Featured Interview With Margaret S Goldthorp
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was raised in a rural area of West Yorkshire, not far from Haworth, home of the Bronte sisters, whose books were a early inspiration. I lived in Zurich for a few years, then London, and now live in East Hampshire. I retired from a career in Property Management ten years ago.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
As soon as I could read, and probably earlier! My childhood home was full of books and I was a precocious reader, reading adult books at the same time as Enid Blyton’s Famous Five novels. I wrote short stories from an early age and continued until the age of about 30, then a busy life intervened and I did not write fiction again until I retired.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I like historical fiction and crime novels – especially psychological thrillers. Favourite authors are the Bronte sisters, Dinah Jeffries, Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George, Patricia Highsmith, Noel Barber, amongst many others. During the last twenty years or so of my working life I commuted some distance by train and always read novels during the journeys.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is called A Divided Heritage. It is in a sense a sequel to my first novel, Voyage to Venning Road, which was based on a true story, as it takes some fictional characters from that novel and continues with their lives. It follows the turbulent lives of three siblings, who have a Malayan mother and English father, between 1928 and 1948, as they experience prejudice, tragedy and the barbarity of war. Theo, Arianna and Enid are three very different characters and their later lives follow different paths. The family arrive in England in 1928, when they are aged 12, 9 and 6, and a few years later a life-changing tragedy strikes. In 1938 Theo and Arianna return to Malaya, where they initially find love and happiness, but the Japanese invasion and occupation tears their lives apart.
Including all the historical research, the book took me about twenty months to write.