Born in North London in 1956, my literary journey started out through reading the Janet and John books. I then went on to read just about every story written by Enid Blyton, with her wonderful assortment of imagination and humour. As a young teenager I found myself reading "The Diary of Anne Frank" which I found both touching and inspirational. Although her story was so much different to mine, her style of writing has had a great influence on my own. As I moved through secondary school carrying out a critical analysis on the works of Shakespeare ( "Macbeth") a huge challenge. Despite it being a macabre tale of ambition and greed, amidst all the suspense I found it most captivating. Whilst working towards my English O' Level exam, reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding was also on the curriculum. With it's fictitious story of human nature and survival I didn't find it particularly riveting, quite disturbing in fact, as the teenage characters stranded on a desert island had to deliberate whether or not to resort to cannibalism. A school trip to the seaside resort of Brighton around the same time was designed to help set the mood serving as a real life 'backdrop' to Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock", also considered standard reading back in the day. This particular 'read', evolved around the antics of a psychotic teenage gangster by the name of Pinkie and the spine chilling events that took place on Brighton beach, was a lot easier to digest having been there and helped enormously when it came to critiquing back at the classroom. I am of the belief that, no matter what the context, learning English literature at school helped define my personal as well as professional identity. As a registered nurse by day, writing care plans cannot possibly equate to the works of Shakespeare I know, yet it still requires a great amount of thought and discipline to be able to come up with something that paints a good picture of my patient's needs in a person-centred way; not a lot different to the theme of a memoir. In a Fairy tale, of all the elements that make it come to life, is it not the characters that are the most important? My memoirs have been crafted from the loss of my husband in hospital several years ago - the biggest tragedy in my life - and there was nothing enchanting about his admission or the way he died quite unexpectedly. Letting readers into my private space in relation to the incident itself and the journey I have traveled so far to find some sense of closure has been far from easy yet still my journey continues a decade on. Being able to turn my writing skills into something that comes from the heart as opposed to that based on the works of others has been a most pleasurable outlet to help me through the grieving process and in combining real life events with fiction I hope the story I have created will resonate with others and inspire them to do the same. I learned early on how competitive the book market is and knew that if I were to get noticed my story would need to stand out among the rest. It is not all doom and gloom, I promise you. I aspired to become an author when the time was right and that time is now. I am not after fame and fortune just a chance to prove that it is never too late to follow your dreams. My first book in the series, "Pathway to the Moon" is featured on the inside page of The Villager and Villager Express Vol.88 No. 14 April 5 2018 - New York state's best weekly newspaper serving Downtown Manhattan. The second 'episode', "When Angels Fall" presents itself on the inside cover of the Downtown Express Vol.88 No.15 April 12 2018 - a community newsgroup paper serving Brooklyn, New York. In the five years that have gone by, at the time of writing, it is with some pride that these two books have now been bought in by my local library with the promise of the next two to follow suit in the new year. Whilst ("Dinner in the Sky) as the third in the series ; the fourth ("Random Keys"), fifth ("A Pocketful of Rainbows"), sixth ("Pennies from Heaven"), seventh ("Heart in Lockdown"), eighth ("This Place Called Home"), ninth ("On a Wing and a Prayer") tenth (" The Reign on my Parade"), eleventh ("Ticket to Nowhere") and twelfth *( "In the Blink of an Eye") have yet to drawn similar media attention, any reviews on my Author Central Page can go a long way to helping raise my profile as a new writer as my story is set to continue. The first seven books are available to buy direct from the Publisher's - Mereo Books/Memoirs Publishing - but all are available to purchase on Amazon in paperback and e-book but also through well renown bookstores such as Waterstones and Barnes & Nobles but also across the global network. The option for leaving reviews can be found by clicking on the link next to the individual book as showing up on Amazon. In order to broaden my horizons and to show some diversity with my writing, I created a rather unique style Indian curry recipe book which has been published and is now held at a private bookstore in Atlanta, Georgia, USA as is a memoir-style cookbook which I took to writing during the time of the covid-19 pandemic to remind me of all the wonderful places I had eaten out at when I found myself left in a state of anosmia after the virus hit me in the worst possible way. I considered 'Tartan Gravy' to be a catchy title. Likewise, before that I created three other cookbooks with I named Vanity Fayre for reasons that will become obvious once the first page is turned.http://www.mereobooks.com/buy-our-books-selfpublishing?writer=352Read more about this authorRead less about this author