When I lived in London last summer I was lucky enough to get to know the novelist Karen Essex. (Her recent, internationally bestselling books are Leonardo’s Swans and Stealing Athena.) Recently she moderated a conversation between Penny Vincenzi, the #1 bestselling British novelist, and me because our new novels — The Best of Times and Bird in Hand — both begin with car accidents that change the lives of the central characters. Karen was interested in two things in particular: Was the accident the inspiration for the novel, or merely a device, a catalyst for the story? And – as long-married women, how strange, unsettling, or awkward was it to write about adultery and divorce?
To find out the answers to these and other provocative questions, click here.
