But you see, you do already know me...

Think you've never really read anything I've written? I'm willing to bet that you're wrong... because I'm the hidden face behind lots of articles and advertising copy in a variety of places, many of which would surprise you.

So if you haven't done so already, now that you've discovered you know me so well, it's time to pick up one of my books.

Happy Reading!

A dog called Shadow

Here's an excerpt from the chapter I'm currently writing. The dog has been named Shadow in memory of a real dog I once had and in respect to all the dogs I have loved over the years.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EXCERPT MAY BE UPSETTING

There’s only silence from behind the door and I wonder if she’s gone.

“They said at the hospital we could go for family counselling. Do you think that might help, Scarlett?” she asks quietly from the other side of the door.

“Yes, why not?” Even though she can’t see me, I shrug. “Why don’t we all go and sit in some psychiatrist’s office and tell him about how we heard our dog howling in agony as his fur was scorched from his skin. Why don’t we tell the nice doctors how Shadow howled until his throat was burned, how we could hear him, but we couldn’t get to him, couldn’t save him…  about how loyal he was. He wouldn’t have left us to burn like we left him.”

I can hear my mother openly crying now but still I lash at her with my words. Because just like the wounds I made last night, these cuts help my pain too.

A little bit more of the newest book

Well the new book is well underway, and set to be one of the darkest I have written. This story has been waiting a few years inside of me until it was it's time to come out. I hope you like how it's unfolding:-

I’ve been gone only days from my family, cooped up in the hospital whilst they were all moved into this temporary accommodation and yet it’s like we are strangers, actors put together by a director to portray a normal family. Not that there’s anything remotely normal about this.

“I want to go back to school tomorrow.” The words which leave my mouth surprise me as much as they do her. Somehow the thought bypassed my conscious mind, going straight from my subconscious to my lips.

“But you’ve only just come out of hospital.” That hand reaches for the glass once more, finds it already drained and hovers mid-air, like a little lost bird. I want to catch it, hold it, dip it in the pot of bubbling bolognaise – anything to get a reaction from her that feels just the tiniest bit real.

Happy Reading!