Milne has written 'not very good' self-help and other non-fiction books in the past, but this is her first novel. She and her husband, who works in the financial sector, moved to Hong Kong in August 2000 following four years in New York City, where Milne worked as a freelance editor and writer, and wrote the first draft of How To Change Your Life.

Unlike dumpy, frumpy, mousy-haired Seraph (short for Seraphina), whose search for self-fulfilment is the subject of the novel, Milne is elegantly dressed, tall, slim and attractive, with long hair. While the 30-something author is happy to describe herself as a corporate wife, she is anything but a lady who lunches. She has locked herself away for much of the past two years, using whatever time she can lay her hands on, between looking after her children and fulfilling corporate commitments, to write.

She had always written fiction, but had not had any of it published until now. In fact, her agent, London-based Theresa Chris, rejected her first novel outright, and in the end Milne did what so many aspiring novelists fail to do: put away the first effort and started afresh. 'She said it was rubbish,' Milne says. 'And then I wrote this one, which she liked.'

Seeing the final product in shops has made it all worthwhile, of course, as did receiving copies of Dutch and German editions.

Milne's first career provided her with the contacts and know-how to get herself published, and numerous ideas and colourful characters to draw upon in her fictional endeavours. She worked in-house variously at Routledge, Hodder & Stoughton and Bloomsbury in London, editing everything from illustrated cookbooks to New Age titles, though she is the first to admit self-help books are not everyone's cup of tea. 'I could say seven or eight years on from working on them, it's quite a sad genre, but I don't think I was ever completely cynical about what I was doing,' Milne says.

Her novel is based around the sort of book she used to edit and set in the kind of office she used to work in, though Seraph is a little more cynical than Milne. 'I thought it would be a very funny idea to write about a self-help editor,' she says.

Her fictional editor is a slightly plump, messy haired 38-year-old who spends her days fending off ridiculous proposals for books on the best methods for body hair removal, ignoring requests for promotional copy from the marketing department, and drooling over the tall, dark and handsome literary fiction editor, Jude.

Jude is too busy obsessing over his star author and former lover to notice. His petite and luscious Shee-chee Chen's first book, China Fun, was 'set in Hong Kong, London and Beijing, and followed three women, mother, daughter and grandmother, on July 1, 1997. It had been published to rapturous reviews and disappointing sales', but since when did literary fiction editors care about sales figures?

Meanwhile, Seraph's good-looking but disappointed-with-his-lot husband Nick is having an affair with Ginny, who has no intention of stealing Nick from Seraph, but she does want a baby, and Nick's genes fit the bill. Seraph deals with the resulting traumas by following the advice of one of her own authors, the gigantic, purple-robed Cassie Jones, whose latest book is called, what else, How To Change Your Life.

The bright pink cover and agony auntish plot lines place the novel firmly in the chick-lit genre, but Milne says the phrase didn't even exist when she started writing. And she is furiously opposed to its classification as mum-lit, a term she'd never heard until our interview. The phrase has arisen in recent months to categorise the next generation of women's fiction - Bridget Jones has finally tied the knot and had the kids, so it's time to divorce and start dating all over again.

'It sounds mumsy and homespun and steeped in baby milk,' Milne says. However, the mothers who career through the pages of recent mum-lit titles such as Jane Moore's Fourplay, India Knight's Don't You Want Me and Jane Green's Babyville are a good deal more glamorous than Seraph, though nowhere near as together as Milne herself.

Milne's face takes on a panicked expression when I ask her which of the chick-lit authors she admires, or has been influenced by in recent years. Green or Knight perhaps? Lisa Jewell, Marian Keyes, Jenny Colgan or Cathy Kelly? She sheepishly owns up to having read none of the work of these contemporaries, though she did read the original and the best, Helen Fielding's first Bridget Jones book.

'I loved it, but I wouldn't say it influenced me,' she says. 'I'm lucky if it [How To Change Your Life] has hit this wave of chick-lit. I didn't think about that at all.'

The one author she is prepared to own up to admiring is lad-lit supremo Nick Hornby, whose High Fidelity is one of her favourites.

How To Change Your Life has a number of similarities to Hornby's latest, How To Be Good. Both are tales of mid-life crises and marriage breakdowns, and kooky New Age characters wander into the lives of each of the troubled couples. Hornby's faith healer, Dr Goodnews, moves in with Katie Carr and her family, while when Milne's Seraph leaves Nick, she stays in the colourful but infuriatingly alcohol-free home of author and personal coach Cassie Jones, who's also a neo-pagan cult member.

Milne noticed the similar title as soon as Hornby's Booker long-listed novel appeared in bookshops, but after her own manuscript and suggested title had been submitted to Pan. 'It was a coincidence. I wasn't horrified, but I did think 'Oh my god',' she says.

The author's eyes brighten when we move on to discuss her next book, the sequel to How To Change Your Life. In it the 'hugely fat belly-dancing' Cassie and her lover Natasha, pagans who worship 'the Great Mother' in the first book, have become devout believers in reincarnation, and discover that they were Chinese in a previous life. Milne says the book has been influenced by her experiences in Hong Kong, and she hopes the title and cover will reflect the Chinese theme. The Cassie and Natasha storyline will continue in a third book, after which Milne plans to move on to an entirely new trilogy.

Perhaps this one will even be set in Hong Kong, because the author and her family expect to be here for a number of years yet.