Virginia Ironside is our Author of the Month for October.

1. How much of you is there in the book’s heroine?

I have to confess that much of Marie is me. I live in Shepherd's Bush, in West London, I'm single and I have two grandchildren who I adore. I also feel that now I am sixty, I can relax, and be myself. However, from the emails I've received from dozens of readers around the world, it seems that Marie is a kind of archetype - so many people have written that they felt Marie was just like themselves... so even though Marie is partly me, I hope everyone who reads the book can identify with something about her, even if not everything...

2. Do you belong to a Book Club yourself?

An extraordinary question to ask! Of course not! I couldn't bear to. But I think it's partly because I write for a living. And the idea of discussing other people's work makes me feel furious. Imagine you ran, say, a haulier business. Would you like to go to a club and discuss the merits and demerits of other people's haulier businesses? No. I see writing as a way of making a living. After writing a letter to friend, I have to restrain myself from sending in an invoice.

3. What made you decide to write the book in diary format?

Two things. Laziness was one - it's a very simple format to write in. And also, I love reading diaries myself.  Loved the Diary of Adrian Mole, Pepys, Diary of a Nobody, Bridget Jones, Chips Channon - diaries have an immediacy and freshness that make them full of life.

4. Are you a grandmother?

Of course I am and I love my grandchildren to bits. Everything I say in the book about my grandson is absolutely true (the second hadn't been born when I wrote the book) and I do feel he has truly taught me how to love. Obviously grandchildren don't have this effect on everyone - but I know many grannies who feel what I write about but are too shy to admit it.

5. Some of the over 60 year olds in our group found the heroine intensely irritating as they couldn’t relate to her - did you intend this?

I wonder how much over sixty they were? I can understand it if they were 65 or over because they really do belong to a different generation... as I say a generation who lived through the war, didn't experience sex, drugs and rock an roll, didn't experience feminism... this is a book written specifically for people who were young in the sixties - and I believe they have a different attitude to those who were young in the fifties.

6. Will you write some more about this heroine?

I don't know. I haven't been asked!