Balancing Act

JOANNA TROLLOPE greets me looking the epitome of poise and elegance, her highlighted hair beautifully coiffured, her tiny frame enveloped in an elegant cream shirt and tailored leather trousers, her no doubt meticulously pedicured feet encased in immaculate Chelsea boots.

Famed for her family dramas which always feature contemporary social issues, flawed characters and tangled relationships in best-selling novels including The Rector’s Wife, Marrying The Mistress and Other People’s Children, along with her reworking last year of Jane Austen’s Sense & Sensibility, she’s used to writing about vulnerable people. And despite her perfectionist nature, she says she feels empathy with many of her less stoic characters.