She’s had more drama in her life than most of the heroines in her books – early years in an orphanage, life as a bunny girl, three marriages, a close shave in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami to name but a few.

It’s safe to say that best-selling author Lesley Pearse, whose romantic ‘triumph over adversity’ sagas have earned her a place in the top 100 best-selling authors of the decade, doesn’t do dull.

Today, she is single and lives in a cottage in a village between Bristol and Bath where she pens her novels, including Trust Me, Remember Me, Till We Meet Again and her latest, Stolen.

Over the years she’s covered topics as diverse as the pain of first love, child abuse, fear, poverty and revenge – and readily admits her own life has been a rich source of material for her books.

Stolen begins with the discovery of a young woman washed up on the beach at Brighton with amnesia who is recognised in the papers by an old friend. Ultimately it’s a tale about friendship as the two, who met on a cruise ship, resolve past differences.

Pearse, 64, says the idea was spawned during a very boring cruise around South America several years ago.

“It was the most boring thing I’ve ever done in my life – it was very posh and the towns we stopped at were very boring. I started thinking about what could happen to people who worked on a ship.”

So she gatecrashed some of the staff parties, which was far more fun, she enthuses. The people she met and the towns she visited sparked the idea for something more dramatic.

The most idyllic settings have been the backdrop for some horrendous experiences in her own life, including being caught up in the 2004 Asian tsunami while in Thailand with two of her daughters and her grandson, Brandon.

“On Christmas Day the girls were desperate to go on a coach to this party near Phuket so I agreed to look after Brandon, who was then six. In the afternoon someone came up and told us there had been an earthquake in Phuket. I knew the girls were going to Phuket but didn’t know where they were staying and they weren’t responding to my phone calls or text messages.”

Two days later the girls made contact. “It was the longest two days of my life,” Lesley recalls.

Pearse, whose mother died when she was three, spent her early years in an orphanage until her father remarried and she was brought home.

At 16, she headed for the bright lights and spent the Swinging Sixties in London doing jobs including time as a bunny girl.

Her first marriage lasted 18 months. “I don’t talk about that much because it’s so boring,” she laughs. But her next marriage to John Pritchard, a trumpet player in a rock band, was much more colourful and they had a daughter, Lucy.

Her first novel, Georgia, was inspired by their life together, the London clubs and musicians she met including David Bowie and Steve Marriott of The Small Faces.

“The marriage fizzled out when Lucy was 18 months.”

After their divorce, she met her third husband, Nigel Pearse, a lorry driver with a body to die for, she laughs.

They married three years later and had two more daughters, Sammy and Jo.

During this time, Lesley started writing short stories at night.

When she turned 40, she opened a gift shop in Bristol and wrote her debut novel, Georgia. But it took six years and endless rejections before Georgia was published. By then, her business was heading towards bankruptcy and when the shop failed, her 18-year marriage broke up when she was 50 and she had a breakdown.

Ironically, at that point her books really started to take off. “By the time I was 60 I was here in this idyllic cottage and everything had calmed down.”

She now has one grandchild and another expected in February and life is sweet – although a little drama adds to it.

“I’m writing a book about a Victorian brothel at the moment,” she reveals.

“It’s all terribly exciting.”