Elizabeth Gilbert likes to surprise.
One moment her fans have her pigeonholed as the author of soul-searching memoirs and the next she's propelling them headfirst into the world of 19th century botany.
Her sixth and most recent novel, The Signature of All Things, tells the story of an intensely driven woman: a botanist filled with energy, curiosity and possibly a large dose of Gilbert.
"I wanted to write about a woman who loves her work like other women in other books love their children and their lovers.
"Her passion for uncovering the natural world and her dedication to science is the great love story of her life," says the American author who will appear at Adelaide Writers' Week next month.
Her 2006 memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, an account of Gilbert's spiritual journey from depression to enlightenment via Italy, India and Indonesia, was a success that took even the author by surprise.
It sold ten million copies worldwide and in some ways became a distraction from the fact that Gilbert had written a handful of critically acclaimed fictions prior to penning her memoir that spawned a movie starring Julia Roberts.
In 2010, Gilbert published a follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love called Committed, a memoir that explored her ambivalent feelings about the institution of marriage.
"People had strong feelings about Eat, Pray, Love - one way or the other," says Gilbert, 44, over the phone from her New Jersey home, where she lives with her husband, more widely known as "that Brazilian guy from Eat, Pray, Love".
"Being somebody that stirred up those kinds of feelings, I wasn't sure if it would be given the courtesy of a fair and simple review.
"I'm most happy that across the world the critics decided to take this book on its own merits," she says, referring to the rave reviews that she's received for The Signature of All Things.
The Wall Street Journal called her historical novel "the most ambitious and purely-imagined work of (Gilbert's) 20-year career".
But despite Eat, Pray, Love almost devouring her literary reputation, Gilbert considers its success a blessing, one that has given her freedom to write as her heart desires.
"I've always tried to do what I want but there were times in my life when it was hard to afford to do what I wanted.
"This book is kind of a celebration of this great fortune that I have, that very few writers have, and glancingly few women writers ever had, which is to say I can finance my own projects.
"I can decide that I'm going to have four years thinking and writing about 19th century botany for no reason other than it's fascinating to me.
"I didn't know whether there was a market for this book, whether there was a publisher for this book, but I said I'm going to do it anyway."
The biggest challenge Gilbert faced in writing the novel was capturing the tone of the time. To do this she spent three years reading almost nothing written after 1890.
"I thought, I'm just going to get to the point where I'm breathing and dreaming this so when it comes time for me to open my mouth and speak I'll convincingly be speaking like that.
"I love the great 19th century novels so much because they wrote and spoke with such confidence.
"Dickens especially, who is my hero, he would take you by the hand on the very first page, with great self assurance.
"That's the tone I wanted to have because I love being led in that way as a reader."
But she thinks the English writer might have been shocked by her book if he'd come across it in his lifetime.
"He would be very shocked by the open sexuality because that's one liberty I took as a contemporary writer," says the author who after so many years of research, wrote the 500-page novel in four-months.
Like her previous hit, Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert would like to see her novel hit the screen, but in this case she imagines it would suit the small, rather than the big, screen.
"There's some discussion about having it as a mini series, a nice British production.
"It would make a great juicy role for an actress," she says.
*Elizabeth Gilbert will appear at Adelaide Writers' Week (March 1 to 6).
*The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert is published by Bloomsbury, $29.99.
