Perhaps Elizabeth Strout is right in my case.

One of the reasons I was so thrilled when The Latte Years was finally written was because I thought the themes that had plagued me and found their way into everything else I'd tried to write in the intervening years would be done with. I could move on. Write about other things.

That hasn't really happened!

The novel I started in earnest last year seems to have quite a few themes in common with my first book. A young marriage in trouble. Friendships fracturing and true colours shown when paths diverge. Making peace with your past. Yearning to belong. Finding your place in a world where every day you wake up to another drama and the small, ordinary things you want to do and share seem very irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

It is my belief that the only way we will progress as a society is if we talk about shameful experiences, and stop being silent. Many things I've experienced in my life have been messy and ugly. It has helped enormously when I've stumbled across a book or a blog where someone has had the heart to share their own pain and confusion. It's helped me feel less alone. It's why I write too.

So maybe I'm not done with those themes just yet....or they are not done with me!