"Several reasons.
I was raised in a comfortable middle class family where nobody talked about money. I didn’t have pocket money because anything I wanted was bought for me."

"Then I married. We had two children but I was needed full time in his business. Every spare penny went on growing his business; I knew nothing about the money side of the business. I didn’t mind being short of cash - because I had never felt the lack of it."

"Then we split up! One day I told the accountant, “you’ve made a mistake, there’s two weeks’ pay here.” He said “I’m sorry. There’s no mistake. That’s one week’s pay in lieu of notice. I’m sorry to tell you that you’re fired.”

"At that moment I woke up to financial reality. Beyond my housekeeping budget, I had no idea what things cost. How much should a home cost? How much did running a home cost? Could I afford a car? (No.) Could we afford to go on holiday? (Yes. We stayed with my mother.)"

"I now realise that the time when a girl switches off maths is exactly the time when she should start to focus on it, which is why so many young women regret their lack of maths for their personal life and their work."

"Eventually, my first novel, Lace, sold – with the film rights – for a million dollars. This brought new problems that I don’t expect anyone to sympathise with me about: tax demands, accountants, lawyers, business consultants, pensions advisors, bankers… I was at their mercy. That million dollars was disappearing fast. And I couldn’t understand why. "

"Twelve other best sellers followed, and financial problems followed them. When I told people that I didn’t understand money, they told me to read the financial papers until I did understand. Twelve years later, I still didn’t get it, so I decided to teach myself."

"I decided to write a book about all the things I’d done wrong – so that other women could avoid doing them: I decided to write a book for women about maths and money."

I want women to have a little bit more money... and then a bit more… and then more.