Once upon a time novels used to be illustrated. My copy of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, which belonged to my late mother-in-law, is a dull little book at a glance – until you open it and find the illustrations. Your feeling for the story – your curiosity – is awakened immediately. Who are these people, and what is their tragic entanglement? It’s an inducement to read on.

I remembered this recently when someone asked me where I saw the future for my writing. I thought long and hard about this. Would I like to sell lots of books? Of course. Win critical praise? Who wouldn’t? But what I’d really like to do is write beautiful stories and have them enhanced by beautiful illustrations.

I’m not talking about graphic novels here – I’m talking about a book containing occasional illustrations to surprise and delight the reader as they turn the…