Lisa Hilton: 'I Live In The Cleanest House In The World.'

Time is the only enemy of the innocent and the beautiful, says Lisa Hilton. The British author shares some beautiful memories and not-so-innocent confessions with Spice.

- Chumki Bharadwaj

The chiaroscuro contrast between sublime art and primal instinct; lavish locations and intimate detail, steely ambition and swarthy desires follow true in letter and spirit not just of 42-year-old British author Lisa Hilton’s fiction but also her life. And standing in a hotel bathrobe, wet hair, bare-faced, and smiling, it is never clearer. Unlike her books and characters that inhabit a world of the super rich, in an orgy of branded fashion, art and exotic locations, she claims none of it as her own. “A lot of it was observation; my daughter’s father is Italian and his family has a house near Portofino in Italy. So I spent a lot of time down there and it was really just watching people more than anything else. I live a very boring life.” Spouting sassy wit and saucy tales, this lover of mysteries and mistress of murder is anything but boring. Straddling genres, generations and vocations as effortlessly as she flits through continents, she has authored five historical biographies and three novels, and only recently ventured into erotic thrillers with Maestra—the first of the trilogy, which has already been optioned for motion picture rights—and Domina, that she is in the country to promote.