When Ruth Saberton emailed Chloe and I a few months ago and offered us a copy of her debut novel Katy Carter Wants A Hero I was thrilled as I read the blurb on Amazon a while back and loved the sound of it. I read it in early February and I then asked Ruth if she was interested in doing an interview with us and she agreed. Here are Ruth’s answers and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

1. Tell us about Katy Carter Wants A Hero?

“Katy Carter Wants a Hero” is about an aspiring romantic novelist who’s trying to juggle teaching, writing a novel and being the perfect partner for her fiancé, James. Katy’s a hopeless romantic (emphasis definitely on the hopeless part there!) and she’s sure that she’s found her perfect romantic hero in James – if only it wasn’t so hard to be the model girlfriend he expects! When her life takes an unexpected turn Katy finds herself out on her ear so decides to change her life. She runs away to Cornwall in search of a real romantic hero. Does she find him? Now, that would be telling!

2. What are you currently working on?

At the moment I am frantically working on “Unlucky in Love” which is the fourth book in the Hen Night Prophecy Series that I’ve been writing for Little Black Dress, under the pen name of Jessica Fox. Hopefully by the time you read this I will have finished it. I’ve also been finishing my next book for Orion. It’s called “Second Thoughts” and is all about a girl who gets cold feet on the eve of her wedding. In between all this I’m teaching Media Studies and promoting “Katy Carter Wants a Hero”. Phew!

3. Katy is a fantastic heroine, where did your inspiration for her come from?

Katy Carter is a small ginger English teacher who wants to be a writer. I am a small ginger English teacher who wants to be a writer! Hmm, I may have borrowed some bits and pieces from my own life! To be honest I think all writers are magpies – we collect bits and pieces from our own lives and from what we see around us – and there are certainly parts of Katy that are very similar to myself. Other bits are totally invented. (Mum, I’ve never had a cigarette in all my life, honest!)

4. The lobster scene at the beginning of the book was one of my favourites (I adored Pinchy), has anything of the sort ever happened to you in real life?

I love Pinchy! He was actually real too! My husband’s a fisherman and one day I came home to find a lobster sitting in my sink and staring at me with bright black lobster eyes. When I got over the shock my husband proudly announced that he’d brought it home as a present for me. Some girls get chocolates and flowers, I get sea food, which is just my luck. I couldn’t face eating something I’d actually met let alone killing it so the original Pinchy was taken away again, allegedly back to the sea. I’m still deeply traumatized by this experience so I used Katy Carter as a (less expensive) form of therapy!

5. I have to say that when I first met Ollie I actually thought he was gay (oops). Where did your inspiration for him come from as he truly was fantastic.

Ollie? Gay? How very dare you! What about his endless girl friends and extreme sports? Although I guess you make a good point – he isn’t obviously attractive is he? Ollie is one of my favourite characters in the book and probably a mish mash of people I’ve worked or dated with combined with a big dollop of imagination. Sadly he doesn’t exist in the real world!

6. As well as having fantastic characters in Katy and Ollie, the rest of the cast were also pretty great. Which character was your favourite to write & why?

It’s really hard to say which character was the most fun to write as I enjoyed them all in different ways. James’s mother Cordelia was fun as she was based on the mother of one of my ex boyfriends and it was rather cathartic to use her in the novel! I also adored Frankie – who is based on a good friend of mine – and fisherman Guy was fun to write as he comes out with a lot of things that my husband might say, although in a very exaggerated way! But I guess the best one of all was probably Jewell. She’s such a strong and vibrant character and refuses to become old in her mind just because she’d old in body. I love the fact she’s so eccentric and has loads of pets. I hope that’s me when I’m in my eighties!

7. You also write books under the pseudonym of Jessica Fox for the Little Black Dress imprint, how different is that to Katy Carter Wants A Hero?

