The Swindon Festival of Literature featured a creator of detectives on 11 May at the Central Library.

The author of the Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth mystery series, as well as more than 100 historic romantic novels under various pseudonyms, charmed the audience instantly with her stories and amusing anecdotes.

Born and raised in Glasgow, and having lived in London, the United States of America, the Highlands of Scotland, and now sharing her time between the Cotswolds and Paris, the 74-year-old has travelled a fair bit, perhaps allowing her inspiration for her many novels to ever increase.

Her love of reading was clear, as she explained that she was a part of the reading generation, a great escape pre-TV.

She is clearly not the “moron of the family” as she was once described by her mother, creating characters that have touched the hearts of people worldwide. Moving from journalism into novels, she claims the transition was easy – “You just report what’s in your head”. Her first effort was a Regency novel, written after reading one and thinking that she could do better.

However she claims to have “no literary ambitions” and just wanted to plug a gap in the market at the time for something between Mills and Boon and the Booker Prize.

No one could fail to be drawn in by this warm, interesting woman, and I look forward to seeing if this is matched in The Agatha Raisin companion and Busy Body which will be released in October this year.

By Jennifer Ockwell, Swindon Festival of Literature

Find out more about the Swindon Literature of Festival here:

http://www.swindonfestivalofliterature.co.uk/

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