With the holiday season on the horizon, it’s the perfect time to think about the ingredients for writing a sunny summer read, with advice from Margaret James

Margaret James

What does summer mean to you?

A welcome break from routine in the form of a much-anticipated holiday doing something you love? A chance to let your arms and legs catch a few rays? Or hay fever, insect bites, prickly heat rashes, and more freckles than ever before?

My own Celtic-Anglo-Saxon-and-a-bit-of-Eastern-European complexion doesn’t respond well to even the UK’s sporadic summer sunshine. I’m insanely jealous of friends whose summer skin takes on golden honey tones, while my own burns and blisters.

Love it or hate it, whatever you feel about summer, there’s plenty of seasonal fiction out there for you to enjoy, ranging from upbeat romance to spine-tingling mystery. What would encourage you to write a summery story? As you toughed out our last British winter, did you recall the caressing warmth of that holiday resort in the Maldives? Or those sinister rustlings in the undergrowth on nights when you couldn’t sleep?

Spring and early summer are a signal for publishers’ lists to teem with upbeat novels set in gorgeous coastal or countryside locations, in beautiful cities, or surrounded by fascinatingly romantic ruins, either here in the UK or abroad. Yes, things can (and indeed should) go wrong for the central characters, who might have one or more tricky dilemmas to resolve. But nothing should go tragically or depressingly awry. Any challenges shouldn’t be insurmountable. Readers must be offered opportunities to relax, de-stress, and maybe even feel better about their own workaday lives. Trisha Ashley, Jennifer Bohnet and Nicola May are just three bestselling authors to check out if you want to learn how experts deliver feel-good stories that lift their readers’ hearts.