One of the most exciting things about writing a novel is undertaking research. For each novel, I spend a lot of time researching the setting, the history and the themes. For The Perfumer's Secret that meant visiting Paris and Venice, reading extensively about Europe and World War Two in 1939 and 1940, and delving into the world of perfume-making. When I began writing The Perfumer’s Secret, I knew that perfume would be much more than a backdrop to the story. It would connect t

In 2023, I finished writing my first novel, The Paris Affair, about a Special Operations Executive agent in occupied Paris. As I wrote it, I knew that I wanted to continue exploring the extraordinary bravery of women during the Second World War through the fictional lives of strong female characters. The Perfumer’s Secret grew out of that desire. Iris Penhallam is an amalgamation of my research into SOE heroes and resistance workers. In 1939, Iris is determined to pursue he

“A woman's perfume tells more about her than her handwriting.” Christian Dior In my next book, The Perfumer’s Secret, Iris Penhallam and her fellow apprentice, Alessandro Mori are tasked with creating five new scents just as war breaks out in Europe. Decades later, Iris’s great-niece, Stella Penhallam, retraces the past through the perfumes and learns that they can tell her far more about Iris than she ever expected. I thought it would be interesting to look back on my li