitely very high on my list. Oh, I love that answer. But this is what it's all about. It's about reminding people who to actually have in their arena. Put people that listen uplift you. They're not people that make you feel bad about yourself. So I love all the different ideas that people come up with when I ask that question for this show, and there's always some fantastic and interesting answers, and sometimes people I've never heard of before, and then I like going off and kind of having a bit of a snoop and finding out what they're all about. I think it's fantastic. Um, and, and the other thing I like to ask is 3 tips on well-being. What have you been doing in the last year or so to boost you? What helps you kind of have a positive mindset? Well, I think it's— well, I know a lot of people have had too much time on their own during lockdown, but I seem to have had an awful lot of time with everybody in my family because we've all been working from home, which is lovely. But I think it's quite important to have a little bit of time out, a little bit of your own independence. Space, because I think some people have all been pushed together a lot more than they would normally be, and we all need a bit of— be able to carve out our own life a bit, don't we? I think for me, at my age as well, with all the people I sort of look after and, you know, help in the family, I just sometimes need to sort of step back a bit and just make sure I've got an hour or two to sit and read a book if I want, or, you know, just to say, to hell with this, just do something that I want to do for a few hours rather than just help everybody else most of the time. And that, that sounds horrible, but I mean, some of us have been pushed together more. I know some people have been sadly on their own, which must have been to hell, and I would hate that more than anything. But at the same time, um, you know, maybe normally if you're commuting to work, you have that bit of quiet time on the train for an hour that you just, you know, just you can put your headphones in and listen to, you know, and maybe we've all had that taken away a little bit. That's one of the things I miss, the commuting, you know, because that is when I had space on my own, I read a book or I caught up on my emails and, you know, even just the odd hour in a café, which obviously we couldn't go in a café. I thoroughly loved that time and I actually met a friend who managed to come over from the States dates for the first time in a couple of years, and I actually went to the restaurant 45 minutes earlier so I could sit there, have a drink, read a book, and do a bit of writing on my own. I intentionally went earlier because I just thoroughly love it. Yeah, yeah. The other thing— I mean, it's not necessarily quite answering the question really, but the other thing I find difficult during lockdown, which I expect a lot of people have, is because It's the uncertainty, you know, you never know when you can do that, you know, you used to be able to plan when you go on your holidays, plan when you might meet your friends, plan when you might go back to the office, and nobody's been able to do much planning at all. And I think a lot of people like to be able to feel a bit more in control. I mean, obviously in life there's always horrible things happen or certain surprises, completely changing, you'll never have complete certainty in life, that's one of the frightening things about it, but we've had far less certainty than normal, and I personally found that very difficult, and I think it's going to be nice for me anyway, I'll feel a lot happier when I can just plan a few things. Well, we like something to look forward to, you know, that's what it's about, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, and I don't know really, I how you just need to try and have confidence in yourself, don't you? I think that that's hard, but I think some people, if they have more natural self-confidence, they tend to get less worked up about what's going on around them. Or if somebody says something a bit cheeky to them, they're not going to get quite so hurt. Or, you know, how people can try and develop their inner self-confidence, I don't know. I'm sure all the self-help groups— but I think if people do have a little bit of natural confidence, it helps a tremendous amount. Well, it's sometimes knowing what Ctrl+Alt+Delete you, or what bigs you up, what puts you in a positive mindset, whether that is, you know, sitting in a café on your own somewhere, or reading a book, or going out for a walk on your own. The most powerful gift you can give yourself is knowing what is going to reset you and what is going to enrich you, because we do— self-care, yes, a lot of people talk about it at the moment, but if we don't look after ourselves, we are useless to other people. Yeah, no, it's true. Well, I mean, I'm on Get Booked, and I love reading and writing, and I love books, so I find if I'm getting a bit sick of, you know, all the things I'm supposed to be doing and a bit fed up, my best thing is to curl up with a book, really, for an hour or two. Sometimes I do just think, well, actually, I've had enough of this, and I don't know I should be doing the washing, or I should be going to see more, I should be doing some more writing. I think, no, I just want to sit and read for a few hours. And that makes me, I usually find that lovely. Oh yeah, me too. That was one of the things that I used to miss as well. Before COVID I used to, whenever my kids would go and see their dad, they used to go and see them every 2 weeks, just for a couple of days. And I used to, when he picked up the kids, I used to get him to drop me at the local wine bar and I'd sit there for 2 hours reading a book before I actually agreed to meet my friends 2 hours later. And it was just, it was a perfect way to start a weekend. Yeah, just wind down and enjoy what you're doing. Lovely. Literally wind down, yeah. I was like, right, I'm here. They're like, ah, Hazel, here you are, what book you reading today? Like, shh, just keep it coming, sweetheart. But thank you so much, the time has absolutely flown by. I've thoroughly enjoyed chatting to you, and everybody go and get The Unwelcome Guest, or maybe if you're a daughter-in-law, or you have a mother-in-law, maybe go and buy it for her, just to make sure that everybody's on the same page about what is and what isn't okay. It might even be a little bit of a laugh. And go check it out on amandarobson.co.uk, and there's also a review and a nice and easy link up on hazelbutcherfield.com for people to pop onto Amazon and shove it in their basket nice and easily. Thank you so much for joining us here on Women's and Men's Radio Station, Amanda. Well, thank you, Hazel. I always love talking to you, and thank you very much. And, and my dedication, my— what it says in the front of my book is to mother-in-laws everywhere, so they should read it, yes. Mother-in-laws beware! That's your Christmas present sorted, everybody. And I look forward to having you on the show for a fourth time when the next book comes out. Oh, lovely, thank you. And that drink in the pub. Yes, I'm on it, I'm Audrey, let me know when you're ready. You've been listening to Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station.