RISING TO THE OCCASION "Another laugh-packed read... there's plenty of romance and humour" - Woman's Own 'Rising to the Occasion' was a real joy to write. I was first introduced to cricket in 1989 when I was visiting friends in Rome, of all places. I was asked to keep score at a friendly match. After I'd laughed my way out of that request, the pencil and scorebook were handed to me and the guys jogged onto the pitch, leaving me in charge. That's when I first raised an eyebrow and thought, 'Hmmn, curious'. I forgot about it really, until 1993 when I got a chance to play cricket in the women's team of my Oxford college. None of us had played before, and on the whole we were pretty useless. But fortunately so was everyone else, so we got to the semi-finals of Cuppers, the inter-college tournament. More importantly, we had so much fun. We had not only discovered a game you could watch when you were drunk, you could actually play it when you were drunk. In fact, I think that was compulsory. Once I'd left university I started following the fortunes of the England team and since then cricket-watching, and especially going to live test matches and lapping up that extraordinary atmosphere, has been one of my hobbies.

'Rising to the Occasion' is a story about family - in the very broadest sense of the word. A sense of belonging is integral to romance, and in this book, Cathy finds that her family, her friendships and her romantic needs are brought together. Long-term relationships become about family in due course, and this is one aspect of romance I wanted to write about. Beyond that, when I was writing 'Rising to the Occasion', Cathy's relationship with her grandfather, Frank, demanded to be explored. Irascible in the extreme, Frank was not at all what Cathy was expecting when she finally made the decision to contact her only blood relative. Cathy is a strong, feisty woman and completely capable of holding her own in any situation - and this made their growing relationship fascinating for me. An added curiosity in writing this book was re-visiting the East End of London and thinking back to my roots - my grandmother's family were East Enders, and it took me right back. Just as Cathy is finding a place in which to ground herself in this story, I did too.

"Taylor excels in dialogue which forms her characters and gives them depth... fast moving and above all, feel-good" - Sevenoaks Chronicle

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Excerpt...

'Right, that's it!' she said.

Cathy strode across the room and hauled the curtains wide open. There was a lot of curtain, over double french doors and windows either side. She yanked the heavy material right back so that the room became ablaze with light. Beyond, for the first time, she got a view of the garden. It was wide, long, studded with trees, with huge shrubs. The lawn was vast, and utterly beautiful. At the end, Cathy could see weeping willows. The sudden brightness of the image was numbing. It was like walking out of a cinema.

'What are you doing?' Frank croaked at her irritably, leaning over the side of his chair.

'We're going outside,' Cathy said.

'We're - what? No we're bloody not.' Frank shook his head.

'Yes we bloody are.'

'I said, we're not.' Frank raised his voice, but as if to counter his balance, his body shied back into his chair as Cathy strode around it.

'We're going to pretend, just for a while, that we're normal people. We're going to sit in the shade of that laburnum out there. There's a bench, some chairs and a table. That’s where we're headed. And I'm going into the kitchen and I'm going to make us a cool drink. It's simple. We're going to sit outside, in the air, drinking our cool drinks, and we're going to talk. Are you with me so far?'

Frank's eyes gleamed back at her. For a second he looked like C3PO, all eyes and skeletal head, with a busting intelligence that got on everyone's tits.

'Why are you bossing me about?' Frank asked, his voice wavering.

'Because.' Cathy took a shallow breath. 'Because, Frank, if I don't, then nobody else will.'

Frank glowered back at Cathy resentfully. In response, Cathy went back to the French doors and twisted the handles. She opened the doors wide. Instantly, the heavy scent of summer flowed into the room. Beefy bounded from Frank's lap and edged out of the doors onto the terrace. He sat down and washed himself.

'Come with me.'

Cathy put out her arms to Frank. He waved her away, his face contorting into distaste.

'What are you going to do? Carry me out there?'

'If I have to, yes.'

'Oh God.' Frank smothered his face with his hands. His voice was broken. 'Oh God, it's come to this. Now I feel like a baby again.'

