Deborah Challinor's new novel The Cloud Leopard's Daughter

With 15 novels to her name, Hamilton's Deborah Challinor is a prolific and successful historical fiction writer - here and overseas. Her popular series include The Convict Girls, Children of War and The Smuggler's Wife, set during the Gold Rush years of the 1860s. The latest of that series is called The Cloud Leopard's Daughter, in which her protagonist Kitty sails from Otago to China on a rescue mission. Lynn Freeman talks to Deborah about turning history into fiction.