My publisher Sarah Houlcroft of Goldcrest Books asked me how I came to write Dreamcatcher Girl – I replied that I didn’t really know! It just came into my head!

What first gave you the idea to write Dreamcatcher Girl?

The initial idea haunted me for ages, even years. The story I had in my head was of a twin being killed falling from a tree. Not only that his teenage brother, Clem, never seemed to get over the loss, but the tree itself became haunted by the tragedy. The tree even had a voice, I felt, even though I didn’t want my novel to get too weird! Twins, and the unique perception experienced between them, has fascinated me for a long time. Those who have read my previous novels will know that I have written about the effect of a freak accident on family relationships before.

The dreamcatcher girl was a separate idea I had on the backburner originally. An artist in Cornwall – on the rebound from an abusive relationship – she lives with her little boy, Tom, and spends her days painting and making crafts to sell. She longs to find what she believes to be that elusive dream: real love. When she returns to the family farm, tension between her mother and father baffles her – they are always so ‘together’ – as my own parents were. My father was an artist and it was his desire to join the artists’ community in St. Ives, Cornwall. This is what made him sell-up and move us as all as a family down there to live in a tiny fisherman’s cottage.

Do the themes in this novel arise from your own experiences?

I don’t know why but the subject of adoption and tracing one’s family history keeps creeping back into my work. No, I have no occurrence of this in my past. While the concept of the tree and the twins was still ticking over, however, I was ill for a few weeks and ended up watching Long Lost Family on TV. I don’t often watch daytime television, but I found it very moving. The experience of being reunited with a ‘stranger’ who is actually your own child came home to me. Again, similar to the bonding between twins, there is that connection. Isobel discovered that her mother as a young girl had been forced to give up her illegitimate baby for adoption and she had never told anyone.  So you see, my novels grow of their own accord. I pick up bits, influences, dreams and life’s own legacies.  My writing becomes an organic process in which I become very engrossed. It’s almost like watching a film as I don’t know where the next scene will be or what will happen next.

The subtitle says it is “A love story of mystery and obsession.” Does that mean it isn’t really a love story?

When these two stories merged in my own mind, I realised they were always part of the same story. Clem is drawn to the solitary oak tree again and again and he becomes obsessed with it. The tree becomes his only link with his dead brother. In fact when I was first writing about Clem, my working title for the novel was called: The Tree Was His Brother. When Isobel came into his life, he with his own relationship on the rocks and she with problems of her own, they – in a mysterious way – balanced each other. The abstract spirit of the dead twin, with rumours of Isobel’s own lost brother – who she never knew existed – starts to affect Isobel. Would love find a way to save them both from this downward spiral? It is a complex, deep, and heavy story if you like – but dreamcatchers are meant to help you relax, clear away all that dark stuff and help you sleep – aren’t they?