Tag: catherine curzon

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Catherine Curzon and Eleanor Harkstead write as a team and they have two new books out for your delectation and delight. Eleanor is here today to answer intrusive questions and talk about their books! Welcome, Eleanor!

Your starter for one: Why are you doing this interview?

Eleanor Harkstead: I’m here today because we (writing team Catherine Curzon and Eleanor Harkstead) have not one but two new books out. The Captain and the Baker, our summery romcom set in Cornwall, and our Halloween novella How to Make the Perfect Man.

What started you writing?

The first story I wrote that wasn’t something I was told to write at school was about a skeleton who lived in a wardrobe, and his friends a witch and a vampire. I must’ve been about six!

Fast forward several years and I’d kept writing. My first published title was Poison Panic, a non-fiction book about Victorian poisoners. Catherine writes historical non-fiction for the same publisher, so that’s how we came to meet. We discovered a shared love of tea, chaps and fine tailoring, and that we have a similar sense of humour, and off we went! We’ve been writing together now for over three years.

Where do you write?

I tend to write at my desk at home, but if I’m out and about I write on my phone. I’ve written at the hairdresser’s waiting for the dye to take! Catherine and I write together online, which means we can be as mobile as we need to. Once we were both in different hotels, two hundred miles apart, finishing one novel and embarking on the next.

What do you like to read?

Over the past few months, I’ve been enjoying Vaseem Khan’s Baby Ganesh Detective Agency novels. They’ve got such a compelling sense of place, and he’s really good at creating a cast of very different characters to inhabit the world of his stories. And the mysteries keep me reading. Like most people, I haven’t travelled very far over the last few months, so I’ve enjoyed my vicarious travels to Khan’s Mumbai by book!

It might sound odd, but in some ways, his writing reminds me of the stories Catherine and I write – even down to the way he writes his animal characters with the same vividness as he does his humans.

Writing is an intrinsically solo occupation. Do you belong to any groups or associations, either online or in the ‘real’ world? How does that work for you?

Catherine and I are our own support group!

I’m in the Romantic Novelists’ Association too. I started to go to lunches with members of my local chapter several years ago. I was writing a romance, then was commissioned to write the book about poisoners, yet I was still welcomed by the group, which shows how lovely and enthusiastic RNA members are about writing. It was a proud moment when I went back to writing romance and was able to join!

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I like gardens and I enjoy visiting old towns and cities. My only visits in the past few months have been to Birmingham Botanical Gardens, and to Warwick! Warwick was great as my partner and I went to Lord Leycester’s Hospital, which dates back to the 1300s. We went to Hill Close Gardens, which was really lovely – there were even summer houses there which are listed buildings.

But then I expect you can appreciate the lure of historical places!

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

The Captain and the Baker came about when I visited Catherine and we were watching cookery programmes on the telly. Catherine already had in mind the idea of a mild-mannered baker, who would turn into gentle Cornishman Locryn. Watching a sweary chef losing his rag on the telly created the idea for his foil – Jake, who’s so very different to Locryn. And as everyone knows, opposites attract…

Writing the food scenes was great fun, even down to the giant wedding cake shaped like a boat. And I enjoyed penning Jake’s creative use of profanities! Creating the village of Porthavel was wonderful, showing readers the harbour, the village’s buildings, and the people who live there. Sometimes elements of novels you’re writing can feel so real, that once or twice I found myself wondering why I couldn’t find Porthavel on Google Maps!

To be honest, the thing I hate is when a story comes to an end, but it’s never long before we’re writing something else!

Read on to find out more about The Captain and the Baker and How to Make the Perfect Man!