Katharine McMahon is the author of 10 novels, including the bestselling The Rose of Sebastopol, which was a Richard and Judy pick for 2007. The Crimson Rooms and The Alchemist's Daughter.
Her latest book, The Hour of Separation, is our in paperback on 22nd August.
Her fiction is based on the lives of extraordinary women. She loves to explore how women in the past - but with a contemporary slant. The Hour of Separation tells the story of a complex friendship played out against a backdrop of resistance and betrayal in two world wars.
It's rare that I don't finish a book. Especially when I am half way through it. It started well - the author had really managed to evoke the religious turbulence of the 1600s. But the fascination wore off. i was half way through, plodding through some tedious religious politics when I realised I didn't actually care any more what happened to the character. So I flipped to the end, read the last page, satisfied myself that I wasn't missing much and gave up on it.