A Princess on Her Own Terms follows a sharp and stubborn young woman who refuses to give in to a world that worships perfection and instead allows herself live authentically. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I wanted to show that plus size can be beautiful. I have struggled with my weight all my life and until my late twenties lived a very unhappy life. This was until I realised that I can be beautiful in the body I have, all I needed to do was love myself.

That is what I wanted to impart to other women and girls. We are all different sizes and shapes, but everyone is beautiful in some way and that they should not be fixated on their weight or dress size, they should try to learn to love themselves fully and ignore the rest of the world who are only going to try and make them feel bad about themselves.

Sapphire doesn’t fit her kingdom’s idea of perfection in behaviour or appearance. Was there a moment where Sapphire surprised you as you were writing her?

Sapphire (or Saphie as she is known to her friends) has a strong moral compass of non-violence, not only to people but also to magical creatures and animals. At one point in the book, she is captured by bandits along with other women and girls. One of the bandits wants to assault one of the women for fun and Sapphire in her head is contemplating stabbing him in the neck to kill him to protect the women and girls with her. This surprised me, but I also understood, I know Saphie would do anything to protect people who need her help even if she did not want to do what she had to do.

The story gently but clearly pushes back against the idea that women must shrink themselves. Why was that theme important to explore in a fairy-tale setting?

Even though I have lived my life as a confident woman who does stand up if I think something is wrong, I know there are a lot of women out there who are not as defiant and assertive. I have faced sexism, even though the profession I chose is dominated by women, I have had many male bosses. (That tells you something in itself that in a female dominated professional all my line managers have been male and 2 out of the three Heads I have worked under are male!). I was actually pushed out of one of my jobs because I tried to challenge sexism in the workplace, which I was told did not exist. 

Even though there have been people in my life who wanted me to be small and quiet, I never have been, apart from in the later part of my marriage, which I look back on myself with pity. I want women and girls to know that they should not allow people to make them small or push them towards things which ‘women should do’. Women are as capable as men, and it is time the world wakes up and sees that.

How does teaching teenagers shape the way you write characters and dialogue, and what conversations do you hope this story sparks? 

Misogyny is on the rise in teenage boys, due to a lot of outside factors and I wanted to show girls that you can be empowered by themselves and to challenge anything which they feel is wrong and to support each other not see each other as rivals.

In the story Edward goes on a very important journey, which I hope will help show boys that they can change and challenge what they have learnt from outside influences and learn to respect not only women who are different, but also minorities which we see in his friendship with Freya.

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