Dragoncharm was the first novel I wrote. The book that kicked things off was William Horwood's Duncton Wood, which in turn brought echoes of a childhood favourite: Richard Adams's Watership Down. Believe it or not, it's not such a big jump from rabbits to dragons!

There's a wealth of great stories featuring anthropomorphic animals - the genre stretches back to Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows and beyond. I started wondered if anybody had ever tried it with mythical creatures and couldn't think of a single example. Once I'd got that far, I couldn't think of a better creature to feature than the dragon.

The cast of Dragoncharm is made up almost exclusively - and not surprisingly - of dragons. No people, no wizards, no damsels in distress. I was determined to put dragons centre-stage. Oddly, I never thought of it as a fantasy: I was writing about what our world was really like, back when dragons ruled the skies.

Beyond that, I wanted to create a big, romantic adventure with big, romantic characters ... who just happen to have big, romantic wings.

As well as being published in the UK and US, Dragoncharm has also been translated into German and Hungarian.

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