Christmas

Everyone loves Christmas don’t they? I certainly do. It’s a serious event in our house. We are not religious, but I love the Christmas story, as well as all the traditions  ̶  sparkle, snow, carols, fairy-lights and gifts piled beside the decorated trees  ̶  which have grown up around the celebration of Christmas. We enjoy it as the mid-winter pagan festival it once was in these islands.

The perpetuation of tradition happens on a smaller scale, within families. I am well aware that the things I insist upon  ̶  the foil wrapped nugget of coal, alongside the nuts, chocolate money and Satsuma, in the toe of the stocking  ̶  is not necessarily what anyone else does, it is simply a repetition of what happened in my family when I was a child. So there is a lot of sentiment wrapped-up in the attempt to recreate the Christmases of your own childhood  ̶  a need to sink back into that remembered warmth, excitement and security.

My book, TORN, starts just before Christmas. Jessica has escaped London with her young son, and is making a fresh start in the country. Here she believes life will be simple, straightforward and peaceful. As she leaves a pub on her first evening out, she breaths in the chill air with a sense of relief and optimism.

I could have made the opening chapter of TORN a warm and cosy evocation of this time of year. But I write unconventional, unpredictable, unsentimental stories. So, what do you think happens?