Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your writing journey started?
I’ve always enjoyed writing, but as someone who has had plenty of life experience (OK, I’m old!) I came relatively late to novel writing. My wife and I retired to France and had barely settled when I was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. Whilst recovering from an operation, surrounded by lovely people with whom I was unable to communicate effectively (my French language skills being nil at the time), I took up a pen and drafted the bones of what was to become Payback, my first complete novel. Four more have followed since and fortunately, the cancer is now history.If you had to give an elevator pitch for your latest book My Brother's Keeper, what would it be?
To a Catholic priest, the vows he has made are sacrosanct. But priests are human and therefore vulnerable, morally and spiritually.
Dominic Barratt is a priest who has a degree in Psychology. He is charged by his bishop to use his talents to help, in secret, other priests with problems. But he has his own demons to confront. Once engaged to be married, Dominic split up with his fiancée Hazel to join the priesthood. Now she comes back into his life, hoping to convince him that he has made a mistake. She wants him to resign and marry her.
Already unsettled by events that challenge his faith, Dominic is tormented by his reawakened feelings for Hazel. Bound in conscience by his vows of Chastity and Obedience, he now faces a seemingly insoluble dilemma.
What inspired you to write a story featuring a catholic priest who is conflicted between his emotional feelings and his vows?
The idea was conceived initially as a vehicle for a possible television series. As such it needed to be episodic, dealing with one problematic situation after another, with a linking theme throughout. As a lifelong Catholic, I am fortunate to have been gifted the upbringing to help make the background credible. The linking theme is provided when protagonist Dominic’s former fiancée Hazel comes into his life again years later, determined to persuade him to leave the Ministry and marry her.
