Sponsored by
Author Lesley’s food for thought
Bookfest Lesley Pearse
The contents of her fridge set Lesley Pearse on the path to writing success and food was on the menu again when she popped into the Book Lovers’ Supper Club at Ditchling.
Before turning to novels, Lesley was a prolific letter writer and when she won £25 pounds for her ‘star letter’ to Woman’s Own on the contents of her fridge it gave her the confidence to pursue a writing career. Lesley honed her skills and had her debut novel ‘Georgia’ published in her late forties.
“It certainly wasn’t a get rich quick scheme,” said the prolific author who has just had her 21st best-seller, ‘Forgive Me’ published.
Lesley’s colourful life has provided a rich tapestry for her plots. She worked as a Bunny Girl at the Playboy Club, met the Kray twins and once made a cottage pie for David Bowie who wrote a song about her on the back of a cigarette packet.
But her early life was blighted by spending time in an orphanage before she went to live with her tyrannical step-mother.
Lesley’s upbringing has produced a recurring theme in her books: what happens to those who are emotionally damaged as children.
Lesley said: “There were occasions when I had wheals on my legs from a beating. A uniformed officer from the NSPCC came into school one day and asked me what the marks were. I lied about it as children do to protect their parents. There was something about him though – coming in to rescue me. It has stayed with me ever since and in later life I wanted to do all I could to support the NSPCC.”
Joining Lesley at the book club was author Susanna Quinn whose experience working as a hostess in Japan inspired her novel ‘Glass Geisha’. ‘Hostess’ has connotations that don’t apply to Susanna but her central character does encounter the exotic world of sex and easy money!
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Haywards Heath
Sunday 19 May 2013
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 10 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 12 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: North
