JULIA STUART is an award-winning British journalist and the author of one previous novel, The Matchmaker of Prigord. She currently lives in Bahrain with her husband. Her new novel is The Tower, The Zoo and the Tortoise.

1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?

A whimsical tale of love, friendship and loss set in the Tower of London.

2. How long did it take you to write this book?

About eighteen months.

3. Where is your favourite place to write?

At my desk at home.

4. How do you choose your characters' names?

I have a book of names and go through it trying to find one that fits. If I give a character an exotic first name, I tend to give them a bland surname to balance it out. Vivienne Ventress, the nom de plume of Rev Septimus Drew, who writes erotic fiction, is the name of one of my friends. I told her years ago that if I ever wrote a book I would use it as I liked it so much.

5. How many drafts do you go through?

Umpteen.

6. If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be?

None. Had I written it, I wouldn't have got the same pleasure from reading it. The writer whose work I most admire is Gabriel Garca Mrquez.

7. If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it?

I'd very much like to see Dustin Hoffman in his cameo role collecting his Oscar from the Lost Property Office.

8. What's your favourite city in the world?

I don't have one, but I do have a quiet mania for Newfoundland. I even gave it a name-check in my first novel. Any place that has cod cheeks and flipper pie on the menu - and whose residents think that that's perfectly sane - gets my vote every time.

9. Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what kind?

Never. I need every brain cell concentrating on the job at hand.



10. What's on your nightstand right now?

The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al Aswany.

11. What is the first book you remember reading?

Harry the Dirty Dog.

12. Did you always want to be a writer?

I never imagined being an author. I'm a journalist who started writing fiction as a hobby simply for the fun of being allowed to make it up.

13. What do you drink or eat while you write?

I drink tea or water. I try not to eat as the precipitation of crumbs eventually jams up the keyboard, limiting my vocabulary.

14. Typewriter, laptop, or pen & paper?

A laptop perched on a stand at eye-level, with a full-sized keyboard plugged in.

15. What is the best gift someone could give a writer?

A writing hut in the south of France with sea views.