Jenny Colgan is on tenterhooks.
Storm Babet is battering the walls of her castle home in Fife, while causing general chaos across the region as roads are closed, houses are flooded and schools are shut.
And she has a flight to France in less than 24 hours.
Jenny, who is speaking to me from her 20th Century Aberdour fortress overlooking the Firth of Forth – once home of artist Jack Vettriano – says: “We’re right on top of the trees, so you can feel all the trees rock back and forth.
“If I wasn’t going on holiday on Saturday then I would be loving it because it is really cosy.
“But all I can think is, ‘If this storm carries on, they’re going to cancel the flights and we won’t get our holiday’.
“But hey-ho, there’s worse things that could happen.”
The multi-award winning author and her family are going to the island of Martinique, in the eastern Caribbean sea, where they visit every October.
The tradition begun when they lived in France, where Jenny’s marine engineer husband Andrew tends the super-yachts of the French Riviera.
And although the pair and their three children – Wallace, 18, Michael Francis, 16, and Delphine, 14 – moved to Fife seven years ago now, it is one that has stuck.
She says: “It really is the most beautiful place in the world. So keep your fingers crossed we get there!”
Jenny Colgan’s new Christmas novel hits the shelves
It’s safe to say Jenny, whose latest book The Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop hit the shelves last week, has earned a holiday.
The novel follows Carmen, whose Edinburgh bookshop is the filming site of a cheesy Christmas movie.
A leading name in the romantic comedy genre, Ayrshire-born Jenny has released dozens of bestselling novels since her first publication, Amanda’s Wedding, in 2000.
Fifers may have spotted the novelist at coffee shops in the region, where she does all of her writing.
One of her favourite haunts is The Roasting Project in Burntisland.
She says: “I tend to go out and work from coffee shops and go out and about.
“I found it very difficult to concentrate when the children were little and in the house.
“That is when I got into the coffee shop habit, and it stuck.
“I tend to circulate around a few in Fife.”
‘I’ve never met anyone with a normal family’
As well as freeing herself of distractions – Jenny also gets many of her ideas from working in coffee shops, and observing those around her.
She says: “One of the nice things about going out to coffee shops is that you see a lot of people.
“And you get a sense of the relationships between them. You know, mothers and daughters being cranky with each other.
“People very kindly looking after older people.”
She seems to find humans endlessly interesting.
“If you ask somebody tell me about your crazy family, we would be here for hours,” she says.
“People’s families are completely batsh**’. Everybody’s.
“I’ve never met anyone with a completely normal family.
“Everyone has a story you could put in a book that nobody would believe.
“‘My uncle faked his own death’ or ‘My dad has two families’ and so on”.
She also takes huge inspiration from the landscape of Fife, which indeed features in several of her books.
“There is so much variety in Fife.
“The beautiful big beaches, the beautiful towns and the changes in the weather.”
Although Jenny grew up in Prestwick, she feels at home in Fife where she has “made my life”.
Jenny enjoys sharing her success
And she enjoys sharing her success with the community.
She says: “Often if I have spare copies of my books I sell them in the local post office for the old people’s home in Aberdour.
“So if you are passing Aberdour and you feel like buying one of my books, buy it from the post office, and then all the money goes to a good cause.”
What does she make of the region’s book scene?
She says: “Waterstones in Kirkcaldy and Waterstone’s in Dunfermline are both sensational book shops. They work incredibly hard for their writers.
“If well-known authors are visiting Edinburgh, they’re good at getting them to pop over to Fife.
“But South Fife certainly suffers a bit because there is always so much going on in Edinburgh.”
She adds that fellow authors Val McDermid, from Kirkcaldy, and Ian Rankin, from Cardenden, are both “very good at supporting the local scene”.
Many authors face financial hardship
Spending all day in coffee shops, speaking at book festivals, donating proceeds to charity… Jenny’s life looks like something out of her own novels.
But she acknowledges that it’s not an easy industry to crack for most.
When I ask what the biggest challenge is for writers in Scotland, she says that many face financial hardship.
She says. “The thing is – and you get this in a lot of artistic jobs – but it often doesn’t pay very well and that makes it very difficult for people.
“But it is entirely possible to make it work, if you mix it with another profession.
“A lot of people mix writing with teaching and other jobs and that works quite well.
“Often there is not a lot of money in it and there is no getting round that.
“There’s a million books published a year and it is hard to make yourself stand out.
“If you want to write you have to realise that a bit of self-promotion is necessary.
“You have to put yourself out there.”
Despite the challenges, Jenny’s passion for her job is clear.
She says: “It is still a really amazing job. I still feel really lucky.
“I mean, it is what I have been doing for a long time and I still feel incredibly lucky to get to do this for a living.
“I love getting out and meeting readers. I love book festivals, I love travelling to all sorts of places.
“I have a rule that I really love to go to festivals in places I’ve never been to before, so I’m off to Nairn shortly and I was just in Isla recently, which was just amazing.
“I’ve gotten to see so much of this country that I would not have otherwise have seen. That’s a privilege in anyone’s book.”
Jenny is already working on her next novel, which is another Christmas story for next year.
Then it will be time to think about what next, but as she puts it, “There is always something bubbling”.
As I write this, one week after our chat, I wonder if she made it on her holiday.
I check my phone. Her latest Instagram post – a picture of her toes in sun dappled sand – tells me she did.
- Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan is now available in stores and online.
Conversation