Joanna Rees writes sweeping romantic adventures that combine mystery, romance and glamorous international settings. There’s a hint of Jackie Collins or Shirley Conran in her heroines, girls like Vita, the heroine of her A Stitch In Time historical fiction series. br /

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The second book in the series, The Hidden Wife, is a story of creativity and courage, living in the turbulent and freeing times of 1920s Paris and London and then 1929 Hollywood coming up next.br /

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Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and Joanna talks about the dream start she had in writing – with an early book that went to the top of the best seller charts and was made into a movie – and the ups and downs life has brought since, including facing down breast cancer and writing about it in a novel, a funny novel, which will be out next year.br /

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Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:br /

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A working relationship that ended in marriageInstant success - and ups and downsThe shock of breast cancerThe serendipitous meeting with novelist Jeffrey ArcherTackling controversial topics with humorOn being the ultimate chatter boxbr /

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Where to find Joanna Rees: br /

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Website: https://mumwritesbooks.wordpress.com/br /

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Blog: https://mumwritesbooks.wordpress.com/br /

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Facebook: @joannareesbooksbr /

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Twitter: @joannareesbooksbr /

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Her husband author Emlyn Rees: https://emlynrees.com/br /

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What follows is a near as transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.br /

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Jenny Wheeler: But now, here's Joanna. Hello there, Joanna, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us.br /

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Joanna Rees: Jenny, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm thrilled to be on, and I love the podcasts. I'm very excited to have a chat today across the other side of the world. I'm in slightly stormy Brighton in the UK.br /

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Joanna Rees - historical adventures br /

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Jenny Wheeler: Yes, it's lovely. Beginning at the beginning, was there a once upon a time moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction, and if so, was there a catalyst for it?br /

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Joanna Rees: Well, yes. I always was a writer. Mainly I was a talker actually, it's by accident I became a writer. I would have probably been better off doing what you're doing, a podcast or radio. When I was little, I was a terrible chatterbox and I had an older sister who I'm very close to, who was a real bookworm. She used to love reading books. My mother used to take us to London – we lived in Essex, which is about 30 miles away from London, but my grandmother lived in London. I always loved London.br /

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We used to go and see her at the weekend in the car, and I used to always want to chat and my sister wanted to read, and so my mother gave me a book and said, just write everything down. Thus followed this ridiculous long diary entry of ‘we're at the traffic lights’, ‘oh no, they just changed’ – me trying to record the journey as we went. But my dear Nanna in London would patiently sit down and listen to some of the stuff I'd written.br /

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The writer's fantasy lifebr /

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That was my first inkling that I could entertain people with my writing. Skip forward and I went through school and to university. I did an English drama degree and I always wanted to be a novelist. I always had this vision that I would be rolling up to Harrods in a great white stretch limo in my beautiful trouser suit, signing for my fans. I had ridiculous fantasies about it.br /

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Anyway, then I got sucked into real life,