Sometimes I wondered why Abigail was so drawn to the Radley family. They didn't seem that interesting to me and they kept making her feel uncomfortable. The fact that they completely contrasted with her own family is a factor, but it doesn't seem enough. I suspect, too, that the problem is one of gender. Perhaps the reason that romantic fiction is given insufficient respect is that it's almost exclusively written by, and read by, women. More importantly, its storylines offer women emotional fulfilment (that is the premise of romance), as if to say that that is what women deserve.

Gorgeous... If you're looking for something escapist and bittersweet, I could not recommend more' Pandora Sykes on Small Pleasures However, if a man writes a romantic novel then a very different attitude prevails. Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong, to my mind, is no more than a piece of excellent romantic fiction. So is Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières. Had they been written by women I suspect they would not have been heaped with the literary praise that they were. As for Nina, she's having enough trouble with her son, James. He's got exams looming, a new girlfriend with pneumatic breasts and now, it seems, he's on drugs. Nina certainly won't welcome any ghosts from the past. I remember writing about the negative stereotyping of romantic fiction as a journalist in 1996. Now, eight years on, and on the other side of the industry, I can see that nothing has changed. Romantic fiction will carry on being dismissed in literary and academic circles, and its detractors will still characterise it as fluff.Clare began her career as a secretary at the publisher André Deutsch, when Diana Athill was still at the helm. They not only published her first novel, but made her type her own contract. In due course she went on to become a fiction and non-fiction editor there herself, until leaving to raise a family and concentrate on her own writing. Some of the experiences of working for an eccentric, independent publisher in the pre-digital era found their way into her novel The Editor's Wife (Century, 2007). When her three children were teenagers, inspired by their reading habits, she produced two YA novels, Bright Girls (HarperCollins 2009) and Burning Secrets (HarperCollins 2011). Clare Chambers was born in south east London in 1966. She studied English at Oxford and spent the year after graduating in New Zealand, where she wrote her first novel, Uncertain Terms, published when she was 25. She has since written eight further novels, including Learning to Swim (Century 1998) which won the Romantic Novelists' Association best novel award and was adapted as a Radio 4 play, and In a Good Light (Century 2004) which was longlisted for the Whitbread best novel prize. But most of all, I wasn't particularly captivated by the Birdie story. The character wasn't very developed so I didn't feel like I got to know her at all. And I found it strange that she started spending all her time with the Radleys, not to mention the fact that she never spoke to Abigail again after she was broken-hearted and instead started going out with Rad all by herself. What kind of a sister does that? But, on the flip side, it will also continue to be the biggest selling genre both in the UK and around the world, and I am delighted to be part of that.

I really enjoyed reading this. I wasn't glued to the book wanting to know what would happen next; instead I read it slowly as though savouring a good wine.Fr om the highly-acclaimed author of SMALL PLEASURES - longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021 Families are a funny thing. You never know what goes on behind closed doors, and never has this been more true than in the story of Abigail Jex (née Onions) and her memories of her childhood friend Frances Radley.