Hi Kiley, thank you so much for joining me today. Can you tell us about your latest novel, A New Chapter at the Borrow a Bookshop (loving this title) and what inspired it?

A New Chapter at the Borrow a Bookshop is number 5 in the series and dare I say it, possibly the last? I wanted to do the series justice and end on huge high. I chose my favourite romance trope ‘Friends to Lovers’ for this one and had a blast writing all the attraction and withholding; masses of fun for an author!

What’s your typical writing day like? Do you have any writing rituals like needing coffee a lot, writing in a favourite spot? Writing in silence?

I’ve got into a new routine recently of writing 1000-1400 words in a session, and I tend to go to a café in town where I’ll sit with my coffee and my headphones and type away happily. If I try to write at home I get distracted by all the jobs there is to do there.

From idea to finished draft, how long does it take you to write a novel, and how do you know when you’ve done enough research and editing?

It can take me a couple of years to go from pitch to published, but once I’ve got a contract signed, it takes me about 4 or 5 months to fully plan out and write the first draft. I’ll give that draft a quick read through and a tidy before sending it to my editor. I tend to write about things I know a little bit about then do some scant research, enough to sound like I’m a pair of safe hands. Then I get structural edits sent back to me which can take a few weeks to action, then there’s another round of edits (line edits – looking for wee fiddly things to fix), then I am sent the proofs to read (and even at that stage I make little tweaks).

What themes are explored in this novel and what’s the main thing you want readers to take away from it?

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