Let's start at the beginning. My Dad is English, a Yorkshire man, and my Mum is Irish. When they met they'd both lived overseas and their nomad qualities only increased with time and each other. As a result I grew up all over the world. I've lived in Cyprus, South Africa (north and south,) Australia (north, south, east and west,) Jersey in the Channel Islands, Malta, Ireland (north and republic) all over England and in the United Arab Emirates. I've also visited France, Holland, Italy, Spain, Madeira, The Balearics, Switzerland, Portugal, Israel, The Canaries, Scotland, Wales, Canada, many parts of America - including long visits as a teenager to my Mum's Irish family on the East coast, and visits and travels on East and West with my Californian Critique Partner as an adult.

Before I was a toddler I'd visited Bethlehem and had my baby botty rested where the baby Jesus had his baby botty rested ~ allegedly ~ so with that kind of beginning things were always going to be interesting, right?

By the age of 20 I had pulled on my own brakes, but before then I'd crossed the equator so many times I was getting dizzy. I'd flown over the pyramids, travelled across the Nullabor Plain by train, travelled across South Africa by train and car, travelled by ship to Africa and Australia. I had swum in the North and South Atlantic Ocean, The Indian Ocean, The Pacific Ocean, The Persian Gulf, The Adriatic and The Mediterranean and I've even dared to paddle in the English Channel, The North Sea and the Irish Sea. I floated in the hot, bubbling spring waters of Warmbads in Africa and dived under a waterfall in the northern territory of Australia, watched the Darwin Beer Can Regatta and developed a life long fear of large crawling insects.

I had also stood on the cliffs of Moher, in the spray that had lashed over 200 meters from the sea below, and ridden on the steepest incline railway in the world. I've shopped in souks and watched the wooden dhows sailing past the skyscrapers on Dubai Creek.

There's more! I'd seen the Giant's Causeway, hand fed a baby lion in South Africa and stood in the Sydney Opera House. I fell in love with Achill Island and shopped in street markets in Brittany. I visited The White House, ate an astronaut lunch at The Smithsonian, and stood amongst the vines of the Barossa Valley while tasting their wine. I also got to meet the amazing fantasy artist Vali Myers,a friend of my mother's, and she had a profound influence on my young imagination, embedding in me a fascination with art, fantasy and - ultimately - the erotic.

Those are just a few of the amazing high points, but life isn’t just made of high points, is it..? Of all the places I visited, our visits to Yorkshire, where my Dad's side of the family is from, were amongst my happiest. I love Yorkshire and always felt a deep sense of connection with the place; it's bracing east coast, friendly folk and wild moors. Eventually I made it my home.

As you might imagine, schooling was stinted and difficult with all this world travel, and I've always been the new girl, but I read voraciously and that was a key factor in what I became. I was an only child too, and often a sick one, so books gave me access to a world of friendships, adventures and romances that I wouldn't have otherwise had. Eventually I found my own path for education, but I'm skipping ahead now.

Between the age of 9 and 12 we almost set down roots and lived at home in England for a while. It was then that my first writing trigger happened. I read everything and anything, but one day picked up a book by Barbara Cartland in my Catholic girl's school library at the age of eleven. And no I'm not calling the Dame a guilty secret, like some romance writers tend to! I owe a lot to Barbara Cartland and I'm not afraid to admit it, because she introduced romance in to my life in the most spectacular way. The book was called Stars in my Heart. I can still see and feel it in my hands.

I was reading a book a day and when my Great Aunt Dorothy asked me what sort of books I liked, I mentioned the Barbara Cartland novel I'd read and she introduced me to further delights of romance by shoving handfuls of Barbara Cartland and Mills and Boons in my hand each time we visited. This was an important foundation, despite the fact I would be sucked away into the classics as a young woman, these books were a key part of my bourgeoning dreams of becoming an author, and part of that was that romance is so life affirming. I soon found I liked the adventurous plots best and it was then that I started my own tentative efforts at writing. I still have some of these stories and when time permits might give you all a laugh by exhibiting my early leanings toward romance, fantasy and suspense.

By the age of 20 I was a well-travelled young woman with a serious book habit, but a sense of longing, a need to learn more had got hold of me. I wanted to go back to Further Education College and get the necessary qualifications to get into University; I was prepared to work myself silly to do it, too. I jumped ship from my parents and their wanderlust and this is when the nature of my tale changes. Less travel, more learning of a different kind. Academic and life experience. Oh, I still travel, but from the place where I planted my roots.

The same hunger with which I'd consumed books as a young person found itself repeating in academic terms. During my college studies I was lucky enough to be taught English Literature at A level by teenage fiction author Pete Johnson. Pete read my essays on D H Lawrence and asked me to crit his novels in progress. I was amazed! I remembered my own dreams of becoming an author, but it seemed far away from where I was headed right then. Reading for Pete gave me more confidence, which was just as well because up to this point I was a very shy young lady. That changed at Uni, where I grew into myself, somewhat. Ahem.

