I have always loved reading and writing but I didn’t become a published writer until I was 49, and before that I did a wide variety of full and part-time jobs, from washing up in a restaurant, being a bookseller, to teaching English abroad, being a full time mum at home, running Art and Music activities in a care home, lecturing at university, and then caring for my elderly parents. My first book for children, the novel ‘Girl with a White Dog’ was published by Catnip in 2014 and shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize, the Little Rebels Award, and nominated for the Carnegie. Since then I have gone on to have 12 books published with OUP, 2 more novels with Catnip, 3 picture books with Nosy Crow, two with Lion, two with Tiny Owl, one with Puffin, one with Egmont/Farshore, and one with Templar, so twenty five children’s books to date.

I was born in 1965, and am married with four children, all in their twenties. I live with my husband and our dog in a village in Kent. I have an Honours degree in English Literature from the University of York, a postgraduate diploma in Pastoral Theology and two MAs, one in Children’s Literature and one in Creative Writing, and have always loved reading widely. I enjoy Poetry, literary fiction and commercial fiction, books on Spirituality and History and Natural History and Psychology. When I was caring for my elderly parents at the same time as bringing up teenage children, I particularly appreciated being able to escape from rather stressful times into warm, relationship based feel-good novels like those written by Maeve Binchy and Katie Fforde, Jo Thomas, and AJ Pearce, and so am proud that my two novels for adults, ‘Small Miracles’ and ‘Sweet Mercies’ have been described as ‘uplift.’

I have always loved and admired illustration in books, and I am so proud that my picture books so far have been illustrated by amazing artists: David Litchfield, Rosalind Beardshaw, Robyn Wilson-Owen, Åsa Gilland, Ruth Hearson, Amy Proud and Maria Christania. My series of Lucy books for younger children were illustrated by the wonderful Sophy Williams, and ‘The Magical Kingdom of Birds’ was beautifully illustrated by Rosie Butcher. The covers of my three novels for children were by Serena Rocca and Pip Johnson. I am at the very beginning of an exciting new adventure in that I have just started a part-time MA in Children’s Book Illustration at Cambridge College of Art, Anglia Ruskin University, and whilst I am still writing for children and adults, I hope by the time I have graduated in 2026, to be an illustrator too!