My Backlist

A long long time ago, in another age, I published my first sagas. Now, many years later, my current publisher, Quercus, are publishing my back list, the books I first wrote for the hardback publisher, Severn House, on kindle. They can be pre ordered now.

The first one is about men returning from the first world war, trying to pick up the lives they had left behind them, probably not knowing at that point that you can only live your life forwards. It's also about the families they left and how people managed and didn't manage. I tend to write more about the beginning of wars and the result of wars rather than the war itself. The main male character - I don't call them heroes, they are just people - Allan Jamieson, a barrister, comes home to find that his wife no longer seems to want him. He ends up defending the woman he is having an affair with. She is accused of killing her husband. In those days the chances of her getting off would be less than slight.

One of my few shots at a fairly modern novel. This is set in 1970 when footballing turned into glamour and money. The lad, Ruari Gallagher wants to be a top footballer, the girl, Jemma Duncan, wants to get married and have a child and live in a little terraced house across town from her parents. Her dream is so small. His dream is so big. When Ruari lets her down everything begins to go wrong and when he asks her to go with him when he leaves for stardom, it's too late. So, what have you left when you sacrifice a person you say you love for your dream?

This is my aunt's story to begin with. She was a nurse in the second world war and came back to her hometown and tried to pull her life together. This is also one of three, the Black Family trilogy. Very close to home this book is because my father had the foundry and I've put a lot of him in the books. My mother had her own story, Swan Island and his secretary had her story, Sweet Wells and this is the story of what might have happened to his sister. They are all fiction of course but underneath them lie the facts of what war costs and how people try to get beyond it.

Another one of a trilogy. This is the first of three books set in Durham and is the tale of an upper middle class London girl who comes north to find out about her mother. She meets with a young man who owns a newspaper and together they go on this quest to find out where Annabelle's mother is, if she is still alive.

So these are my first four books which come out in March. There are another four in April and then another four in May. I love the covers. I hope those who haven't read them will like the stories.