home for the album. It's now in the Indian Room of the British Library, and in the two weeks between its arrival in England and my handing it over to the Library, I read it and fell in love with an area about which I had known nothing prior to reading the album, and I knew that I had to set a story there. Your pocket novel, A Dangerous Heart, published in March, was set in Umbria. Do you prefer settings abroad? Not necessarily. My first full-length novel -- the dark themed one -- is set in England, and a large part of The Road Back is set in London, particularly in the Belsize Park area, and I really enjoyed writing both of those. Perhaps, though, I do feel drawn towards setting my novels abroad. I love travel, and I love learning about the way in which people live in different places/times, and I love languages.Setting my next full-length novel, A Bargain Struck , in Wyoming, 1887, rather bears out my interest in looking overseas for my story and setting. In The Road Back , we see some of the heroine Patricia's childhood in the 1950s and young girlhood early 1960s before she sets off for her life-changing journey. What attracted you to this period? Is there anything personal you can draw on? I lived in Belsize Park for some years, and I really enjoyed learning about the way it used to be. I'd had no idea, for example, that