At the University of Sussex I gained a Bachelors degree with honours in British and American art history with minors in British feminism, British cultural history and Women in American Society. Part of my studies were in the beautiful city of Florence, but this time I was looking at sights with a different eye. I went on to get a MA in Literature and the Visual arts in Britain 1840-1940, at the University of Reading. I got inspired by and involved in the UK Goth scene, another hugely significant aspect of my life. I fell in love with the dramatic side of art and romance encompassed in the scene – and then there's the dressing up, oh yes!

I started PhD research on British art and primitivism between the wars. I also started writing fiction… I love art and literature and especially finding out how creative people sought to express themselves. (This is why you'll find lots of artists amongst my characters.) Yet something about doing pure academic research ultimately stifled me and I decided it wasn’t right for me to press ahead with it. On a personal level it was the right decision and I've never regretted it. I didn't have the right focus – just when I'd find out something interesting, my darn imagination wanted to fly away from the facts and invent a much more interesting scenario! I had started writing fiction seriously because I knew it was something I'd always wanted to do and then it dawned on me, what I loved about learning I could find in research for writing fiction. I never wanted to stop learning, but writing gives that gift to you anyway. I felt that I'd finally started to find my way to where I am meant to be in life.

I was penning tales for myself, experimentally, when I saw an advert in a writer's magazine by someone I admired immensely, leading British fantasy writer Storm Constantine. She was looking for "gothic writers" for a small press project for new writers called Visionary Tongue. I wrote a short story and stood in front of the post box, sweating, almost too afraid to let someone see my humble efforts. I forced myself to send it. When Storm wrote back, I could hardly believe that she thought my story was good, that she thought I had a strong voice and wanted to help me develop it.

Storm set me on the road to publishing and made me believe in myself and we're still friends today. At that time, I was writing fantasy shorts and toying with ideas about a historical romance. The second significant person to enter my writing life shortly afterwards was a chance virtual "meet" through my involvement in the UK Goth scene. Barbara Sabin and I met on an internet fan list in late 1996 and we rather naturally fell into the role of Critique Partners as well as friends. Barbara is a Californian with a very different background and lifestyle to me, but from the very first we hit it off and then we discovered we were both aspiring fiction writers (although Barbara was a technical writer for her day job, so she had a heap of experience compared to me.) What emerged was a vital, productive friendship that still thrives today. We started exchanging bits of writing. Barbara told me I was a good sounding board for her ideas and helped me with my technical skills (Barbara is a professionally trained editor who has worked as a ghost writer and a book doctor, so I was the luckier one!) Without Barbara I never would have had the nerve to build on the opportunity Storm had given me. Barbara introduced me to the romance markets and more. I began to write with momentum.

I also started writing rock music reviews, several of which got published in the Penguin Rough Guide to Rock. Then I saw Kerri Sharp, the editor for Virgin's Black Lace erotica imprint, on TV and she hit a note with me resonates even today. I loved her sassy approach, her rock chick style and her call for unsolicited submissions. Heh. I wrote her an erotic short, it was my first foray into erotica, and she bought it! She went on to buy three more. I was lucky enough to meet Kerri on a couple of occasions and we appeared on the James Whale TV show together to discuss erotica - that was a lot of fun! Above all she took time with my submissions, giving me a chance to learn a lot from her along the way.

I was working long hours in a high-stress job and trying to build a secure home life at this time, and any little bit of writing time I had went on shorts and drafting out ideas for longer projects, dreaming of the day I'd spend more of my time writing. I was getting my short fiction published, and that gave me great hope. I worked hard and achieved what I wanted in my personal life; set down roots and bought my own home in the place I loved most, Yorkshire. I'd had several rough years in my personal life and had come to the conclusion that I would never find love when ...it happened. Imagine my surprise! Mark and I met in 2000.

I am such a lucky girl! Not only are we deeply and passionately in love, but we share so many interests. Mark's genuine enthusiasm for my work means the world to me and he has picked up enough about the erotica and erotic romance publishing business to speak with wisdom on the subject - an amusing phenomenon to all and sundry, as you might imagine. Above all he supports me through the emotional ups and downs of the writing world (although if you ask him, he'll tell you he's only here to quaff the champagne) and he's also a great sounding board for brainstorming plot ideas.

There are significant things I've glossed over here. I have a number of what they call chronic health problems and I became physically disabled by a rare bone disease in the late 1980s. I don’t want to dwell on that but I do want to say that writing suits me in every way, physically and mentally. It let's me do magical things far beyond my own life sphere.

By early 2004 I had been able to whittle down my day-job hours and I was able to get to grips with my technical writing deficits and work on longer projects. That year I was signed by Red Sage for erotic romance novellas. I was thrilled. Soon after I had a contract for my first novel from Loose Id. I can't believe I now get to hang out in author chat loops with authors like Emma Holly and Angela Knight, women I admire immensely. It's a dream come true.

My only problem is that I want to write so many things, and in so many genres, but it's kind of a nice problem to have… I live in my favourite place in the world, I'm madly in love with a fantastic man, I'm a writer and I couldn't wish for more. It took me a while to get here but it was worth all the hard times and heartache to get where I'm supposed to be. To find that readers enjoy coming along for the ride with my stories has been the most thrilling experience. I hope you too will enjoy some of the adventures my wandering imagination has allowed me to convert into stories for publication.

Thank you for your interest!