Kate Fenton has written a new novel about finding love in your 60s, reports MAXINE GORDON

IT'S 18 years since Kate Fenton's last novel – why the delay?

"I hit writer's block," confesses the 64-year-old author who lives just outside Whitby, North Yorkshire, and has written a string of contemporary romantic comedies.

"My books had received a slew of reviews from broadsheets – which you don't often get for romantic comedies. I was doing OK and then I just ground to a halt."

It was quite a halt – almost two decades. What was that like?

"I was listening to a Radio 4 programme and a novelist compared writer's block to crossing Niagara Falls on a tightrope – if you stop to look back you lose your confidence," begins Kate.

"It was like that. I had started writing – and was getting 200-300 pages into a book when I would stop and think: 'who wants to read this?'."

During this time, Kate's personal life underwent major changes too. She was widowed – following the death of her husband, the actor Ian Carmichael. However, unexpectedly, five years later, she fell in love with a local GP, who she later married.

This sparked a new idea – to write a novel about finding love later in life.

"It was a trigger. I thought the idea of someone in their mid-50s having a new relationship quite interesting.

"People do write romantic comedies but they nearly always relate to youngsters," says Kate.

Friends, who also married later in life, shared with the author some of their experiences.

"Bringing your boyfriend home to meet your parents is seen as embarrassing – but that can be compared with introducing your partner to your grown-up children. There was a lot of scope and that was my starting point."

Upliftingly, Kate says falling in love in your fifties is just as exhilarating as earlier in life.

"It's the same sense of madness you feel at 17! You can't eat, it completely knocks you sideways. But there is one big difference: at 56 you know who you are and what you want. When you are 25 you are still finding yourself and not sure where your career is going to take you."

Kate's new novel, The Time of Her Life, tells the story of Annie Stoneycroft, a Yorkshire matchmaker who can't stop herself marshalling friends and neighbours into suitable relationships.

A Jane Austen fan, Kate admits the story is loosely based on Emma – the 19th-century author's classic which has recently been made into a film.

A previous novel, Lions and Liquorice – which was serialised on Women's Hour – took its cue from Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but with the sexes of the main characters reversed.

"I then thought that there must be mileage in doing a modern version of Emma but making her a late-fifties' woman who is out there matchmaking her friends."

Why is Austen's character still so appealing after all these years? "She's not a gooey heroine," says Kate. "She knows her own mind and is happy in her own skin and life – but is not without flaws. It was quite easy to translate that into a glamorous, Yorkshire woman who rules the roost."

Kate says it was quite scary writing the book. "I was quite frightened at first. I kept thinking it was going to die on me. But when it seemed to be working, I grew in confidence and began to enjoy it."

And now she is on a roll. "I've competed a draft of my next novel. It has no title yet but is part of a series about two women with a bit of a crime feel. It will be a social comedy."

Why does she write in the comedy genre? "It springs from my attitude to life. When I first started out as a writer I wrote some stories for Woman's Weekly magazine, but they took out all the funny lines and jokes!

"I don't set out to write comedy, I write about what makes me laugh – and I like a happy ending."

The coronavirus outbreak has put paid to her book tour to promote the new novel – she was due to speak about her life and writing on Tuesday, April 21 at 6.30pm in the York Explore Library in Museum Street.

"Everything has been cancelled and the diary was choc-a-block. It's a good thing I hadn't started writing the talks.

"There's nothing you can do. In the 18 years since my last book, the world has moved on a long way. I have now set up a Facebook page and so many books are now sold through Amazon."

And with all that time on her hands, it's the perfect time to crack on with that second draft of her book.

The Time of Her Life, by Kate Fenton, is published by Hodder & Stoughton, £20