Then

I went to Royal Holloway, University of London to study English and Creative Writing. At the time it was the UK’s top university for that course.

I became a teacher and recognised serious flaws in the system, so I started using Direct Instruction, the most effective method of teaching ever devised. I moved across the country more than once to pursue this, and achieved incredible success with all students. I was featured on several podcasts for our record-breaking results in several schools: https://tinyurl.com/bdevcba8. I also spoke several times at the UK’s premier education research conference, researchED National in London.

Now

To start planning my future, I moved back where I grew up, a place that had no Direct Instruction schools. In the relative ‘downtime’, I wrote a historical crime novel.

The Novel: Ash on the Breeze

It’s set in the 1910s, and it’s about Francesca, a girl in her late teens who has spent her whole life locked in one room in London with her mother. Her imprisoner is her father, the cold and cruel Giovanni, an aspiring mob boss. He never visits them.

One day, they are rescued by Alphonso, Giovanni’s rival, and taken to a village in Cornwall. But Giovanni soon arrives, kills Francesca’s mother, and burns their new house to the ground. Francesca is recaptured and faces death or servitude to her greatest enemy. She must extract revenge somehow.

Meanwhile, the loose cannon Backers Backhampton is tasked with taking over the running of his father’s ailing hotel in Scotland. His friend, the straight-laced Jehoshaphat Mountain, goes off to fight in the war.

All three characters will have to fight for their very survival, united by their common foe: Giovanni.