A new Swedish prince was born yesterday, Prince Oscar Carl Olof Bernadotte. I love the name and, well, I just love anything royal to be honest. Monarchy is problematic, obviously, but I can’t help finding it beautiful that there’s so much tradition and history that comes with having a royal family. I guess it has a lot to do with my writing, too, because I’ve always enjoyed making up stories about aristocrats and the like, and I love luxurious settings. One of the best parts of writing Entertaining the Sombrevilles was to create the family tree, and give everyone names and titles. Coming up with names for characters has been one of my favourite pastimes ever since I was a child. Which means I always have to create lots of characters, just so I can name them.

If I ever have children, they’ll have so many names. Three each would not be enough!