Jessica Fox is very different from Ruth Saberton. She’s more worldly, better travelled and far more organised! Her heroines travel to Prague whereas mine don’t get much further than Primark! The Jessica Fox books are written in conjunction with Working Partners, which means I don’t always have total control over the direction on the story line. Instead I work with a team of editors who keep me in check! It’s a very disciplined and structured way of working and it’s been really good for teaching me to actually plan a novel meticulously rather than just writing with no real sense of direction. The work I do under my own name is always dreadfully long to start with and needs severe pruning! I also like to write my own books in the first person because I enjoy living the story and thinking as the character. Jessica Fox is more detached and employs a third person narrative.

8. Can you tell us a little bit more about your Hen Night Prophecies series?

The Hen Night Series is published by Little Black Dress and is great fun to write. There are five books in total and each one follows the adventures of five very different heroines. The girls come together at Zoe’s Hen Night where a psychic has been booked to give readings. Each girl has a reading where she receives a prophecy and each then has her own book that follows how this will unfold. The girls are very different in character, which means each book has a very individual flavour, and it’s challenging as a writer to become somebody very different. At the moment I’m writing Libby’s story and since Libby is in her early twenties and into extreme sports she’s nothing like couch potato me!

9. How did your publishing deal with Orion come around? And also, your Little Black Dress deal?

I got the Little Black Dress series because I’d already worked for Working Partners in the past, writing a book called “Married Men” which has been sold to Germany. (I’ve got a copy in my study but I can’t read a word!) When the Hen Night series was discussed with the publisher they decided that they’d like me to write it and I was only too happy to say yes! A five book deal! Yippee! At the same time I’d finished “Katy Carter Wants a Hero” and my neighbour, the very kind and lovely Richard Madeley, had read it and said it really made him and Judy laugh. This gave me the confidence boost I needed to really push ahead with the book and only a few weeks after I’d signed with the Hen Night series I then signed with Orion. I then realised I’d have six books out in under three years! No wonder I don’t have a social life!

10. Would you ever bring Katy back for a sequel?

Oh wow, I’d love to bring Katy back for a sequel! Absolutely! Better not say what I’d like her to do as it will give the original story away, but I certainly have a plot line already for what could happen next. If people like the novel and Orion are up for it I would love to write another Katy book. What Katy did next! At the minute the film rights for “Katy Carter wants a Hero” are under consideration so maybe I could be involved with that too?

11. What’s the best thing about being a published author?

The best thing about being a published author is that I’ve finally made it! After years and years of trying and about a squillion rejections (one agent who shall remain nameless left a post it note on a returned submission which read This one is slow to take a hint, pretty galling since I’d slogged my guts out reworking it on her advice!) I can finally say I’ve got there. I’m on the first rung of a very long ladder and I’m sure Jackie Collins isn’t losing any sleep but I’m published! Yippee! And of course nothing compares to seeing your book printed and ready to go. That really is the most amazing feeling ever.

12. What books do you yourself enjoy reading?

I’m a real book worm and I must get through at least four books a week. My husband always jokes that a drug habit would be cheaper (at least I thing he’s joking!) I love reading chick lit which is why I write it. At the minute I’m reading “One Day in May” by Catherine Alliott, which is warm and witty but also with a real bittersweet tone too. I absolutely adore Jilly Cooper and read her books over and over again because they are simply brilliant. As I’m an English teacher I enjoy the classics too, especially Jane Austen. At the moment I’m teaching “Pride and Prejudice” to my Year 11 class and I’m falling in love with Darcy all over again!

13. Finally, what advice would you give to aspiring writers?

The most important piece of advice I could ever give to any aspiring writer would be don’t give up! The agent I mentioned in number 11 was totally wrong and here I am to prove it! You have to persist in this business and it is tough when you get rejected over and over again. But if you believe in yourself, have a dash of talent and keep going you will get there. J K Rowling had about 18 rejections before somebody had the vision to take a chance with Harry Potter!

Thanks so much Katy!

• Digg
• Stumble it!
• Reddit

• Author Interview: Alexandra Potter
• AW Author Interview: Elodia Strain
• Author Interview: Lucy-Anne Holmes