Chick lit queen Lisa Jewell talks to Hannah Stephenson about the reasons behind the darker tone of her new book.

SHE started her literary career as a chick lit queen, gaining a £120,000 two-book deal with Ralph’s Party, a light-hearted yarn which earned her a place in the bestseller lists.

But as Lisa Jewell’s life has changed, from girl-abouttown to breadwinning wife and mother-of-two, her novels have changed with her.

“Now I’m writing about something darker because I’m going through a much darker time in terms of love and relationships,” she says.

Her latest book, The Truth About Melody Browne, is centred on a single mother who cannot remember her childhood until she goes to a live hypnotist act and faints during the show. The experience sets off a chain of fragmented memories of her disturbing past.

Lisa reveals that the dark times in her own life in recent years have spawned the more serious, thoughtful subjects that she writes about.

Her life changed dramatically three years ago when her husband, Jascha Gordon, developed a mystery back complaint, which has left him seriously debilitated.

“We went on a golfing holiday – he used to be a very keen golfer – and realised that he needed a buggy to get round the golf course. Then, towards the end of the holiday, he couldn’t even get on to the golf course because he couldn’t walk. We got home and bought him a pair of crutches and that’s been it really for the last three years,”

she says.

The illness has had a big effect on family life with their two daughters, Amelie Mae, five, and Evie, nearly two.

“He’s a lovely dad but he hasn’t been physically able in the last three years so I’ve had even more on my plate.”

Lisa is also the main breadwinner.

“He finds that difficult. Before we had children, he thought it was brilliant but now that everything’s on my shoulders, it’s giving him a feeling of inadequacy.”

Lisa’s latest book is her darkest yet and begins when a mother, traumatised by the death of her baby at two days’ old, neglects her surviving daughter, Melody Browne.

Lisa was six months’ pregnant with her second child when she started writing the book.

“It had been a difficult pregnancy and thought I was having a miscarriage at one point, so I was feeling really vulnerable. I just thought ‘What could be the worst thing? To go through nine months of pregnancy and then leave hospital without the baby. That was the starting point.”

Lisa’s own baby, Evie, was born a bouncing 9lbs, so was a much happier conclusion.

Lisa, 40, was born and raised in north London, where she lives now.