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today we have julias williams author of coming home for christmas with us at suzies bookblog im so happy to have her here she will be talking about her new book
Julia Williams grew up in North London, one of eight children, including a twin sister who also writes. She studied English at Liverpool University where she met her husband, David, a dentist. They have been married for 25 years, have four lovely daughters and live in Surrey. Julia worked in children's publishing for ten years, before going freelance and taking the plunge and writing. Her first book,Pastures New was published in 2007. Coming Home for Christmas is her eighth book.
Coming Home for Christmas is the third in a trilogy set around the fictional town of Hope Christmas, which is based on a real town called Church Stretton in Shropshire. The original idea for the first book, Last Christmas, came from wanting to write about the difficulties of putting on a Christmas nativity. I liked the characters so much I returned to them in A Merry Little Christmas, and then again in this story. The idea for this story came about because I care quite a lot about inappropriate development in lovely places, and I wanted to bring my characters together, so they join forces to campaign against a new luxury development being built near where two of my characters (Marianne and Pippa) live. I also continued to explore their stories. Marianne is married to Gabriel, whose ex wife Eve suffers from mental health problems and ends up coming to stay. Pippa split up from her husband Dan in the last book, so I continued their story here, and finally Cat, who has four children is juggling work, teenagers, being a grandma and looking after her mother in law. I like writing about family life and the different dynamics and problems that it can create. And I hope people will relate to the result.
did you enjoy writing it ?
Most of the time! I love the characters and the setting, but some bits of the story came more easily then others, so at times I was tearing my hair out. And the rewrites came at a particularly difficult time, so that was like getting lead out of a stone. Having said that, when writing is going well, it's the most fun job in the world.
do you listen to music when writing ?
I don't usually listen to music when I'm writing, but I do use music to inspire me. Most of my books have a soundtrack, and I sometimes listen to key songs to write a particular scene. A theme running through all three of these books is motherhood, so Angels by Robbie Williams has been a huge inspiration.
who is your favorite character in the series ?
Oh that's really difficult! I love Gabriel, who is Marianne's husband (and looks spookily like Richard Armitage!), but I also really like Dan who has been through so much. Cat I really relate to as she has four kids like me, but overall, it's probably Pippa because I admire her courage and common sense.
what made you want to be a writer?
I always liked writing/making up stories from a very young age, but it never occured to me that I could earn my living that way. I was lucky enough to get a job in publishing, and when I decided to go freelance after I had children, I thought I'd give it a go. it took me nearly 9 years to get published, but I learnt a lot along the way, and now I wouldn't want to do anything else!
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