Moving story behind book
CLAIRE Moss has had a busy week. Her first novel is just out and she moved house on Saturday. And if that's not enough her new baby is due in March.
Her new home is in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, her seventh in the last eight years, four of which she spent writing Northern Soul Revival, set partly in Sheffield. Here's Ecclesall Road before all the coffee bars sprang up.
"I don't know where she found the time," says her publicist. "It was very enjoyable but it was hard work," admits Claire, who found herself moving so much because of her own wanderlust and following her husband Andrew, an IT consultant, up and down the country.
The spark for the book came while living in Sheffield for 10 years from 1997. In Walkley to be exact although she also had homes in Crookes and Oughtibridge.
A modern romance, it's about a man and a woman who seal a long time friendship by going to bed together for the first time just before he sets off for a new life on the other side of the world in Tasmania.
You've guessed it, she falls pregnant but what does she do next? The Diary's not going to give the game away by revealing what happens but what set the ball rolling?
"I know writers say this sort of thing but the story came fully formed one day," says Claire, now 32, who came to the city from Darlington to take a degree in politics at Sheffield University, followed by a Masters in Information Management.
"I'd always wanted to write a book but I thought it was going to be a thriller," she laughs.
Tasmania is where Claire spent some time on conservation work planting trees four years ago. "It was quite an odd place to choose," she admits. "The contrast between there and Sheffield is so stark. It's so rural."
Claire, who had wanted to set her book in the North but have it in the background, rather than making a big thing of it. The title, Northern Soul Revival, echoes the music played in a club visited by the couple, Joss and Carl, before the fateful night.
"I was listening to a Northern Soul album when I started writing it," she remarks.
She tells the story in two voices, alternate chapters reserved for the man and the woman. She shows quite an insight into how men think but says she didn't check it out by running it past Andrew. She asked a male friend.
"People have often told me I can see the male side of things," says Claire, mother of Kieran, who was born while the couple lived in Sheffield.
The book, which is published in paperback, does have a 'chick lit' cover featuring a heavy pregnant young woman so it might put men off, which would be a shame.
"Women do buy more books than men. I was aiming at women when I wrote it," adds Claire, who will be giving the book an official launch at Waterstone's, Orchard Square, towards the end of the month.
She's now taking maternity leave from her job at the British Library's depository at Boston Spa, where every book published in Britain is stored - including her own.
And new baby or not she's well on the way to finishing her second. Thrillers are again on hold. It will be another modern romance.
Northern Soul Revival is published by Snowbooks at 7.99.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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