Launch of Behind Her Back at the BFI

We held the launch of BEHIND HER BACK at the lovely BFI Southbank bookshop by the Thames on 15 February. Here is my speech:

It feels very special to be here tonight with so many of you my friends. I worked at the British Film Institute twice and have a deep affection and respect for its work, so thank you very much Kerry Meech for letting me have my launch here tonight. 

Behind Her Back is the second of my television novels and it is quite autobiographical. Like my heroine Liz Lyon I was a television producer and a single mum and I wanted to capture some of the professional and personal turmoil that working women experience.

My first TV novel, Woman of the Hour, dealt with an allegation of sexual assault and it raised issues about who do you believe when such an allegation is made? My heroine Liz worries that she did not speak out about something similar that happened to her seven years before. Woman of the Hour was written a year before the Harvey Weinstein allegations surfaced. Was it prescient? I'm not sure because of course abuse has been going on in the television and film industry for decades, but it was timely.

Behind Her Back is also topical. It asks: in a TV station run by men how do the women make themselves heard? This clearly resonates with the gender pay gap row currently going on at the BBC and elsewhere.

There are three main female characters in the novel and each one has a different coping strategy to deal with the toxic masculinity at the TV station.

Fizzy Wentworth the presenter uses her sexuality to gain power.

Lori Kerwell, the head of sales, plays the men's power game. She's queen of the PowerPoint, armed with all her facts and figures. She makes no allegiances with her female colleagues, indeed she goes behind their backs.

Finally there is Liz Lyon, the main character, a TV producer who tries to hang onto her values. Liz wants to be a good manager and she supports her colleagues but ultimately she too has to revert to aggressive behaviour in order to survive. 

Now I don't want to give the impression that all the men in the novel are horrible! Far from it. The two men at the top are motivated by power and control but there are also good, kind and supportive men in the book. There is Simon, Liz's deputy; Gerry Melrose the astrologer and Henry the floor manager who is a good friend to Liz.

I also don't want you to think that Behind Her Back is a dry feminist treatise. It's not. It’s a story with secrets and suspense and character development and a lot of fun along the way. It was certainly cathartic for me to write it.

Finally I want to share some exciting news with you tonight.

What better place than the British Film Institute, the home of film and TV, to announce that my debut novel The Lie of You will be a feature film later this year. It has been shot and is currently being edited. It is every writer's dream that their book will be made into a film.

My warm thanks to my agent Gaia Banks, the best champion a writer could wish for. Thank you Laura Palmer, my editor, I love working with you. And a bouquet to Clare Gordon of Head of Zeus for her fantastic work promoting this novel. Closer to home, thank you to my partner Barry Purchese for your masterly feedback and to my daughter Amelia Trevette for advising me on all things fashion in the novel.

I also want to thank the readers who review my books and especially the book bloggers, some of who are here tonight. I say three cheers for book bloggers because they are passionate about reading and use their spare time to write reviews which as authors we greatly appreciate.

Information on my books here