'Will you just stop feeling so bloody sorry for yourself?' Cathy snapped at him. Frank's hands dropped immediately. He stared at Cathy in astonishment. 'Yes, I mean, stop all this me, me, me, bollocks. And I mean bollocks!' she yelled, getting great pleasure out of ejecting the word into his face. 'I'm going to help you outside. If you don't need my help, then don't make a West End play out of it, just say, 'It's okay thank you, granddaughter, I can manage'. That shouldn't be difficult for a man with such an impressive command of vocabulary as yourself. And then when you're comfortable outside, I'll make us some drinks.'

'You can't speak to me this way!' Frank attempted. Then he spluttered and said crookedly, 'My pills!'

'We'll take your pills out with us.' Cathy put her arms out again, this time not in a coaxing gesture but in one of intent.

'You wouldn't get away with this,' Frank wagged a thin finger. 'If Barbara was here. Oh no. She'd rip you apart like a terrier.'

'Don't kid yourself,' Cathy gritted back.

'Oh she would. She hates you, you know.'

'Not, apparently, as much as she hates you,' Cathy bit back, her arms still outstretched to the recoiling figure in the chair.

'She only hates me because of you!' Frank retorted, sticking out his chin like a child in a playground battle. Cathy sucked on her cheeks.

'I'm not interested. The difference between us is that I'm not interfering in your private life.'

Frank laughed. He laughed and laughed, his finger poking at his chin while his feet disappeared right up behind the blanket. He curled himself into a ball.

'That's funny. The idea that you don't interfere in my private life. You know, Melissa told me once that you had a good sense of humour, but that's the first time I've seen it.' His face collapsed into a scowl. 'I'm not going outside.'

'Yes you are.'

'No I'm not.'

'Frank, which word didn't you understand? If I have to carry you out of this foetid hole that you've created for yourself, I'll bloody well do it.'

'I'd like to see you try.'

Cathy took a breath, then stuck her arms into the blanket. Within was a small frame. She wasn't tall, but she was firmly built, and she had decided in that moment that if it took a concerted search through the Yellow Pages and an emergency call to the local JCB hire, she was going to get Frank out of his chair. She scooped him up, blanket and all. In an ambitious manouevre, she also decided to pick up his plastic bottle of pills in one hand. But then she'd always been someone who'd try to clear the table with one tray stacked up like a mountain range. Cathy began to stagger towards the French windows with Frank in her arms.

'You're completely barking mad!' Frank issued into her ear.

'Well,' Cathy puffed, 'If I am, then I inherited it from you.'

Desperate not to trip and kill her grandfather by collapsing on top of him, Cathy edged her way outside, ignoring Frank's wriggles, which were only faint anyway, and they emerged into the garden. She stepped carefully over the terrace, down some steps, and on to the lawn. At this point, she lost the bottle of pills. It bounced away. She peered to one side to see Beefy patting it happily across the lawn. Lurching on, Cathy hauled Frank's body the last few feet towards the shade under the laburnum, the world dancing in front of her eyes.

'I… think…' she huffed, her body buckling. 'That I'll put you… down now.'

Frank was, to her surprise, silent. He was probably in shock. She allowed him to slide out of her arms. His slippered feet found the ground. Before he could run away, she propelled him down on to the slatted bench which was completely shaded. She swept up the blanket from the grass and, her limbs shaking from the effort, tossed it over him. It wasn't a very accurate aim, and it fell right over him. For a moment, he looked like a child at Hallowe'en pretending to be a ghost, with a sheet draped over his head and legs sticking out at the bottom. But he pulled at it, and his head appeared.

'Now.' Cathy bent over to regain her breath. Sweat had broken out on her neck and face. 'I'm going to make us a drink. And if you move, I'll -'

'You'll what?' Frank said, but his voice was a whisper.

'I'll - I'll bloody well kill you,' Cathy said, and marched back into the house.

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