First novel published in 2020 – called Fate by Design. It starts with the disappearance of Cassie’s husband from a mining community shortly after the war and follows her personal development and social progress in the 1950s and early 1960s. It ends with the shocking revelation of the reason for her husband’s disappearance.

Second novel called Living in the Subjunctive is due to be published in late January 2025. It is a story of young people fleeing for their lives from Chile after the military coup. Through the kindness and generosity of local people, most, but not all of them, survive the trauma and uncertainties to successfully build new lives in Bristol. As the years pass they become part of the local community though never resolving elements of their past. After seventeen years the military dictatorship falls and they are faced with the unsettling opportunity of returning to the land of their youth. They make their first return visit with trepidation and excitement. However the changes they discover in both the country and in themselves cause revelations to unfold that are intriguing and then disturbing. How they are to reconcile who they were back then with who they are now, becomes a challenge for each one of them. The search for a key player in events leading up to the military coup generates fear and disagreement among them, reaching a dramatic climax.

Review

“I read it with great interest. It’s clearly informed by a deep knowledge of the subject and a real empathy with those who suffered. I liked the fact that there’s no predictable way out of the damage done — some find ways to overcome what’s happened to them, others never can. Some can move on, some can’t do without some form of concrete justice.  A very timely book too… at a moment when something like a nostalgia for authoritarian governments is on the rise and sympathy for those forced to flee them is in very short supply.”
Tom Sutcliffe – Journalist and Arts Broadcaster