Welcome

I’m a writer.

I write about present-day people whose lives are shaped by the past. That could be an incident in a character’s own past, or perhaps a buried past such as an archaeological discovery that sends ancient ripples through a modern community.

I’m fascinated by the way history lies unseen around us. I live in a part of England where a village’s name can be traced to the Saxon warlord who chose the spot to ground his spear and plant his generations, one and a half millennia ago. The sunken, winding lanes may trace the easiest route for ox carts through primeval forest. If you pause within those ancient woods, away from the noise and frenetic pace of the twenty-first century, you can shut your eyes and inhale a mighty peace. There’s a sense that the past still echoes around us, in a rumbling, sleeping-giant kind of way.

So I also write about people within a landscape, where the land itself becomes part the story, and where characters’ experiences cannot always be explained by science.

I try to avoid genre labels. My first novel, Saxon’s Bane, was variously described as ‘fantasy’ or ‘horror’, because it includes the possibility of a ghost, a ‘mystery’, and a ‘thriller’, because the plot has a strong pace. I was particularly proud of the review that described Saxon’s Bane as ‘A supremely well-written novel… the book to thrust into the hands of any know-it-all who claims that genre fiction cannot be literary.’ Despite the marketing convenience of genre tags, I’d rather describe myself as weaving worlds that blend people and place, place and history, past and present.

….and that leave the reader with the scent of an otherness.

Representation:

I am represented by Ian Drury at Sheil Land Associates, Literary Agents, 52 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LS

Telephone 020 7405 9351