{"id":7043354,"date":"2026-08-21T19:08:04","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T19:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/author-interview-with-nicola-knight-romance-newrelease-washedup-shelley-wilson-author\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T19:08:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T19:08:04","slug":"author-interview-with-nicola-knight-romance-newrelease-washedup-shelley-wilson-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7043354","title":{"rendered":"Author Interview with Nicola Knight #romance #newrelease #washedup \u2013 Shelley Wilson Author"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Recently, I shared an interview with Kristina Thornton (you can read her interview here<\/a>), who was a finalist in the RNA Awards 2025 with me. Today, I get to share another interview from yet another of our fabulous finalist group! Allow me to introduce you to Nicola Knight, whose latest romance novel, Washed Up<\/a>, is out today!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Tell us a little about yourself. (How did you get started writing? What do you do when you\u2019re not writing?)<\/strong><\/h2>\n

My name\u2019s Nicola and for my day job I work as Head of Communications at Redwings Horse Sanctuary, one of the largest equine welfare charities in the UK. Basically I get to write about ponies and donkeys all day long \u2013 it\u2019s a hard life! I have a husband and young daughter and we live in South Norfolk. I have always wanted to be a novelist but I didn\u2019t properly give it a go until I was in my 40s. I published my first novel in September 2024, a Christmas rom com called The Night Before Christmas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What genre is your book, and what is it about?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This is my first summer romance, called Washed Up<\/strong>. It\u2019s set on the tiny island of Herm in the Channel Islands, and it\u2019s all about what happens when a mysterious stranger ends up stranded on the island during a storm. Frankie is a local who initially finds him intensely irritating and then finds she can\u2019t live without him. When Dylan leaves to go back to his own life, a life she can\u2019t be part of, she doesn\u2019t know how to move on.<\/p>\n

What or who inspired you to write this book?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As a family we\u2019ve been travelling to Guernsey and Herm since I was young. On a recent visit it occurred to me that it\u2019s one of the few places in the UK where you could still genuinely get stranded, desert island style, and I wondered what might happen if someone got stranded on Herm who really didn\u2019t want to be there, and perhaps didn\u2019t immediately appreciate the beauty of the place!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

What writing advice do you have for other aspiring authors?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

My best advice is the advice I was given when I told someone I\u2019d always wanted to be author. They said, \u2018What\u2019s stopping you?\u2019. And I thought, I don\u2019t know. Me! I\u2019m stopping me. I talked about wanting to be a writer and people often thought of me as a writer, but I didn\u2019t actually do any writing.<\/p>\n

That was compounded after my daughter was born when I kind of lost sight of myself altogether, as mums sometimes do, I think. I didn\u2019t have anything for myself, and I\u2019d never had many hobbies at the best of times. I\u2019m a mediocre baker at best and positively terrible at crafts of all kinds, but I love to read and I always wanted to write. So I started a brilliant course by novelist Tim Clare called the 100 Day Writing Challenge http:\/\/www.timclarepoet.co.uk\/the-100-day-writing-challenge\/<\/a> and then I found a competition with Penguin Michael Joseph where you had to write the opening 1000 words of a \u2018Christmas Love Story\u2019 but I was just 24 hours off the deadline. My hastily written entry was longlisted, to my absolute astonishment, and by then I had the beginnings of a novel. I persevered and after several false starts, found a publisher. That competition entry composed in a couple of hours ended up (after a lo-oooooot of refinement!) as my debut novel.<\/p>\n

Or, in a nutshell, my advice would be, Just Write The Damn Book.<\/p>\n

What do you enjoy most about writing and why?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The blank page! I love it when you have an idea and you can\u2019t get the words down fast enough, when the characters are all jostling around in your mind clamouring to get out.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a \u2018pantser\u2019 which means I basically start far too early, without anywhere near enough planning, and I only have a rough idea where it goes but in any case it almost always veers off in a different direction entirely. In Washed Up there\u2019s a bit of a love triangle and I genuinely didn\u2019t know which way it was going to go until around the 80% mark. Which keeps the process really exciting!<\/p>\n

List three interesting facts about yourself.<\/strong><\/h2>\n