Ask me my most favourite books, and a classic English romance will always appear near the top of the list: Wuthering Heights. The agony and passion at the centre of the love story between Heathcliff and Cathy has always gripped me, moved me – and it inspired me as I wrote my novels Burning Embers and The Echoes of Love. For each of the main characters in these novels is in his or her own way tortured by a past love, as are  Heathcliff and Cathy.

Burning Embers, Coral

Coral is fairly naïve and inexperienced in love, and the one relationship she has had left her hurt and defensive:

On a holiday weekend, she had flown to New York, unannounced, to surprise her fiancé. The nasty surprise had been all hers, since Dale showed little concern when she arrived at his office and caught him red-handed kissing his secretary. The typical cliché…

Betrayal, a terrible burden to carry. How hard it is to trust again, especially when Coral meets a man who makes her heart sing – but is a notorious womaniser with an impossibly beautiful and seductive mistress.

Burning Embers, Rafe

The womaniser. And why is he that way? Because he is a widower, stalked by thememory of a wife long-passed. A wife who drowned. A wife many would have Coral believe he allowed to drown. What is the truth of his past? Why exactly is he tortured by his wife, Faye? These are questions Coral must answer if she is ever to tame and quiet this wounded soul.

The Echoes of Love,Venetia

Were you in attendance at the grand masquerade Venetian ball at the opening of The Echoes of Love, and you were introduced to Venetia Aston-Montagu, the impression you’d form would be of a capable, confident, independent woman. But you’d never guess that beneath the cool exterior lay a bruised heart. And the cause of the wounds? Judd Carter, the man who had abandoned her when she needed him most:

One day, while Judd was away on manoeuvres in Ireland, Venetia had discovered she was pregnant. … Venetia had written to Judd with the news, but he had never replied. The string of letters she had sent after that, imploring him to get in touch, had all remained unanswered. If he’d been killed in action, she would have found out very quickly, so even having that morbid reason for his silence was denied her. She was devastated.

Worse, soon after the abandonment Venetia fell and miscarried: a double loss, and a heartbreaking one. By the time Venetia meets Paolo in the book, she’s understandably reticent about letting her heart love, trust. What if he hurts her, lets her down… leaves her?

The Echoes of Love, Paolo

Paolo, like Rafe, is a widower. But there the similarity ends – for while Rafe is tortured by his memories of the death of his wife, Paolo is entirely unable to remember his. As Venetia learns in the book:

Paolo is amnesic. He lost his memory in a car accident ten years ago, while on his honeymoon. He and his wife were returning from a nightclub; his wife was driving, and she died on the spot. He was badly hurt and was in a coma for several months. When he woke up, he had forgotten his past: a total loss of memory.

Does this lack of memory mean Paolo is not hurt by his past, of which he has no knowledge?

Set on the wall behind the desk, the huge portrait was of a beautiful young blond woman with deep set, laughing blue eyes that looked down at her mischievously. The artist had captured the obvious joie de vivre that shone through her smile. Paolo’s dead wife, Venetia thought, and her heart ached for him as she wondered how one would get to grips with the tragedy of losing not just a loved one, but also one’s own identity.

‘My wife,’ Paolo announced to her in a matter a fact way that took Venetia a little aback. ‘She died in the accident which robbed me of my past. I don’t remember her – for me it’s as if she never existed.’

He took out a couple of glasses from a drawer in his desk and poured Venetia a glass of white wine from a bottle that stood in a bucket of ice on a small table next to it. ‘I don’t grieve for her as much as I grieve for my lost life. We were on our honeymoon. She was driving, so I don’t even have the privilege of feeling guilty. I might as well be dead.’ His voice hardened as he spoke.

Paolo does his best to be anything but Heathcliff – but his actions with Venetia reveal he’s notunemotive. Will the past always stand between Venetia and Paolo, the ghost of Paolo’s wife, the forgotten marriage?

Venetia admits that she needs ‘tortured, complicated souls to spark an interest in her’. For me, that’s fundamental in a romantic lead. Only tortured, complicated souls create stories grounded in realism, in conflict, in passion. Characters need to find the dark places in their souls; to find the courage to trust despite knowing too well the risks of doing so. Then, ultimately, that powerful connection that unites Heathcliff and Cathy through life and death exists: ‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.’