Over time, I realised she had not been honest about her background, her marriages, or her age, which made my research incredibly difficult, and made her all the more compelling! And I wondered what had happened to her in her life, her early life what had inspired the lies, why had she left England? Thus, the novel was born.

It took me a long time to research and piece together this woman’s story, because she’d been married a number of times, changed names and moved about Europe so much. I’ve always been fascinated by independent, adventurous women in history, and the novel was inspired by a woman who lived in exile overseas for over half a century and returned to this country only at the end of her life. But, and perhaps more importantly, it’s also a story of survival. The Memory of Lost Senses is a love story, and a tale about duplicity, the vagaries of memory and the power of the senses. How did you get the idea for it? What is it about? NAW- Tell us about your book, The Memory of Lost Senses. The Memory of Lost Senses was published in 2013. Visit her here. It has been translated to German, French, Italian and Spanish. Judith’s debut novel The Last Summer was published in the UK in April 2012 when it was chosen by Lovereading UK as their MEGA début and listed in The Bookseller magazine’s ‘Ones To Watch’. She lives with her family in Hampshire, England. Judith Kinghorn is a graduate in English and History of Art, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a former Woman of the Year.

The last summer by judith kinghorn