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Rachel Hore is the multi-million selling Sunday Times author of thirteen novels with her fourteenth, Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge, coming out next year.

Rachel is an avid reader. 'My reading addiction got properly under way when I was five and our family moved from Surrey, England, where I was born, to live in Hong Kong because of my father’s job. I loved Hong Kong, but I also missed home, and one of the great excitements was receiving parcels of books from relatives in the UK. When the tropical heat got to me, which it often did, being red-haired with fair skin, I’d lie on my bed and lose myself in Enid Blyton, Black Beauty or the Chronicles of Narnia.'

Her love for tales about the past was born from reading books by historical authors like Cynthia Harnett, Hilda Lewis and Rosemary Sutcliff.

'During my early teenage years I perused Jackie magazine and longed for romance, but instead fell in love with English literature. I tried Jane Austen and the Brontës, raided my grandfather’s bookshelf for Dickens and my local library for Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Wilkie Collins. I owe a huge debt to the public library system and believe passionately that we should maintain it for future generations.'

In this conversation, Rachel and I talk about her latest book, the craft of writing and the mysterious photo which triggered her journey into Cornwall's wartime past

You can learn more about Rachel and her wonderful books, here

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