Also by Amanda Brooke
Yesterday’s Sun
Another Way To Fall
The Keeper of Secrets (ebook-only novella)
1. What was your inspiration for the novel?
My initial inspiration for Where I Found You actually came from a park bench! I was out jogging through a local wood one morning (which makes me sound far more healthy than I am …) when I noticed a bench tucked away next to a duck pond. I imagined all the people who might have sat down on it and the stories the bench could tell. It made me think of another bench that I used to sit on at the side of the lake in Sefton Park. It was a favourite spot of mine and it was little wonder the park had already featured in my second novel, Another Way to Fall. I distinctly remembered sitting there alone on the bench, heavily pregnant with my first child and wondering how my life was about to change and how I would cope. As I continued on my run, I could almost imagine a ghostly impression of myself still sitting there all those years ago …
When I arrived back home huffing and puffing, I was still thinking about that bench, only now I was imagining what would happen if two strangers sat down and began talking: what if they shared the same kind of problems and sparked up a friendship but then, what if they came from completely different eras? It was all those ‘what ifs’ that developed into the premise for the story and a couple of years later it had grown into a full length novel.
2. Maggie is visually impaired and Elsie suffers from Alzheimer’s; how much research did you have to do into these areas?
For Maggie, most of my research was through reading autobiographies, websites and online forums but I also have a friend whose son is blind and she helped too. My friend volunteers for Henshaws Society for Blind People and she was able to put me in touch with a mum who is visually impaired and has two daughters. I met the mum and she gave me a lot of ideas for the finer detail I could add to Maggie’s day to day life, the help she might receive and also some of the barriers.
In terms of Elsie, again I did a lot of reading up on the disease but I was surprised how many people I know who have had personal experience and speaking to them helped too. I also have some personal experience and used that to inform my writing but more about that in the next question.
3. Are Maggie and Elsie based on anyone in particular?
Where I Found You is dedicated to my grandparents and with good reason. My nan had dementia in her latter years and I thought a lot about her when I wrote about Elsie. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Elsie was based on Betty McCulloch - my nan certainly didn’t have the same chequered history - but some of those early signs of dementia were from my own recollections of my nan’s illness. And I should also add that Elsie’s husband Ted is very much based on my granddad who, unsurprisingly, was also called Ted. One of my aunts lived in Surrey and whenever she came to visit, my granddad would always ask her when she was going home as soon as she arrived - it wasn’t that he wasn’t pleased to see her, it was just ‘his way,’ and my fictional character just happens to have adopted the same kind of traits.
Maggie on the other hand is pure fabrication but if I was ever lost and alone sitting on a park bench, I’d quite like to have someone like Maggie come up and sit next to me.
4. Is Judith’s behaviour towards Maggie a critique on society’s understanding of blind people?
Where I Found You is a work of fiction and I think there are quite clear lines between the vast majority of my characters who accepted Maggie and saw beyond her disability and those who didn’t. I’d like to think that I’ve taken a good measure of poetic licence to exaggerate some of the prejudices that Maggie’s mother-in-law Judith displays, but having spoken to a mum with partial sight and reading some of the forums online, unfortunately there’s evidence that suggests that there are real-life versions of Judith out there. My only hope is that, like my character, prejudices can be overcome with enough perseverance.
5. What is the significance of aromatherapy in the novel?
It was a real challenge to describe Maggie’s world from her perspective and not rely on visual descriptions. I dabbled with aromatherapy in my earlier years and it seemed the perfect career choice for my heroine. It was certainly a voyage of discovery as I set about writing the scenes with Maggie and very early on I came up with the idea of how she might colour her world with scents. I loved creating scenes with lavender blue skies and a lemon sun and could have written so much more into my descriptions but I had to restrain myself otherwise the novel would have been twice as long. I hope what the reader is left with is tantalising glimpses of how Maggie’s mind creates imagery through aromas.
6. Maggie’s mum had a huge influence on her life. What has your mum taught you?
My mum certainly taught me how to be independent and as a single mum it’s a characteristic I’ve had to rely upon. I come from a family with very strong women who will put their hand to anything; from cleaning gutters and laying flagstones, to making curtains. My mum is very much into her crafting these days and on the day I sent back the final page proofs for Where I Found You, I met her for lunch and she showed me a quilt she had just finished making … And if you’ve read Where I Found You then by strange coincidence you’ll know this particular craft Maggie shared with her mum! I have definitely inherited the crafting bug but I can’t say I can lay flagstones like my mum quite yet.
