Annie has a new book out Recipe for Mr Super! As part of her Recipes of Life Serise so I caught up with Annie to talk Horses????
All my books so far have had dogs in, but in Recipe for Mr Super, I’ve been allowed to indulge my love of
horses. A quick disclaimer – all horses in this book are based on horses I’ve known, but, except for Charlie Brown, the Shetland Pony – that was his real name, names have been changed to protect the innocent!
The names weren’t the only thing I made up, okay, I’ll admit I never evented. I have acted as groom, helped at cross country events, been a dressage writer for many, many dressage tests including some major competitions over a long period of time, but I just couldn’t face competing. So, it’s fair to say the eventing world in Recipe for Mr Super is entirely imaginary, except that one event is held at Tweseldown – a real place, and my absolute favourite eventing venue. A place I have spent happy hours, helping, or watching, some talented riders compete. I’ve even gone cross country schooling there on my own horse several times and loved the experience, but never had any desire to compete at any level.
People always tell me that the adrenalin high you get from doing well in competition is the ultimate thrill and worth the anxiety of getting ready to compete. I never agreed. Even the clear-round competition at the local show would have me hyperventilating.
I can’t remember when my love affair with horses started. I was very young. I’d ride anything whenever I had the opportunity, but the only person we knew back then with a horse was my godmother.
My first book was Black Beauty. I still have that copy, the colour plates in it are amazing and it would be my desert island choice. I’ve had it so long; I can’t imagine ever being without it. 
I was 11 years old, when a lady, my mother worked with, who had a pony, which was a bit of a handful, asked her if I’d like to ride it. Her own daughter had outgrown it, so they’d bought her a horse and needed someone to exercise the pony. I’ve always assumed my mother didn’t understand what a bit of a handful meant at the time, rather than she thought she could afford to lose her eldest daughter. The pony was a rig, with a mind of his own – initially I spend a lot of time on the floor, but it was a great learning curve and I loved him to pieces, spending all my free time at the stables. Eventually, I outgrew him too, but was offered the ride on another horse at the same stables, a lot steadier, and a true gentleman, until a permanent home could be found for him.
I’d been married less than six months, when I finally had the opportunity to buy a horse. I’d been having 
riding lessons and hacking out at a local stable for some time, but it wasn’t a considered decision. I didn’t go out that day having decided to buy a horse, but I was told during a lesson that the horse I was riding, would be going to go back to the dealers and not available for lessons the following week. She wasn’t popular with clients other than me, being a head shaker and very green about everything. The deal I struck with my husband was that if I gave up smoking for a month, I could buy her. I never smoked again, I couldn’t, because although I didn’t tell him, I’d already paid for her.
We went on to develop a really special relationship, (both horse and husband). She taught me so much about unconditional love and trust. I like to think I taught her to jump. She’d only ever been driven, until shortly before she came into the riding school, and responded well to simple voice commands like, “left” or “right” and you had to tell her to “jump” if you wanted her to go over, rather than through or round any obstacle!
My biggest problem with her was that she hated being tied up and could untie herself from just about anything and sometimes her mates! She was a real Houdini, but having done it, she wouldn’t move further than the nearest hay net or patch of grass. She just didn’t like to be attached to anything.
Sadly, she was fatally injured in a road traffic accident, which left such a huge hole in my life that I was finally persuaded to look for another horse and found a huge tri-coloured mare. The picture 
is by the very talented equestrian artist Lydia Kiernan. I’m not aware that she ever met my horse, but this is just the most picture, it hangs on my wall. It has her facial markings spot on and has really captured her expression. This horse and I clicked, and I just knew I’d found somebody special. There were all sorts of alarm bells that should have rung. She had sarcoids, a cracked hoof, an irregular heartbeat, a dust allergy – I could go on, but the vet took one look at her and asked me what I thought I wanted.
I told him, I needed a horse, no bigger than 16 ½ hands to take care of me, to rebuild my trust in riding. A horse I could hack on my own, and maybe occasionally jump.
The vet turned and said, ‘Then she’s perfect for you. I’m not going to vet her, because she’ll fail. Just one thing, promise me you will give yourself a year with her to build a relationship. There will be times during that year when you’ll struggle – wonder what you’ve done and wish you’d never bought her. You’ll get her home, think she’s perfect, but give it three weeks and she’ll go through that difficult toddler stage. She’ll start testing boundaries. Don’t let her get away with anything. Always be kind, but firm and soldier on. It will be worth it. If after a year, and I really don’t think this will happen, but if you haven’t bonded then you owe it to both of you, to find her another home.’ He issued a passport for her, and in it said she was 16 ½ hands – years later my then vet said, you do know she’s a lot bigger than that – don’t you?
