The “Friend” recommends

Every month the “Friend” teams up with publisher Pan Macmillan to bring you a greatvalue book offer. This issue, we chat to author Kristin Hannah.

QCan you tell us about the plot of the novel?

AThe book is a bittersweet, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes funny exploration of the complex ties of past and present that bind sisters together.

In the story, two very different sisters, torn apart by a past neither can reconcile and separated by choice, find themselves reunited by an unexpected wedding and an even more unexpected tragedy. They will need to put aside the past in order to make a future possible.

The novel is about love, and family and the choices we make.

Q

What – or who – inspired this story?

A

Actually, “Between Sisters” did not come about in the usual way for me. By that, I mean, it didn’t begin with a “what if” idea that arose from research. Rather, while I was writing a book called “Distant Shores”, I created a brash, opinionated, wounded female divorce attorney.

She was the heroine’s best friend, and at the time, I thought she would breeze through the novel, adding comic relief and giving the heroine a sounding board.

But Meghann Dontess was, quite simply, bigger than I imagined. For the first time in my career, I started creating back stories for a secondary character and it didn’t take long for me to realise that I

had something more in store for her.

“Between Sisters” was the book that I built around this beautiful, broken woman who had lost everything and needed to find a way to redefine her life.

Her sense of humour was something I found especially compelling.

QYou’ve said Meghann is the type of woman you love to write about. What did you mean by that?

AI love writing about strong, opinionated, compassionate, wounded women. I love watching them fall and get back up again. They allow me to show the resilience of women, the power, the determination.

QCritics have complimented the way you write relationships – what do you think is the secret to writing credible, absorbing relationships?

AI wish I could say there was a secret, but there’s only trial and error and the willingness to edit, edit, edit. However, that being said, I believe that there are a few fundamentals of craft that really help in the creation of realistic, compelling, heartfelt relationships in novels.

First and foremost is characterisation. One needs to dig really deep into human psychology to create men and women with complexities and layers.

Also needed is a really sound, really strong back story, a personal history, that is believable and honest and feels true.

Finally, I think it’s important to test the character in remarkable ways and to allow them to surprise both the author and the reader.

QYour novels cover some diverse locations and even times – what ties them together?

AI would say that there are several themes that fuel most of my novels – the power of love, the durability of family, and the strength of women.

I’ve written about female survivors of the Siege of Leningrad through to a helicopter pilot deployed in Iraq. But I also love to write about women who are heroic in other, more ordinary ways.

QDo you read your own reviews?

A

I would love to say flatly no. But the truth is that I read them in the beginning. In the first month that a book is out, I will read what readers and reviewers have to say about it, out of both morbid curiosity and a desire to improve. You really can learn something from reviews.

Join us again in our October 21 issue when we talk to Diane Allen about her book “Family Secrets”.