Novelist Lily King on Euphoria

The first time I meet Lily King, it's early February and snow is falling on the streets of Portland, Maine, in the United States. It's warm in the Speckled Axe café, where a few bearded hipsters are staring into their laptops.

Despite the four foot-high snow drifts outside, when King walks in she's a vision of tropical sunlight: dressed in a multicoloured jumper with an orange scarf around her neck. Her eyes are so blue they pull you in like the tide.

We're meeting to discuss Euphoria, King's fourth book, which was inspired by the life of infamous American anthropologist Margaret Mead. King wants to ask if I will be her assistant, helping to manage her online platforms when she embarks on a book tour in June. Since moving to the US from Hong Kong, where I worked as an arts writer, I've stumbled upon this role of helping illustrious authors manage their online lives.

Lying two hours north of Boston, Maine, with its endless silent forests, mystical inlets and rugged coastline, is a haven for reclusive artists and writers. New York is a 50-minute plane ride away and everyone from Stephen King and Richard Russo to poet Richard Blanco lives in these parts.

I've done my research and know that Lily King has literary clout. Her first novel, The Pleasing Hour (1999), about an American au pair in France, won the Whiting Writers' Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award. When Jacqueline Carey reviewed the book for The New York Times, there was a hint of what was to come with Euphoria: "Most writers are good at depicting either intricate social ambiguities or more primitive urges. King proves herself equally adept at both - even as she skilfully demonstrates that the two never exist comfortably side by side."

King's next two novels, The English Teacher and Father of the Rain, are both set in New England and earned her critical success, with the latter winning the New England Book Award.