We did bond and had sixteen amazing years together. She put a broken person back together and we both learned to trust each other. She overcame her fears about walking through water and I learned to accept that if something was really frightening, in horse terms, it was better to walk, or trot past it backwards!
I have just started having lessons again and recently met a lovely horse – a real black beauty!
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From big city high-flyer to little village vet …
as an author, I can’t drift around in a haze of creativity, writing all day as I have one of those things called a ‘life’. By that, I mean I have other commitments like a family and a day job and can’t always devote time to writing, much as I’d like to. I haven’t written anything substantial, really, since September – part of that was a decision I made after releasing three books in one year. I wrote them in lockdown and just thought that was enough really for the time being. I have released two more this year and one is coming out at Christmas – and that’s a lot of lockdown writing. Thankfully, now restrictions have eased a bit I can do other things. I have, for example, started an art class, which is something I’ve wanted to do for years, and we had three days in Glasgow which was lovely. Maybe I should write about one of those days!
I had taken my trusty notebook and pen to Glasgow in case inspiration struck – I refused to cart a laptop up there, even though I usually would take one on holiday as writing is a pleasure and a nice way to settle in for the evening in a holiday cottage. But as we were on the train and limited luggage-wise it wasn’t practical and, from experience, I knew I wouldn’t write when it was such a short, busy break. Well, I didn’t even open my notebook, even though there was lots to inspire me (some of the artworks were incredible and told such stories – the portraits at the Hunterian, and the Glasgow Boys and the Scottish Colourists were fantastic – and I saw some Pre Raphaelite works, some Impressionists work and even a Van Gogh) so I was pleased I hadn’t taken my laptop. On the train coming back, though, I got one of those lovely emails from the publishers that ping in and tell me edits are ready to be worked on, and I couldn’t wait to get home and settle down to them. I might have worked on them under the influence of a glass of wine and a takeaway, but it was a really nice end to the holiday. 
and chronic illness. It is the story of Sam and Ava. Having both experienced huge changes in their lives, they question whether they can build a new life together and just what this might look like when it is not what they would ever have expected.
What do you imagine when you think of an author? Someone getting up late, perhaps sitting at a desk in their PJs with a large mug of coffee, spending the day typing away, or possibly staring out of the window, seeking inspiration?
The largest part of any day is my design work, and I tend to have several book covers on the go at once. Generally speaking, they’ll all be at different stages, which is a good thing; some have visuals out with the publisher or author, others have been approved and need high resolution artwork, whilst others need full cover artwork for print. I know most people keep notes on their Smartphones these days, but I tend to write actual notes in real notebooks and highlight projects as they’re finished. I suppose it’s the designer in me – but I do love notebooks and sketchbooks. In fact, the only things I miss about working in-house are the stationery cupboard (all those pens, notebooks and Post-it pads), and paid holidays! I certainly don’t miss the cover meetings that’s for sure! (And that’s a whole other discussion).
not going well and I’m stuck!) But when it is all going well, I can’t wait to rejoin the characters, and write more of their stories. Although there are times when their conversations keep me awake at night … this happens to a lot of writers I’m told.
explain in great detail how they could do that (fact – yes, someone wrote an extraordinarily long review on one of mine doing just that), or you will stumble upon a big long thread on Goodreads that has several people talking about how awful your characters were and other people were agreeing and adding their two pennorth (fact – yes. That did happen to me too). So the moral here is don’t feed the trolls. Don’t respond, much as you may want to. It’s really, really hard to deal with – probably the worst part of being an author – but it is definitely a learned skill. Now, when my anonymous Amazon Hater goes in and one stars my latest release for the sake of it with just a rating and no review (fact – yeah, you guessed it – I have one!) I just ignore it. It still makes me cross, but I just wonder whether they have any books out, or whether they are still swilling around at point 1 above.
“My first instinct was to beg you to give me another question to write about because I don’t feel in any way qualified to answer it… Perhaps it’s because I suffer from a massive case of imposter syndrome, but I have never consider myself an ‘author’. In fact I very rarely talk about my writing life to work colleagues or friends who aren’t writers because not everybody understands the need to create ‘imaginary worlds’ and populate them with characters who feel like real people. The few times I tried I got strange looks or people’s eyes glazed over and they quickly switched to another topic of conversation, such as a favourite series on Netflix or what they were having for tea. 
stories – the need to escape in an alternate universe with people I made up and yet who were completely real to me, and places which I loved as if I actually lived there myself even if I had never actually visited them. My brain is constantly full of parallel thought processes – about work and family life, of course, and about whatever story I am inhabiting at the time and characters who need a voice and plots problems that need solving. 
Sometimes the most precious treasures exist in the most barren and inhospitable of places …
A Story About A Girl 