Life for More Than A Feeling author Cate Woods has been as rich, and sometimes random, as the fiction she’s been inspired to write

SHE has partied with game show host Chris Tarrant, made tea for Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, and enjoyed lunches personally prepared for her by TV cake queen Mary Berry.

Life for 45-year-old mum-of-two Catherine Woods has been as rich, and sometimes random, as the fiction she’s been inspired to write.

The author’s latest laugh-out-loud romcom, More Than A Feeling, follows her hotly received debut in the genre, Just Haven’t Met You Yet. But she confesses the new release was more of a challenge. Her mother died during its writing and she missed her deadlines.

“It was a very tough time,” she tells iN10. “It’s difficult to write humour when you’re in emotional turmoil. I missed several deadlines when I was trying to hand in the book but fortunately people were very understanding. You just have to get on with it.”

And she reveals that despite dreaming of being a writer as a kid, her path to authorship has been winding.

Catherine, who lives in London with her husband Oliver and her children aged 11 and four, graduated from University College London with a degree in Anglo Saxon literature but opted for a “fun” career in TV production.

It was some years before she trained as a journalist, eventually moving into celebrity reporting and working on autobiographies and novels for stars including Mary Berry, Katie Price, and Coleen Rooney. It was a springboard into fiction. She remembers: “When I was working for Channel 5 I had to go to the Edinburgh Festival every year scouting for comedians. I have many happy memories of Edinburgh.

“I was a production secretary for French & Saunders’ Star Wars Christmas Special. They were lovely. I was basically a runner and made their tea. It was a huge production and we underlings got roped in as extras. I was alien number three. It was brilliant.

“I also worked on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire with Chris Tarrant. He really liked to enjoy himself. I remember a lot of parties and Chris with his cigar!”

But it was a chance meeting with model and TV personality Katie Price’s literary editor that led her into authorship.

“I was pregnant with my first baby and they were looking for someone to write a style book with Katie. I said I would do it.

“Katie was with Peter Andre at the time and they had a stint in Los Angeles. Because of the time difference she would call me at two in the morning to work on the book. I was learning about pink leg warmers from Katie in between night-time feeds. It was bizarre.

“I spent quite a lot of time with Mary Berry while she was working on Bake Off. Every time I was there she cooked me lunch. She would often be trialling new recipes for a book and would send me home with a food parcel. She was wonderful.

“But one day I thought: ‘Why am writing things for someone else when I could do it for myself?’ I had an idea for the first novel and that led to this one.

“More Than A Feeling is about a woman in her 30s who on paper has what many would aspire to. She has a small baby and is in a relationship with a successful and handsome man. But he cheats on her and her world is turned upside down. She is left questioning who she is. It leads her on a journey of self-discovery.

“It’s sort of semi-based on personal experience. I split up with my daughter’s father when she was a year old. She’s 11 now. It was an amicable split and not in the same circumstances as in the book, but starting out on my own with a baby in my 30s was daunting. It made me look at identity and who I was.

“I remember feeling out of my comfort zone. I assumed that when you had a baby you would know what to do. I didn’t. And dating someone when you have just had a baby brings a whole new set of challenges. I didn’t manage it. I had too much on my plate with a new baby and work. It was a scary time but there was a lot of humour too, which I hope comes out in the book.”

Her little girl was a toddler when pals sent Catherine on a blind date with the man she was to eventually marry and with whom she now has a son.

Catherine plans to write another novel, but confesses that at the moment she is juggling caring for her pre-school age son and overseeing her mother’s business interests – which may turn out to be heaven sent.

She reveals with a smile: “She had shares in a couple of caravan parks and an old folks’ home. They could provide the inspiration for some good fiction.”

More Than A Feeling by Cate Woods, Quercus, £8.99