Famed English author Joanne Trollope deals with difficult relationships in her latest novel ‘The Other Family’.

And the Oxford-educated bestseller has had plenty of personal experience to colour her fiction.

With a raft of bestsellers behind her, such as ‘The Rector’s Wife’ and ‘Marrying The Mistress’, Joanne has crafted a book at least every two years.

Trollope has two daughters from her first marriage to banker David Potter, whom she married aged 22, and two stepsons from her second to TV playwright Ian Curteis.

All are grown up now and real life clearly gives her a wealth of subject matter. But her ideas come from friends, contemporary news and eavesdropping.

She says: “I think one of the most desperate things in life, which I was trying to portray in this novel, was that however much you say you want a marriage to work, you cannot make the other person commit the way you do.

“Of course [marriage] should be a partnership, but sometimes you simply cannot make the other person participate and understand. I try and portray these disappointments because I think they happen everywhere and I think a lot of people are striving to do the right thing and it really isn’t their fault when it doesn’t work.”

In her latest story, Joanne tackles the subject of inheritance after 1980s musician Richie Rossiter dies, leaving his current family emotionally drained and his previous wife and son in a mess.

Matters are complicated because Richie never married his current partner with whom he has family.  In her own life, Trollope and Curteis left their partners to be together, but eventually divorced.

She says: “There’s no dress rehearsal for these things. I’m not the kind of person who would have done such a thing on a whim. I got to the point of feeling that I was going to be not just distorted but destroyed by the situation I was in.

But, you know, my children came with me. It is difficult to get things right. You make choices that you hope will last. I think if you marry very young there’s a 50:50 chance you’ll grow apart. One of the secrets of not going mad is realising that you can change yourself and you can change your situation, but you cannot change other people.”