East Lancashire-born novelist Diana Appleyard draws on her own experiences as a journalist to conjure up the themes for her books. She spoke to JENNY SCOTT
THREE female friends cut loose from the ties of home and family life to embark on a backpacking adventure along the Inca Trail, leading one of them to find passionate romance with a youthful tour guide.
Such exotic and highly-charged encounters in the depths of Peru form the premise of novelist and journalist Diana Appleyard's new book -- Every Good Woman Deserves A Lover.
Woven into Diana's tale of passion at Machu Picchu, however, are references to mill towns and Burnley Football Club which, for a canny East Lancashire reader, form the clues to the author's own upbringing.
"I like to sneak in those local references to amuse myself," admitted Diana. "Although I live in Oxfordshire now, I still have strong links with the East Lancashire area. My mum and sister still live here, as do lots of my friends."
Diana was brought up in Manchester Road, Burnley, and went to Sunnybank School.
She started her writing career early, penning her first novel at the age of eight.
"It was a terrible pony story," she laughed. "I was mad about horses when I was a child."
However, her early scribbles helped formulate Diana's ambitions to write.
After stints at a boarding school in Wales and Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in Blackburn, she studied English at Bristol University, before returning to East Lancashire as a trainee reporter on the Accrington Observer.
As she climbed up the ladder of local news and moved on to radio, she met her husband Ross Appleyard, a reporter on GMR in Manchester.
While Ross moved on to Sky News, Diana left her job at the BBC to have her daughters -- Beth and Charlotte -- and began writing freelance features for the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and women's magazines.
The novel writing grew out of a combination of her journalistic impulses and her autobiographical experiences.
"The journalism and the novel writing work well together," said Diana. "What I tend to do is take an issue I'm interested in and expand it in a novel.
"My first book, Homing Instinct, was about the balance of working and bringing up a family, which is quite a big issue in my own life."
"This one is about women breaking free and making an escape."
In Every Good Woman the lead character -- 40-something housewife Sasha -- breaks out of the confines of her straitjacket marriage and travels to Peru, where she falls for the Latino charms of the young tour guide Miguel.
The themes in the novel -- of independent-minded women travelling the world and taking much younger lovers -- are certainly hot topics at the moment. Diana admitted her media background gave her an instinctive awareness of such trends.
"I knew the subject of adventure travel -- and women taking up with younger men -- were topical things to write about," she said.
"It's my experience that women now who really power the adventure travel market and, what's more, the bulk of them are walking with other women. It's a kind of female bonding thing."
And, as part of her research, Diana even took herself and two female friends off to Peru to walk the Inca Trail.
"I'd never been to South America, but I was attracted by the whole idea of the lost city of Machu Picchu and the myth around it," she said.
"It's not an easy thing to do because of the altitude. The most important thing is not to rush it."
Fortunately Diana and her friends found themselves in the capable hands of a charming Peruvian tour guide. Did she ever consider following in the footsteps of her novel's heroine and having a holiday fling?
"He was very handsome," laughed Diana. "But very short!"
In fact, despite Diana's propensity for focusing on the rocky terrain of relationships, she's happy with her lot.
"Ross and I have a normal marriage," she said. "It has its peaks and troughs, like any other. But I think the main thing is we really like each other. He's somebody I would be friends with, even if I wasn't married to him."
And their relationship works well, with both of them managing their fair share of globetrotting.
"Ross tends to travel the world with his job," said Diana. "He does a lot of reporting from war zones -- he was in Kosovo and Sierra Leone.
"He almost has enough excitement through his job, whereas I'm sitting at home in front of my computer, longing to break out and do something."
Not that her life is as restricted as that of her heroine. Diana must combine her role as mother with the various strands of her writing career and still find time to walk the dog.
"It's immensely complicated and it doesn't get any easier," she said. "But I like having that sort of life, where I'm always running around and there are lots of things going on.
"One minute I'm on the school run, or interviewing someone famous -- the next I have to take the dog out, or load the washing machine and in between all that I'm writing my latest novel. I just fit everything in."
Indeed, Diana wants to cram yet more projects into her already busy life. Her next novel - Playing With Fire -- will look at the consequences of an affair on a close circle of friends and will be told from different characters' viewpoints. Meanwhile, she also has a yen for screenplay writing.
Doesn't she ever want to stand back from the whirlwind of activity?
"Actually, I think it's good for me," she said. "Doing lots of different things at once means I can't get too wrapped up in any one part of my life."
Every Good Woman Deserves A Lover is published by Black Swan and costs £6.99.
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