I also have my mum to thank for my love of dogs and Harvey is the first dog I’ve added to a storyline. Because I work fulltime, I don’t have the time I would need to take care of a dog but I do come from a dog-loving family and my mum bred German Shepherds for a while. I absolutely loved living vicariously through Maggie and I really do wish I had a dog like Harvey in my life.
7. What would you like the reader to take away from this novel?
I do hope readers will grow to love Maggie as I have and admire her for the way she helps Elsie. As I said before, it would be nice to have someone like Maggie take a seat next to me on a park bench and be able to share my troubles with her. Of course each reader will form their own opinion of Maggie but I would like to think that the last thing they think about is the fact that she is blind; that they judge her as a person and not a person with a disability.
8. Can you tell us about your next book?
My next book is about a married couple who are expecting their first child when David goes missing without warning. His wife Jo is left wondering what could have happened and more importantly why. Countless scenarios begin to haunt her in the tortuous months that follow his disappearance. Clues suggest one thing while her heart tells her something else and all the while, life moves on so fast that she becomes entangled in her own emotions.
Reading Group Questions
Discuss the friendship between Maggie and Elsie. What do they offer each other?
Why do you think Maggie is so desperate to help Elsie?
When Maggie announced her pregnancy, Judith was appalled. She couldn’t understand how a blind person would be able to look after a child. What was your response to her reaction?
Discuss Judith and James’ relationship. How does it change throughout the novel? How does this affect Maggie and James’ relationship?
Discuss the significance of the bench to both Maggie and Elsie.
Do you think Ted was right to stop Elsie going back to the park to relive her memories? Why did he do this?
Discuss Kathy’s role in the novel.
Do feel you have a greater understanding of blindness and Alzheimer’s? Do you feel these were realistic portrayals?
How did you feel after finishing the novel? Would you recommend it?
Amanda’s first novel, Yesterday’s Sun, was a Richard and Judy Book Club selection, and was inspired by the tragic death of her own son, at just three years old.
How could you ever choose between your own life and the life of your child?
Newly-weds Holly and Tom have just moved into an old manor house in the picturesque English countryside. When Holly d
iscovers a moondial in the overgrown garden and its strange crystal mechanism, little does she suspect that it will change her life forever. For the moondial has a curse.
Each full moon, Holly can see into the future – a future which holds Tom cradling their baby daughter, Libby, and mourning Holly’s death in childbirth …
Yesterday’s Sun 9780007445912
Look out for Amanda’s next novel, ANOTHER WAY TO FALL, published September 2013
If you could write your own happy ending, what would it say?
This is the story of Emma’s life
For three long years, she has battled with illness, enduring everything with bravery and always with hope. Then one day Emma is told that they’ve reached the end of the road. While her family and friends are thrown into denial, anger and grief, Emma suddenly realises that with so much left undone, she must find a way to live the life she has always dreamed of.
This is a story about happy endings
So Emma begins to write the story of the life she has always wanted to live and something miraculous starts to happen. As her body starts to weaken, the lines between fiction and reality start to blur and her story takes on a life of its own. And as her story gains in strength, Emma and those who cherish her discover that even in death, there is life.
Click here to buy now
And try Amanda’s short story:
On the surface, Elle has the perfect life – husband, child and a beautiful home. But sometimes a perfect facade hides the cracks beneath: Elle’s husband Rick seems determined to clip her wings at every turn, keeping her at home and away from her friends and from the world. When Elle’s father dies and she starts to clear his house, the cracks start to widen – and it’s only a matter of time before everything breaks open.
On a quest for buried treasure at the house, her young son, Charlie, finds a box underneath the apple tree, with love letters from the past that could tear her world apart.
As past and present collide, Elle must decide what is right – and what course her life should take.
Click here to buy now
Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2014
Copyright © Amanda Valentine 2014
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014
Cover images © Christiana Stawski/Getty Images (hills); Knaupe/Getty Images (tree); Shutterstock.com (figures, bench)
Amanda Valentine assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
These novels are entirely works of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed within are the work of the authors’ imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007511341
Ebook Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9780007511358
Version: 2014-03-12
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