Local author Natasha Boydell introduces her latest novel, set in Palmers Green

*Natasha Boydell has published three novels in just two years (credit Rebecca Filby Photography)*

Sometimes family can be found in the most unexpected of places – a baby or toddler session, dog walking group or local club. I don’t think I truly experienced this until I moved to the area.

Before that, my London experience probably played to many people’s perceptions. I didn’t know my neighbours, I had no friends nearby and I definitely wasn’t on first name terms with any local business owners. Now I can’t walk 50 metres without saying hello to someone.

I love Palmers Green and the surrounding neighbourhoods of Southgate and Winchmore Hill, which our road of straddles. I adore the strong sense of community, the friendly vibe, the multiculturalism. Craving Greek olives, Turkish pastries and an iced coffee for lunch? No problem!

But most of all, I love the friends I’ve made in the nine years that we’ve lived in the area. So, when I started working on my new novel, I knew exactly where it had to be based.

The Legacy of Eve is a drama about motherhood and a family touched by tragedy. Can Annie discover the truth about her long-lost mother before becoming a mother herself?

Family – both the people we’re linked to by blood and those we meet along the way – is an important theme in the book. The main character, Annie, loves Palmers Green just as much as I do and, like me, it’s where she chooses to start her own family. It’s fiction, so of course her journey isn’t plain sailing, but then it rarely is in life either.

The Legacy of Eve is my third novel. I’ve always wanted to be an author but life, and writer’s block, inevitably got in the way. It wasn’t until I was approaching my 40th birthday that I got a fear I might never actually do it, so I made it my new year’s resolution to write my first book within a year.

I signed up to a ‘prioritise your writing’ course run by Writing Room, a group based in Wood Green.

Being accountable to someone and setting weekly word count goals motivated me and I finished my first manuscript that year. After submitting it to many (many!) agents and publishers, I was fortunate to be offered a publishing deal a few months later.

My debut novel, The Missing Husband, was released last year and reached the top 100 in the Amazon Kindle chart. Since then, I’ve signed a multi-book deal with my publisher and I’ve had two more novels published. My current work in progress is set in Cyprus, and after that, who knows!

For more information about Natasha Boydell and her latest book ‘The Legacy of Eve’:
Visit natashaboydell.co.uk

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