Quick, Grab The Lipstick!

People always ask me about my book's title, Lipstick on the Strawberry. I came across the idea while researching a caterer's daily life. My heroine, Camilla, has a catering business. She hires a young woman who is training to be a food stylist. The girl grabs an unripe strawberry, swipes red lipstick across its green surface and snaps a photo. The picture shows a luscious, shiny fruit.

My story involves a family secret hidden under a gloss of respectability. How often does that happen in real life? Even in families with perfectly ordinary lives, there are often stories best left kept from the world.

Camilla is English. The story is set partly in Boston, where I lived for many years, and partly in Cambridge, England, where I've spent months at a time. I wanted to capture Camilla's sense of "in between-ness" as she contemplates whether to stay in the U.S. where business opportunities are better, or to try to reconcile with her estranged family in England. Her romance complicates these decisions.

Cambridge, England, is to my mind one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It is the home of one of the world's oldest universities and of some of the world's finest minds. So to an ordinary person like myself it can seem intimidating. Camilla feels shut out of this world because unlike her academic family, she struggled at school. All she wants to do is to cook. I took a photo of King's College, Cambridge. I think it illustrates Camilla's mindset - and as the book progresses, she becomes more self-accepting.

Margaret Ann Spence
who believes everything gets better with chocolate.

Author of Lipstick on the Strawberry, to be released July 5 2017

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