Here, she talks to Gail Bell about her new book, the challenges of writing and some of her own anxieties she encountered along the way.

Q. Your new book, The Undercover Mother, is a follow-on to your first, Notes for the Next Time. What do you think it is about your heroine which makes readers warm to her and identify with her? Is there much of your own personality in her character?

A. I think my heroine is very much struggling in many areas of her life, and many of us can identify with a sense of things being a struggle. She is a poor housekeeper and is always striving, without great success, to run a more efficient home. She has also had marriage troubles in the first book, and she and her husband are still, in Undercover Mother, on slightly delicate ground.

In addition, when she sets out to get herself a job, she feels distinctly underqualified for the twenty-first century workplace, where all opportunities seem to demand an in-depth knowledge of 'spreadsheets' – whatever they are. All the same, when she does enter the world of work, she seems to attract her fair share of friends, perhaps because she is a very unthreatening sort of person, and this may be another reason why readers like her.

There is certainly some of me in this character. I have shared the experience of isolation arising from years spent at home looking after my three children, and although this also entailed many hours of housework, I never became any good at it. I did my best to improve my education during my years at home with babies, and first took a degree in Literatures in English, then an NVQ in Training and Development and then a Masters degree in Creative Writing, in the hope of preparing myself for profitable employment.

Sadly, when I look at the pages of job advertisements, like my character I don't see anyone asking for what I have – it's all qualifications in early years care and, yes, knowledge of the dreaded spreadsheets.

Oh yes, and then there's the social anxiety – that's quite big in the new book. My character is no good at small talk, and I'm just the same. I'm fine with the initial friendly greeting, and I'm not bad discussing really substantial matters and stuff from the heart, but when it comes to passing the time of day or making party conversation, I'm absolutely stumped – and the more aware you become that you can't do this thing that everybody else seems to do so effortlessly, the bigger a cloud it becomes. Actually, I've spoken to a therapist about this, and she helped me to see that most people aren't, in fact, the life and soul of the party – although there are a few who truly are – and that, in the main, people small-talk about nothing more exciting than the weather and roadworks.

Q. Is there a reason we don't know her name or that of her husband and children? Is anonymity something you decided on before you formed her in your head?

A.