How to write a novel? Well, in Ally Bunbury’s case, the first step was sacrificing her favourite soap opera.

“The reason I could write a book is all because of what Marian Keyes said. Very simple. If you want to write a book, don’t watch television,” she says.

“I literally used to watch Fair City every evening. It was my total escapism and I’d feed the children and watch the show and get everybody into bed. And I stopped doing that and instead of watching TV, I actually sat down and I wrote.”

But while Ally might have left the high-drama of Carrigstown behind, there is no shortage of it in Infidelity, the follow-up to her debut, The Inheritance, which has been described as “big house romance”.

“Yes, the characters are larger than life and they all have buckets of money … but it’s good fun,” says Ally. “They are in crisis half the time; but I love trying to fix their problems.”

And in some ways, Ally’s journey to becoming a writer reads like a novel in itself. Originally from Dublin, her family moved to a former rectory close to the border in Clones in Co Monaghan in 1982.

“It was during the Troubles, so it was an extraordinary time for them to move up,” says Ally, whose father, Archie Moore, was a surgeon in Monaghan hospital, while her mother, Miriam, sold homemade bread and eggs from their home.

“It turned into My Family And Other Animals very quickly,” laughs Ally of the country childhood she shared with her three sisters. “At one point we had 58 varieties of animals!”

While never a big reader as a child – preferring to spend time with her pony – it was at boarding school that she was first introduced to a writer who would later inspire her own work: Jilly Cooper.

“Very light and really good fun,” says Ally of Riders, the first of Cooper’s books that she devoured by torch after “lights out” in the dorm.

Not that she had any intention of writing a book herself at that point. Instead, Ally studied history and sociology at Maynooth, but after a chance meeting with a New York public relations executive at a dinner party, she landed an internship with an agency just off Fifth Avenue.

Total serendipity

“It was total serendipity,” recalls Ally, who later transferred to the London office, commuting on her Pashley Princess bicycle, rubbing shoulders with stars like Joan Collins at parties, and honing her writing skills.

“Even when I was writing a press release, I found myself just imagining ‘what if’ and building characters,” she says. “I kind of felt that I wanted to create.”

Sadly, it was the loss of Ally’s father to cancer that was to provide the catalyst for her first novel, after she decided to take time out, and moved to Paris for eight months.

“You hear people say, ‘Oh the character just came to me’ and it did sort of happen, and I’m sure my family and people were slightly concerned, ‘Ally’s gone to Paris and she’s writing a novel!’” she recalls.

“It was the same time as Cecelia Ahern brought out PS I Love You and I thought, ‘Oh, I wonder if I could do something like that?’

But literally the moment I came back to Ireland eight months later, I packed up the laptop that I wrote the book on and that was that literally; and I went back to work.

Life – or rather love – was to take Ally in another direction, however.

Just a few weeks after returning home, she met writer and historian Turtle Bunbury and was engaged 10 months later, moving to Rathvilly, Co Carlow, where his family runs the Lisnavagh estate.

And while Ally continued to work in PR, family life took precedence with the arrival of daughters Jemima (now 10) and Bay (nine).

“I chose to go into hibernation for literally four or five years and just completely focus on them,” says Ally; but “every now and again” she would think about the unfinished book languishing on her old laptop.

“I’d think about Anna Rose, who was the heroine in The Inheritance, and she’d come into my head and I’d think: ‘Oh God, I never rounded that off.’”

Out of hibernation

About three years ago, however, Ally decided not just to finish the story, but to send it to publishers to see if they thought it had any potential.

“I thought: ‘You know, what is the worst that can happen?’” she recalls. “I sent it out to about five publishers and I had no fear because I literally had no expectation.”

But when Poolbeg picked it up, Ally cried for “about three days”.

“It’s extraordinary how you can surprise yourself,” she says, explaining how she then started work on Infidelity, which tells the story of over-privileged Londoner Elodie Gold, who bolts to Bellamore – her grandfather’s mansion in the Irish countryside – after a string of surprising events; only to stumble across a family secret.

“If I can bring a smile to a handful of people’s faces, that is good enough for me,” says Ally of her hopes for her second book.

“Really, I just want to provide a little bit of escapism that I have enjoyed from those light, really easy reads.”

Writing around her children

Now working on her third novel, Ally explains that she rarely has the luxury of writing full-time, but instead makes it work around family life.

“I have to write around my children, rather than the other way. I can sit down for 10 minutes and write a quarter of a chapter if I really bang it out; and then I’ll think about it for the rest of the day while I’m grating cheese over pasta!” she says.

And while her characters might often have their heads in the clouds, it’s pretty clear that Ally has her feet firmly on the ground.

“One of the highlights so far was walking into my local supermarket… and seeing my book on the shelf as I pushed the trolley!” she laughs.

Infidelity by Ally Bunbury is published by Poolbeg Press, RRP €14.99.

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