I can think of many authors I would like to have dinner with and can’t possibly narrow it down to one, so I’ll have to mention a few.

I’ll start with the mystery story author, Elizabeth George. I first read one of her books back in the 90s, I believe. The one that pops into my mind as I sit here writing is the one in which I recognised the setting as being the area I was living in.

In the book there is a milkman called Ernie and he is delivering milk to people in a house in the rural area between West and East Malling, though it doesn’t actually say that – I recognised it as I read!

If you’ve read about my aphantasia, you’ll know that I don’t have pictures in my head so while I was reading I wasn’t picturing the road Ernie was driving his milk cart on and yet it was immediately recognisable to me! And, too, Ernie was our milkman!

I would like to chat with Elizabeth about her characters, about her obviously deep research – she’s not a born and bred English woman but comes from America, so she must have come to Kent and used the same roads I used to drive on and met some of the same people I knew.

When I had my antiques shop in the High Street, in West Malling, I used to sit and read while waiting for customers – some days were v.e.r.y slow. One such day a woman I recognised came into the shop and caught me with my head in one of Elizabeth’s books. She immediately told me that she was a friend of the author and that EG visited her in East Malling often! She said that next time EG was visiting, she’d bring her into the shop. I was thrilled!

I brought several of my EG books and stood them in the book case in the shop, each marked inside with, ‘Not For Sale’, just in case someone wanted to buy them.

Elizabeth George and her friend from East Malling came into the shop – when I was away (at an auction? In London? I can’t remember.) When I was next in the shop, my EG books were autographed! I was happy about that but sad to have missed the author.*

Another author I’d like to join me for a meal is MW Craven, who writes the books about Washington Poe. Until a minute ago I didn’t know whether MW is a woman or a man. Reading some books, it’s easy to guess the sex of the author even if you haven’t Googled their name, but Mike Craven is excellent at writing both male and female characters and I hadn’t a clue.

My first Washington Poe book started out slowly and it was one of those books you think (well, I do), “I might just put this book to one side,” but I persevered and WOW! Such a good story!

After the first, I devoured several more then had to wait a little as I had no others. I’ve now caught up with the available Poe stories and am awaiting the newest.

I’d like to talk to Mike to ask him how he comes up with the plots of his novels and where his characters come from. I think the ‘person’ he writes about that I like best is Tilly. She is very unlike me! She’s exceedingly intelligent. She is very organised. She is very good at tech (computers, phones etc) She can hack the government’s most secret internet sites but never uses them for bad reasons and can even join the internet where there’s no wifi!Even getting into the ‘dark net’. (Does such a thing actually exist?)

I’ll leave out all of my other fave authors of mysteries and thrillers and go to the author I’ve been reading for longest, Barbara Kingsolver.

The first books of hers I read were amusing and the characters were so recognisable – some of them could have been me. Then I read The Poisonwood Bible. It’s definitely not the kind of book I had read before but that didn’t stop me. The writing is clear, the characters lifelike, their troubles are real. After I read that, if anyone asked me, “what’s your favourite book?” I would say The Poisonwood Bible.

Since then I’ve read many more of her books. There’s one about Monarch butterflies and their annual mass migration, there’s the latest I’ve read which is an excellent story set in the 20th and 21st centuries but mirroring the Dickens’ story of David Copperfield, and my new favourite novel – The Lacuna.

The story in The Lacuna starts with a young man diving on into a lake in Mexico and from there follows his life and those of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. The book was a wonderful way of teaching me about historical figures whose names I knew but had no idea of them as whole people.

I can heartily recommend books by the three authors I’ve mentioned above. There are so many more whose books I’ve read and loved and whose newest books I immediately snap up! I’ve got so many books (real ones and ebooks) that I haven’t read yet that I’ll have to stay alive for at least another ten to twenty years! And, there are the books I haven’t read but know that I should which would probably use up most of those years just on their own.

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*One day, coming off a train at West Malling Station, I went through the ticket office and passed the acquaintance from East Malling, along with Elizabeth George! The two were rushing for the train that I had come in on and didn’t even notice me😢