Jeevani Charika

The novelist Jeevani Charika certainly isn’t the first author to have more than one writing identity. As well as writing under her own name, Jeevani is Rhoda Baxter. ‘I think the main difference between Rhoda and Jeevani is in the tone of what they write,’ she told me. ‘Rhoda writes lighter romances, whilst Jeevani writes slightly darker women’s fiction.’

How did Jeevani/Rhoda, who is a scientist by profession, become a novelist and an author of non-fiction, too?

‘I’ve been writing fiction ever since I realised a real person had written the Famous Five books,’ she replies. ‘At that moment, I knew I wanted to write books for other people to read. At first, however, I wrote just