Where did you get the idea for the Stravaganza books?
About fifteen years ago I visited Venice for the first time with my family. We were all very keen to take a gondola ride and we had a very expensive fifty minutes on the Grand Canal, in the rain. It was desperately romantic and we all loved it, but it set me thinking, because our gondolier was middle-aged and balding and, while not ugly, certainly not handsome. I suppose I thought that to make the experience perfect he should be young and godlike. So I thought about how one would ensure a supply of handsome gondoliers and that’s when the idea came for the Duchessa. Then, about five years later, my husband and I went with our youngest daughter, Jessica, to the Lido di Jesolo. And on that trip, the idea of the Duchessa came back, with a whole load of ideas about the “other” Venice, which I named Bellezza. Siena is one of my favourite Italian cities. It has a wonderfully mediaeval feel to it and the campo (there fan-shaped, rather than circular, as in Remora) is a fabulous place in which
