Will Rycroft

One of the things that combines almost all of the characters and drives the story is really friendship, that kind of love.

And I found that really, really touching that these slightly misfit characters are inextricably bound to each other.

Can you tell me a little bit about the differences, I suppose, about writing romantic love and then friendship?

I found my family.

Yeah, exactly.

Coming back to where we started, this idea of the charm novel and, as I think, the hard work that must go into making something that is so easy to read and so enjoyable, there is a marvellous moment where the baronessa is trying to explain to the protagonist about how he's telling a story and how it needs a little bit of work, the way that he's told it at first.

And it talks about making it better, not just for the sake of the listener, but for the sake of the teller.

And then you talk about alchemy, to extract and refine from the admixed events of life and love the comedy.

And I thought that was really interesting, this idea that you take the events of a life that could be, as you say, tinged with tragedy, but you find a way of telling it that allows everybody to laugh.

Is that, I suppose, the secret sauce in your work, in sort of taking something deeply serious and then finding the way to make it funny and charming for the reader?

process something if you've gotten over it if you've sort of have taken the reins of the stories of your own life I look forward to finding out how you tell the story of being taken into a room that's 33 degrees and subjected to an interview later I take notes on everything I do

And I wondered as well, with the real life Baronessa, has she had a chance to read this novel and what her reaction was to seeing her life turned into this sort of fiction?

I think that love is very clear in the book.

So I hope that if she does get around to reading it, that she will love it too.

Good, good.

But I certainly enjoyed my time at Villa Coco.

And I really am very grateful to you for the time you've given me today to talk about it, Andrew.

So thank you.

Hello everybody.

My name is Will Rycroft and it is quite literally one of my favourite days of the year.