This week I am thrilled to be interviewing author Katy Hunter, who will be sharing with us details of her writing life, telling us all about her new book ‘(Not)Normal‘, which was released on 26th April 2022, and answering a few fun questions. This post contains affiliate links.

Katy Hunter lives on a mountain in France with her husband, kids and two dogs.

When she’s not writing you can find her curled up in front of the fire, book in one hand and a glass of chardonnay in the other.

She also writes under the pen name Katherine E hunt.

Absolutely. I have a book I wrote when I was twelve, but I know I was writing as soon as I was old enough to put pen to paper.

Nina Bawden. I met her at Folkestone Book festival. I was the only child who came to her book signing, so I spent the afternoon with her talking about her books. It was a dream come true.

I had a dream about my teen crush, a famous singer, coming to collect all of the posters and paraphernalia that I’d bought with his face on because I was now married with a child. It developed into a story which became Hat Trick, my first published novel.

I’m resolved to being a pantser for the rest of my life, having given up on trying to plot. No idea of where the book is going, just that it will have a happy ending.

I spend my mornings and afternoons juggling writing with taking my children to and from school (I live in France and French secondary schools have very odd timetables). In the summer I also write late into the night.

From the point of view of a writer, it’s so incredible to discover all the stories in my head that are waiting to get out. I’m always amazed with myself when I finish a book (and when I like it !). Obviously that feeling is doubled when readers enjoy my books too.

I did a lot of research for this book. I know a little about the purity movement in the US in the nineties, but I didn’t know the finer details and I wanted to get things right. I watched a lot of documentaries and read several articles. I also researched Austin, Texas to find out if what was happening in the small town I’d created could actually be a reality.

I don’t plot my books so once an idea is in my head I get writing. I do research as I’m going along and edit as needed.

I’ve read romance ever since I was in my early teens. When I started to write my first stories (with the intention of being published) they were all romances, so I suppose the genre chose me.

This series is New Adult, which means the characters are aged from 18-25. The main protagonists are both twenty-one so I looked up baby names from 2000, in the UK and the US and chose the names which seemed fitting for their status in society. Elijah is a Texan ‘cowboy’ and the name seemed to fit him so well. Milly is a young British pop singer and she too suited her name perfectly.

I liked the idea of two people from two different backgrounds who have more in common than they think. Where I grew up (North Kent) it’s quite common for people to meet their partners in their late teens, get married, settle down and have kids. While Eli’s family has a different way of going about it—with the idea of saving yourself until marriage and only ever dating one person—the two expectations are very similar in their outcome.

Relieved! I’m a pantser (I don’t plot my books) so I’m always glad to have gotten to the end and created a satisfactory conclusion to the story. I Always know the general flow of a story and have an idea of how it’s going to end, but getting there can sometimes be tough.

My computer screen says ‘You’ve got this’ and to that I would add, ‘I Believe in you’. That’s my motto to myself, to my family and to anybody who doubts that they can do anything from just getting out of bed in the morning to fulfilling your dreams.

We have two dogs, Fetch and Benedict Cumberbatch (my previous dogs were called Kitch and Blutch, so there’s a theme!). Fetch is a lab mix and she is such a lady. She has to have her blanket ‘just so’ and she eats so very delicately. Ben is a scruffy little long-haired dachshund who eats pebbles and is best friends with a magpie who lives in our garden. They are a funny old pair, but they love each other so deeply. We also have a guinea-pig called Sushi who lives in our dining room. He has outlived both of his partners and so we are his family now. He enjoys wheeking loudly and carrot tops.

I recently bought The Switch by Beth O’Leary and I received several books on writing for Christmas so I’m working my way through them too.

There’s only one middle-aged English woman in my book so I’d be playing the auntie who ran away to ‘Melrose Place’ in the nineties and ended up running a coffee shop in Texas.

I absolutely loved Neverending Story when I was younger, although the film differs greatly from the book, so I’m not sure which of the two worlds I would like to visit.

I’m also a huge fan of Agatha Christie’s books so maybe a trip on the Orient Express in its heyday (without any grisly murders) would be quite fun.

‘coughs’ You really need to do the dusting in here! and what’s with all the post-it notes everywhere?

A big thank you to Katy Hunter for sharing her writing life with us and for a wonderful interview.