New book Autumn: The Story of a Season

Bestselling Chichester novelist Kate Mosse celebrates the season in which she was born, the season she loves best, with the publication of Autumn: The Story of a Season.

In Autumn, Kate celebrates a time of shifting light, sharpening pencils and crisp mornings. Promising a magical adventure through the season, she describes the ever-changing colours of the autumn landscape, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the drift of migrating birds and the last of the sun's warmth for the year.

But it also a book about Sussex – and a book very much about home.

It comes as part of the bestselling Hodder Press Seasons Series: Spring by Michael Morpurgo

Winter by Val McDermid and Summer to be written by Bernadine Evaristo.

And the great thing, as Kate says, is that each of the four of them thought that they had first choice when it came to the season: “Michael was saying to me ‘I am so sorry that you didn't get spring.’ But it was actually autumn that I wanted! It was actually a brilliant piece of commissioning. Maybe they had read things that we had already written or maybe it was instinct but we really all did think that we had first choice!

“Autumn really is my favourite season, and we were all given completely free rein. My book is based on the three months of autumn last year in Sussex. I have always loved autumn and I've lived in Sussex for 50 of my nearly 65 years.”

A big part of the attraction of the season is that Kate associates it with the thrill and excitement of going back to school, the excitement of the new school uniform, the excitement of the new pencil case: “That's part of what makes it so special. I have never had that same spark of excitement from the other seasons. For me autumn is the season of new beginnings. It's not the dying of the year but it's about something exciting beginning and I've never lost that sense at this time of year.

“It's also a book about storytelling. At the beginning of September, you can be really hot but at the end of November you really feel that the earth is tilting away from the sun and that winter is coming. But it's also a book about place and about a sense of belonging somewhere. It's a book about my gratitude for belonging to Sussex. Some people just don't have that sense of home. It might be because they moved around so much or because they've had trauma in their lives and moved away.”

But for Kate, the pull of Sussex is huge: “I went to university and I went to London but when I started having my own children I came home. And the moment I see signs saying ‘Welcome to Sussex’ I feel at home.

“So it is a book about memories and nature and the way the natural world changes around us. It's also about folklore and about the writers and the composers that have been inspired by our patch of land. I loved writing it. It made me very reflective. It made me think about what it is about home that matters to me so much, and it made me think about the way that we tell our own stories. It was great fun to put on the page all about my favourite places, places I've known for many years, places like Kingley Vale and Devil's Dyke and Chanctonbury Ring. It was great fun to revisit these places again on walks.

“I started writing it on September 1 last year and finished on November 30. It's about autumn and it's about Sussex and about some of the autumns that I have spent in Sussex. I deliberately started writing then but it's not a diary – though I was writing down what I was seeing.

“September last year was a great month, very, very sunny and bright and then October was a mixture and then November had some moments when it was very wet and some moments when it was very cold and then on the last day of November I spent it in the Bishop's Palace Garden in Chichester and it was just the most beautiful bright day.”

Kate is launching the book with An Evening with Kate Mosse in conversation with Katie Derham on Thursday, September 10 at 19:00 in The Assembly Room, The Council House, North Street, Chichester, PO19 1LQ. Tickets on

https://www.waterstones.com/events/an-evening-with-kate-mosse-in-conversation-with-katie-derham/chichester