Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your writing journey started?Ever since I was a child the only thing I ever wanted to do career-wise was become a novelist. I’m not sure where the desire came from, but it burned fiercely in me, perhaps because my father cultivated my love of reading from a young age. I never doubted that I’d achieve my desire, because I yearned so strongly for it – ah, the hubris of youth! Things didn’t turn out that way - at least not at first.
As a young adult I lacked confidence, and although I still wanted to be an author, I had no idea how to start. Instead, I ended up an accountant, a profession I stayed in for nearly thirty years. The urge to write never went away, however. In my forties I wrote several short fanfiction pieces and published them online, to some very positive feedback.
Around this time I fell out with my employers, and at first went into full-on victim mode – ‘how dare they? I’ve been wronged!’ until one day I had something of an epiphany. Maybe, I reasoned, this could be a blessing in disguise. Hadn’t I always wanted to write? Why not leave my job, go travelling for a year (I’d long suffered from advanced wanderlust) and write a novel while away? It seemed a good plan, especially as a milestone birthday was looming. Unable to bear the thought of turning fifty without having written my longed-for novel, I decided to save as much money as possible and to quit my job the following year.
That’s exactly what happened, and in October 2010 I flew to Thailand on the first leg of my trip, having told no one of my intention to write a novel while travelling. Procrastination still dogged me, however. It wasn't until months later, in a town called Arica in northern Chile, that I had a second epiphany, and determined to buckle down to writing at long last. With that in mind, I resolved to travel to Bolivia and not leave until I had completed the first draft of my book. I already had an idea for the plot, following a conversation with fellow travellers in Vietnam – what would it feel like to discover, as an adult, that you had been kidnapped as a child? After I arrived in Sucre I found a cheap hotel and knuckled down to write. Just under two months later, I completed the first draft of ‘His Kidnappers Shoes’, and promptly burst into tears. It was a very emotional moment for me, the memory of which I’ll always treasure.
If you had to give an elevator pitch for your latest book Silent Winter, what would it be?
Meanwhile Drew's wife, Holly, despairing of ever seeing him again, turns to his brother for comfort. As the worst winter in decades sweeps the UK, she learns of Drew's tragic past. Could his disappearance be connected with that of a prostitute years before?
A story of how the mind responds to solitary confinement, ‘Silent Winter’ examines one man's desperate attempt to survive the unthinkable.
