Emma Orchard worked at the romantic fiction publishing house, Mills & Boon, where she met her husband in a classic enemies-to-lovers romance, before working behind the scenes in publishing and television. She is the author of several Regency romance novels and her latest paperback, The Runaway Heiress, has been described as a ‘hot Georgette Heyer’. Partly set in the social whirl of a Brighton Regency summer, it is out now (Allison & Busby, £8.99)
The book I loved as a child
I was slow to learn to read (as an only child, the whole idea of school appalled me), and the book that finally got me started was Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson. The Moomin books aren’t as cuddly as the jolly merchandise would imply; this is quite a dark, introspective, odd book and I loved it.
The book that inspired me as a teenager
Aged 11, I was given tickets for the adult library, and with no-one to guide my reading I decided to pick authors who’d written a lot. This brought me to Georgette Heyer, to Regency romance, and to The Corinthian, which remains one of my favourites. Featuring a cross-dressing heroine and a lovely, handsome, funny hero who falls for her within hours of their meeting, it was perfect escapism, and a long way from grey 1970s Salford.
The book I’ve never finished
War and Peace. I stopped about 15 pages from the end when I realised the characters weren’t going to appear any more. It was just going to be endless paragraphs on Tolstoy’s theory of history.
The book that moved me most
The title tells you a lot: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson. I always Freudianly misremember the title of this memoir as Why Be Clever When You Could Be Normal? and it feels very close to my own upbringing.
The book I’m reading now
I’m currently revisiting The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay. It’s superb – a heart-breaking, immersive alternative history about the fall of Muslim Spain.
