HOW I WRITE

Great British Bake Off host Prue Leith is the author of eight novels. The Lost Son (Quercus) – the third novel in The Angelotti Chronicles series – is out in hardback on 11 April. The first two, The House at Chorlton and The Prodigal Daughter, have been reissued to coincide.

By the afternoons, my creative brain has gone to sleep. I sit down with a cup of coffee at about 8am and write until 1pm. Then I’ll make “staff lunch” for my husband (who is generally in the garden) and my great little team, who deal with recipe testing and so on.

If I didn’t plan, it would be chaos! When you’re doing a trilogy, it’s bad enough trying to recall all the character profiles and timelines with a detailed plan, let alone remember what colour everyone’s eyes are. I also work out how many words I need to write and how many hours I need to do it in. If I get behind, I get up earlier – 4am if I’m desperate.

My husband was adopted at birth after WWII, and I nicked his story for a book. A lot of the restaurant and food stories I write are autobiographical, while an avalanche on a ski resort was a friend’s horrific tale. Like most writers, I have no qualms about nicking other people’s lives! When I first started writing novels, my editor complained that they were over-plotted, with just too much going on. I’m a bit more disciplined now.