Please join us for a Q&A with Izzy Broom, the author of several novels including the First Impressions selection, The House of Hidden Letters. Izzy will be here to take your questions from June 29 through July 1. Please stop by!
Please help me welcome Izzy Broom to the BookBrowse Community Forum.
Izzyâs 13th novel, The House of Hidden Letters, was a recent BookBrowse First Impressions selection. She is also the author of twelve romances and has been published in fourteen markets. In 2015, she won The Great British Write Off with her short story, The Wedding Speech, which was later adapted into a prize-winning short film. Her fifth novel, One Thousand Stars and You, was awarded Contemporary Romance Novel of the Year at the 2019 RNAs. Formerly a Book Reviews Editor at Heat magazine and Woman & Home, Isabelle still works regularly for Heat, Closer, Bella, Grazia, and Crime Monthly. She lives in Suffolk, England.
Please use this space to ask Izzy questions about her work. As a reminder, to reply to an existing comment, click the grey Reply on the right side under the comment. To ask a new question, click the blue Reply button a little lower down.
Izzy: Thank you so much for agreeing to chat with us. Before we jump into the Q&A, is there anything youâd like to share about yourself?
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Hey, Kim!
Thanks so much for this wonderful introduction. Iâm so thrilled to be here over the next few days, chatting to you all. Please feel free to ask whatever you like about the books and my life as a writer. Iâm a very open book (excuse the pun!) and thereâs lots to tell, both about The House of Hidden Letters and my other novels and writing life. As for a fact I can share about myselfâŚhereâs a few to kick things off:
- I spent a summer living and working in Greece in my twenties â an experience that began my lifelong love affair with the country, its culture, history and people.
- My three greatest fears are: incapacitation, Mount EverestâŚand pelicans.
- I met Leonardo DiCaprio 16 years ago and he called me a âladyâ. I am still recovering!
I hope those have intrigued everyone a little bit more. Letâs keep chatting! 
Izzy x
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LOVED your book!!
And that cover - FABULOUS!!
Thank you for the trip to Greece!! 
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Thank you so much! You have no idea how happy I am to hear that 
Iâm in love with the cover, too. Donât tell the UK, but this version is actually my favourite!
Plenty more trips to Greece to come as the series continues. Are you excited to find out what happens next? x
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OK, I just have to ask⌠pelicans? There has to be a story there.
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After reading your book I was pretty sure you had to have spent considerable time in Greece. I agree with Elizabeth that it really felt like you were taking us there.
What led you to Greece in the first place?
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How did you develop the story for The House of Hidden Letters? Did you start with the location and then build the plot around it? And which came first for you, the modern section or the WWII parts?
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Izzy, I loved The House of Hidden Letters! Youâre writing style is beautiful and the small Greek island setting of this novel is perfect! I had no idea that this was the first in a series. Please, tell us more!
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Ha ha! Well, I had a storybook as a child, which was about a character called Uncle Lubin, who was minding a baby that was stolen by a âbag birdâ â ie a pelican. It terrified me so much that I couldnât sleep if the book was in the bedroom â my mother had to give it away in the end and my fear of pelicans never went away!
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Thank you so much!
As youâll know from Hidden Letters, Skyeâs house is only one of five up on the hillside in Folegandros. My plan is to assign a novel to each of the houses and the characters that live in them both now and in the past. Book 2, The House Of Broken Promises, follows Victoria and Adam in the present, while picking up with Esther and Phaedra in the past. That novel is out in the spring and the third, which focuses on the three sisters â Dusty, Louisa and Mia, as well as the twins, Atlas and Zephyr â will hopefully follow! Iâm plotting that one now.
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You are correct in your assumption! My love of Greece goes all the way back to a holiday I took over 26 years ago, to an island called Zakynthos. What began as a two-week vacation led to a job over the summer, working in a cocktail bar, and after that I revisited every year before slowly going on to explore more of Greece. Thereâs something truly magical about the country and its people â not to mention all the rich history and fascinating culture. As soon as the idea arrived for the one-Euro property lottery, my mind (and heart) went immediately to Greece as a setting.
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What a clever idea! I loved all the characters in The House of Hidden Letters and Iâm eager to get to know them better. Will we get to learn more about Andreas as well?
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As you know, every good story begins with a âwhat ifâ. And for me, with The House of Hidden Letters, that was: What if you entered a property lottery and won? Iâd read about similar schemes happening across France and Italy and was drawn in by the idea, that allure of a new start somewhere unknown. I then started to wonder what would make a person want to take on such a project, what could have gone wrong in their own life to warrant abandoning it. Then there were the properties. Why were they empty? Who had lived in them before? What secrets could be hidden inside their walls? That was when the past began to take shape in my mind. The research part of the plotting process was one of the most enjoyable Iâve ever had. I read letters written from young Greek soldiers back to their families, messages full of hope, courage and love. At the beginning, it looked as if they were going to push back the Italian forces and the mood was one of triumph. All that then crumbled when the Bulgarian and German forces moved in.
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How was writing The House of Hidden Letters different from your earlier novels, if at all? Given the setting, did you feel this one was more personal, or did you get equally involved while writing the others?
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Correct me if Iâm wrong, but was this the first of your novels to get marketed heavily in the US? If thatâs correct, Iâd love to know more about that.
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Very much so! Youâll see how he and Skye are progressing and how dogged Andreas continues to be in his determination to oversee all the renovations and ensure theyâre done in the traditional way. There are also some new characters to meet, including an eight-year-old named Maria, who holds a very special place in my heart. Victoriaâs Californian cousins also arrive for a visitâŚbringing plenty of drama with them!
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Iâd actually never even thought about starting with a âwhat ifâ question for plot development. Is that how youâve generated ideas for your other novels? If so, whatâs youâre favorite âwhat ifâ so far?
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