A VISION of coiffured elegance and perfect poise, on the outside author Joanna Trollope reflects none of the emotional turmoil for which her novels are famed.

For more than 30 years, the Oxford-educated bestselling writer, a distant niece of the novelist Anthony Trollope, has written about affairs, adoption and complicated friendships in bestselling novels such as The Rector's Wife, Marrying The Mistress and Other People's Children.

While there might seem no link between these emotionally-charged storylines populated by flawed characters, and the highly-disciplined Joanna who produces a book at least every two years, behind the gloss, she says she isn't immune to the complexities of life.

Twice married and divorced, Joanna has two daughters from her first marriage to banker David Potter, whom she married aged 22, and two stepsons from her second.

The author admits that when writing her latest novel The Other Family, she knew what it was like to have the jumbled emotions which pervade the minds of so many of her characters.

"I think one of the most desperate things in life, which I was trying to portray in this novel, was that however much you say you want a marriage to work, you cannot make the other person commit the way you do," she says.

While in her mid-30s, Joanna met TV playwright Ian Curteis. That relationship eventually spelled the end of her marriage and her subsequent divorce coincided with a spell in therapy.

"Of course [marriage] should be a partnership, but sometimes you simply cannot make the other person participate and understand," she says.

"I try and portray these disappointments because I think they happen everywhere and I think a lot of people are striving to do the right thing and it really isn't their fault when it doesn't work."

The Other Family, her 15th contemporary novel, tackles the subject of inheritance when musician Richie Rossiter, a crooner from the Eighties, dies, leaving his current family emotionally drained and his previous wife and son in a tangled mess over his legacy.

Matters are further complicated because Richie never married his current partner Chrissie, with whom he had three daughters.

"There's an enormous preoccupation with inheritance," says the 66-year-old.

"Inheritance laws are so inequitable between married people and those who are co-habiting.

"When I was thinking about this, everywhere I looked, every newspaper, every magazine, seemed to be thinking about it.

"It got me thinking that those who are left behind after somebody has died are rather inclined to measure how much they are loved by how much they are left."

She said she gained her ideas from reading the papers, talking to friends, riding on buses and trains where she can eavesdrop on conversations and simply sitting in cafes watching the world go by.

In her latest novel, Richie leaves his beloved Steinway piano to his first wife and son in the North East, which forces contact between them and the woman he left them for.

In her own life, Joanna and Curteis left their partners to be together, but eventually divorced. She admitted that when her first marriage collapsed, she wasn't equipped to deal with the emotional turmoil.

"There's no dress rehearsal for these things. I'm not the kind of person who would have done such a thing on a whim," she explained.

"I got to the point of feeling that I was going to be not just distorted but destroyed by the situation I was in. But, you know, my children came with me.

"It is difficult to get things right. You make choices that you hope will last. I think if you marry very young there's a 50:50 chance that you'll grow apart.

"One of the secrets of not going mad is realising that you can change yourself and you can change your situation, but you cannot change other people."

The book also serves as a warning to women who rely on men too much for their money and their future.

"My friend Susan Hill (the author) always says, sagely, women should never let go of their friends or their money because they never know when they'll need either. I think that's very sound advice," she said.

It's advice Joanna, who has lived alone for some years, has taken. She's made a terrific income out of her books and has a wide circle of friends, without relying on a man.

"We are terribly good at re-inventing ourselves, aren't we? Men tend to think if there's a failure, they're a disaster, women think, 'oh bother, another step on the learning curve'," she said.

"When you look at girls now who are looking for a man who will keep them, that's a very dangerous surrender. If you are going to be kept by somebody there's inevitably a price to pay for it."

Today, Trollope is still extremely close to both her daughters and her two stepsons, who are now in their 40s, while her first husband remains a friend. She also has nine grandchildren, on whom she dotes.

"In a way, you pick up some threads from the past but you weave some new ones. The only person you're stuck with in life is yourself," she said.

"You want to be reconciled with being that person so you want to behave as far as you can in a way you can bear to live with. You have to try and live with yourself before you embark on another relationship."

After her second divorce, it took Joanna a few years to feel happy in her own skin but she now loves living on her own in London having left her Cotswolds home a few years ago.

She won't be drawn on whether there's currently a man in her life but says she's 'singlish', which according to one online dictionary means almost single, but involved in some type of situation.

"I'm in a very nice, comfortable situation, but I'm not saying any more about it," she smiled.

And you sense that whether there's a man or not, she'll continue to live life to the full.

"The liberty of this sort of independence is beyond price – the freedom to choose and the freedom for generosity," she said.

"If you live on your own, you can have an enormously wide circle of friends, many of whom you couldn't introduce to each other. It's wonderfully enriching."

In the meantime, work is never far away. She's now reaching the end of the first draft of the next novel, which should be published next year, and knows the topic of the one after that.

"I always feel they're like planes waiting to land. There's always another topic coming up," she said.

■ The Other Family by Joanna Trollope is published by Doubleday, priced £18.99.

■ Joanna is at Kempsford Literary Festival on Friday at 5.30pm. Book on 01865 522580.