I was always going to be an author when I grew up – but that took a while. In the meantime I learnt the piano and flute, went to Trinity College of Music, taught piano at the Royal Ballet Junior School and played keyboards in a band. Then for some reason I became a scientist, did a PhD, and worked at London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital as a clinician and researcher. Kids prompted a move to the countryside near Brighton, and life was busy and complete.
Well, not quite. I found I was missing all that ballet I used to go to when I was teaching, and started going to an increasing number of shows. Reading about it. Doing a few dance classes. Then one night, coming home after a Carlos Acosta performance at Covent Garden, an idea for a novel finally came to me. After a few months I was writing MEN DANCING – the adventures of a weary scientist who, after a chance meeting on a train, becomes obsessed with a male ballet dancer. A literary consultant’s verdict was ‘great, but nobody will want to read about a male ballet dancer, write a different book,’ – so I was delighted when a publisher disagreed and took me on.
I have dance to thank for my second novel too. The picture (by Carole Edrich) shows me at Sadlers’ Wells (London) Theatre’s Flamenco Festival, with FLAMENCO BABY on sale in the foyer – five years after the festival inspired the story.
I’m currently agonisingly near to finishing my third novel, and will miss having the excuse to spend lots of time researching for it in the wildly contrasting locations of Madrid and Beachy Head on the South Coast.
Do visit my website – I’ve shared some of the background to my novels, and once in a while I do a blog post. www.cherryradford.co.uk
I’m also on Twitter @CherryRad and put writing, music, dance, Spanish and chocolate-related items on my Facebook Author Page Facebook-Cherry Radford.
A chance meeting with a performer you admire – an exciting story to tell your family and friends. But not if that excitement turns into the chronic ache of obsession...
Dr Rosie Buchanan – weary hospital scientist, frustrated musician, cheated wife and struggling mother – finds herself sitting next to charismatic Royal Ballet star Alejandro Cortés on a London train. Half an hour later, she starts to feel she’s misheard her true calling – and is soon doing research of a very different kind.
Rosie arranges a bogus research visit at Alejandro’s home, and is thrilled when he and his girlfriend ask her to teach them the piano. And she tries to overcome the pain of her failing marriage to Jez, and the obsession with Alejandro, by accepting comfort from consultant Ricardo Pereira. But so begins a complex dance of passion, betrayal, loss and redemption...
‘A great read for Strictly fans’ (Sir Bruce Forsyth CBE)
Jeremy and Yolande enjoy life in London’s artsy Islington. He’s a novelist; she’s in a flute trio. They love the dance theatre, Spanish films and arm-in-arm walks along the canal. But both are searching for a dark and sensitive Mr Right – and at thirty eight, Yolande is running out of time.
When Jeremy offers a ‘consolation prize’ after another failed romance, she asks for his baby. But he can’t face fatherhood, and gives her flamenco instead – tickets for the London festival, followed by classes in Spain.
An entranced Yolande returns from Granada having started a cosy relationship with guitarist Javi, and Jeremy falls for Fernando – an enigmatic dancer with whom Yolande has had a hidden brief liaison. So begins a whirl of secrecy, love and jealousy that has them all wondering if there’s more than one way to have a happy-ever-after…
‘A lively tale, with all the emotion, darkness and humour of flamenco.’
Sarah Bird, best-selling author of The Flamenco Academy
‘Flamenco books are in the main fact-packed or supposition. Occasionally one comes along that gives rather more…’
Flamenco News, London
Visit Cherry's website to find out more about her writing here.