Q&A... Victoria Fox

Home is . . .

A (messy) two-bed flat off Muswell Hill Broadway

What do you love about the area?

Highgate Woods. Ally Pally. The Heath a bus ride away. Muswell Hill doesn’t have a tube, which gives it a contained, removed feel: it’s 20 minutes to town but once you’re done you can come back out. My road has a super view where you can see all the way east, past Canary Wharf and the Olympic stadium, and on a clear day out into countryside.

. . . and loathe?

More good pubs. The Victoria Stakes at the bottom of Muswell Hill is excellent, as is the hidden-away Royal Oak on St James Lane, but in summer I crave a really big beer garden with picnic tables. Hmm, I’m being fussy here: I haven’t any major complaints!

What is your favourite local landmark?

Alexandra Palace. It’s got this faded glamour I find really affecting. In its day it was this grand Victorian emblem and now, despite shades of former glory, I find it curiously desolate. When we had heavy snow a couple of years back, I remember going up there and looking across London through the blizzard. The place has a kind of bleak beauty, which I love.

What tips would you give tourists visiting the area?

Go to Highgate Cemetery. I’ve been three times now and it’s one of the best things to do in London: creepy, magnificent and weirdly seductive.

Where do you go to escape London life?

Being near the M1 means wide open spaces aren’t far away. One of my favourite places is the Lake District – with its brooding hills and twisting lanes, it’s about as far away from Oxford Street as you can get!

What would you save if your house was on fire?

Instinct says my laptop, but I email manuscripts to myself so they’re safe in cyberspace somewhere. Probably a bear I’ve had since I was four, she’s getting mangy now but is still the most valuable thing I own.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

My own when it comes to writing bonkbusters: lose your inhibitions. There’s little more excruciating than a self-conscious sex scene!

Tell us about your path to published author

I used to work as a commercial editor where I learned masses about how to construct and develop a novel. When I had an idea for one, I spent my evenings and weekends drawing up a partial, which I then sent anonymously to agents. It was a dream come true when my agent took me on, and months later we secured our deal with MIRA. I was very lucky to know the industry like I did: it’s so tough for writers out there to get read by the right people. Perseverance is everything.

How/where do you write best?

In the spare room in my flat. I shut the door and plug my iPod in and if it’s going well I won’t come out for hours. When I get stuck, sitting with a notepad in a café or on the tube helps – ideas creep up when you’re least expecting them.

Hollywood Sinners is a fictional insight into the celebrity world of LA, where did you get your inspiration for the plot/characters?

This one started out with an idea I had about a real-life A-list Hollywood power couple. I just thought, Something weird’s happening there and I want to write a story about it. Celebrity magazines provide a lot of inspiration: it’s about combining up-to-the-minute celeb observations with the classic Collins/Cooper-style bonkbuster, refreshing that for a new generation.

Hollywood Sinners is an unashamed bonkbuster, who were your celebrity crushes as a teenager?

I remember being seven and lying on the floor in my bedroom, pining for Teen Wolf and lamenting to my sister, ‘Will I ever meet a man like Michael J Fox?’ I never did meet a man like Michael J Fox, which is just as well: there’s quite a height difference. As a teenager, it was always, always Johnny Depp. Actually I think he’s quite short, too, but it’s never mattered with him.

What are your desert island reads?

The Magus by John Fowles – I could read it over and over again and still get my head around something new, and some tome I’ve never got around to reading although I know I should, maybe Anna Karenina. Also I’d take an encyclopaedia so I could learn a fact a day.

If you weren’t a writer what would you be?

A circus acrobat. I always wondered what that would be like.

What are your plans for the summer?

Everyone seems to be getting married this year, so a lot of weddings and hen parties. My third book needs to be completed by the autumn so I’ll be hard at work on that, but am hoping for a week of winter sun once that’s delivered.

Victoria Fox never leaves home without . . .

Carmex lip balm, iPod and phone.

Hollywood Sinners by Victoria Fox is published by Mira £6.99 out now at all good bookshops

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