Featured Interview With Helen Pollard
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I live in the UK, and I’m a true Yorkshire lass, born & bred. I lived in other places on and off when I was younger, but I always ended up back here. It’s a truly beautiful county. Nowadays, I’m happily settled in suburbia with my husband, two teenagers, and a rather psychotic cat.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree books are to blame. I read and reread those books well past my bedtime (by the light of the street lamp outside my window after lights out!) I loved the way she created a whole new world in each and every chapter, and I wanted to do that for myself, so I started writing my own stories in a notebook. I think I was about seven at the time. I still have that notebook, although it’s a bit battered now.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I can read any number of P G Wodehouse’s Jeeves & Wooster or Blandings stories. He had such a lovely turn of phrase. They make me laugh out loud. As a writer, Wodehouse inspires me to think up unusual and unexpected ways of phrasing my work, and to polish until it sounds just right.
I also love Mary Stewart’s mystery romances from the 1950s and 60s. They now seem delightfully old-fashioned – but the heroines are feisty, and there is usually danger, mystery and a villain to unearth alongside vivid descriptions of the places the books are set. As a writer, I think she got that combination perfectly.
For modern romance with sizzle, I think Nora Roberts is hard to beat.
If I fancy a thriller, I read Michael Connelly or Harlen Corben. I also love Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano mysteries – irreverent, convoluted and gripping.
When I’m in the mood for something a little more philosophical, I find Alexander McCall Smith’s tales of Mma Ramotswe and Botswana gently uplifting.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My new release, Holding Back, is a summer romance set in northern Portugal. I visited the area a couple of times a few years ago, and it’s so beautiful and friendly there. Since I love my books to take place somewhere interesting, and write the story so that my readers feel like they are visiting the place in their imagination, I felt compelled to dream up a plot and characters for the setting!
The first draft took me about six to nine months to write … but then I always spend an inordinate amount of time editing and polishing afterwards, until I get it just how I want it.
When I’m writing, I usually start out with a basic idea of where I want to go with the story, but then my characters have a habit of taking over and dictating their own route.
In Holding Back, Laura and Daniel are strongly attracted to each other but they don’t get on well at first. Laura avoids romance and assumes all she needs is extra willpower when she meets Daniel at her friends’ hotel where she helps out every summer. As for Daniel, he has too many work demands – and problems with his manipulative ex-girlfriend – to find time for anything else. They’re both stubborn and determined not to get involved – hence the title! It was quite a challenge to get the two of them together, believe me.
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