Growing up in England, people told you why you couldn't do things. Suddenly, I had a publisher banging on my door, and was given the creative green light to simply make.

I had never read in public, never given an interview. I was doing it all and trying to produce the next book and raise three young kids and had another child on the way.

I've got three brothers and two sisters. Dad was a plumber who worked really hard to support six children, and Mum was busy at home. The four brothers shared a room, a bunk bed on each side. It wasn't luxurious.

I feel like I have one foot in New York, one foot in London and one foot in India. But it's important to me to invest time with family.

My parents were both born in 1930. They grew up during the Depression. They wanted their children to have secure lives, to have a good salary and a pension plan. If I could've guaranteed that I'd be a best-selling writer, that would've been one thing, but nobody could say that. So I knew better than to say that was ambition.

I never even had a bachelorhood: I went straight from my parents' home to a marriage.