My first published crime novel, All in the Mind won the NAWG Award for best novel, and a year later I won the same award for Watcher in the Shadows. Although both these psychological suspense novels were set in Swindon where I now live, I wrote my third stand-alone novel, A Death too Far, after a memorable holiday to the Galapagos Islands and the Amazon.

Two of my great passions are writing and travel so it’s no surprise that all my later novels were inspired by the places I have been lucky enough to visit.

The Fiona Mason Mysteries are cozy whodunits with plenty of edge. They have been described as Agatha Christie brought up to date! Recently- widowed Fiona decided to take up a new role as a tour manager for a coach company and each mystery is set in a different European country. Her investigations frequently bring her into conflict with the enigmatic man from MI6, Peter Montgomery-Jones, but she can always rely on her West Indian driver, Winston for support.

Our holiday to Morocco was never intended as a research trip. It was a fantastic holiday enhanced by an Islamic historian who came with us. Not only was she able to point out interesting architectural details and give us snippets of history as we toured the sites with our local guide, she gave us fascinating lectures in our hotel in the evenings. After the publication of my fifth Fiona Mason Mystery a few weeks after our return, I found myself unable to begin research on the setting for the next in the series. Our trip to the Rhone Valley was still four months away.  Unable to sit twiddling my thumbs for so long, I began planning the first of a new series – The Aunt Jessica Mysteries. Jessica is a history lecture who accompanies tours to exotic places much further afield than Fiona’s European coach tours.