Suddenly Single is set in the world of finance which is where I am following the rules about ‘write what you know’.

Naturally, because it’s about a woman who doesn’t want children, and because I don’t have children, lots of interviewers were asking me whether it was autobiographical. None of my books are! But I did want to write about a woman who didn’t want children and what happened when her boyfriend did.

And I wanted to bring in the financial background because it certainly is an industry in which it’s very difficult to combine a career and family – both for men and for women. There has always been a culture of long hours and presenteeism (hanging around in the office even when there’s nothing for you to do) in finance. There’s a lot of posturing and boasting too, which most women aren’t as comfortable with as their male colleagues.

I’ve been to a number of women in business conferences and whenever the women are interviewed about their successes they’re all very honest about the struggle and about the time it takes and how they sometimes feel overwhelmed. But similar conferences with male speakers concentrate on being ultra-positive and taking no prisoners. The thing is, the women are usually just as successful. They simply don’t shout about it as much.

One of Alix’s friends, Sophia, works in an area of the industry which, at the time the book was written, was an emerging part of finance. However it was that area, securitisation, which has since led to the biggest banking crisis the world has ever seen! Sophia’s job involved packaging mortgages together to sell on to other investors.

I was briefly involved in this too, in my time in finance. The concept is perfectly fine. It was when poorer and poorer quality mortgages, thanks to inappropriate lending, began to be packaged that the whole thing started to go wrong.

Securitisation isn’t always about mortgages though. David Bowie securitised the royalties on his records  - they were called Bowie Bonds!

There’s a fun article blaming the Credit Crunch on Bowie here:

http://www.gigwise.com/news/48679/David-Bowie-Started-The-Credit-Crunch