I love Pinterest and find it a useful tool for compiling mood boards when I’m writing. Here’s the mood board for Meet Me at Willow Hall, which, like the one for Meet Me Under the Mistletoe, features quite a lot of Tom Hiddleston. Readers will have their own ideas about what the characters look like, but for me that’s what Anthony Bascombe looks like. I didn’t base Rachel’s looks on any one particular person, but I pinned a few photos of Paloma Faith because I love her quirky style.
Searching for a house to base Willow Hall on was my favourite thing. We’ve been members of the National Trust for years and love looking around stately homes and country estates and dreaming about what it must be like to live in one. However, the house I decided looked most like the Willow Hall in my head was Oakley Hall in Shropshire, which I found listed on an estate agent’s website. I was tempted to pretend to be a potential buyer so I could look round it, but I’m rubbish at lying and know I could never pull it off so decided not to waste everybody’s time! Still, when the movie comes out, starring Tom Hiddleston as Anthony Bascombe, maybe I’ll be able to look around for real. Come on, a girl can dream, can’t she?