I chose the setting of the cruise because I was lucky enough to go on one myself and I thought it would be a good place for Britt to be trapped with nothing but romance around her. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d enjoy the cuise I went on myself because I was worried about being cooped up too, but actually I had a great time. (Cooped up is probably an unfair word about a cruise ship because so many of them are huge.) The main reason I enjoyed myself was because we visited such interesting places and I know that I probably wouldn’t have gone to them individually on holiday. You can see pictures in the Gallery but one of my favourite places was Guatemala, which is why it becomes a place of such significance for Mia.

I was also very interested in the history of the Panama Canal. You can read about it and see live webcam streams on the authority’s website. And to give you an idea of how a ship looks going through the canal you can follow these links:

http://www.pancanal.com/eng/multimedia/webcams/captures/the-world-20090313.html

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9040875966564826702

The island of Curacao is so pretty and it’s Dutch heritage really comes through, it’s very different to other Caribbean island, like Grenada, which is beautiful too.

To be honest, the Caribbean is one of my favourite places in the world because everything there is so beautiful. There’s an intensity to the colours that you don’t find anywhere else and  I’m always inspired by them. Which is why I’ve brought my characters there on more than one occasion.