About Me
I was born in Wigan but moved many times as a child. I went to a dozen different schools, in locations including Merseyside, Cheshire and Berkshire, as well as East Lothian in Scotland and Rijswijk in Holland. No wonder my first novel – Old School Ties – was based around a school reunion. I had more classroom experience than most teachers!
I always loved reading – and writing. My childhood favourites included Roald Dahl, Susan Cooper, Helen Cresswell and especially Noel Streatfeild. When I was eight and nine, I spent quite a lot of time off sick from school and was soon devouring my mum’s Jean Plaidy’s and her She magazines (which taught me an awful lot about life, I can tell you!). My early works were nothing if not ambitious: as well as a fully illustrated rhyming story about a well-travelled rabbit, I had grand plans to write a musical about the history of Britain, and my first thriller was a four-part murder set in Paris…
After school, I wanted to find a job that would use my love of writing – though I never dreamed I’d write a novel. It wasn’t the kind of job the careers service could tell me much about. Instead I skipped university and went straight into journalism. First of all, I worked for a news agency, reporting mainly for the national tabloids, then moved to the BBC. I worked as a reporter in regional news in Bristol and Birmingham, before moving behind the camera as a producer on Newsround in London. Later I worked on Panorama and other investigative/consumer shows, using the same secret cameras used in the Secret Shopper books. My final job in TV involved coming up with new ideas for programmes – great fun!
Old School Ties was published in 2003 (To find out how I broke out of the slush pile in my Diary of an unpublished author…) and was picked for WH Smith Fresh Talent. In 2007, I left the BBC to write full-time. The Secret Shopper’s Revenge was nominated for the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance in 2009. My books have been published in a dozen countries, and my first young adult novel, Soul Beach, will be published in the UK by Orion Children’s Books in autumn 2011.
I’ve written for national newspapers and magazines including the Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, Red and Cosmopolitan. I also teach creative writing and TV development in the UK and abroad.
Apart from making up stories, I still love reading them. I also adore baking, singing, live comedy, the sea-side and making crafty stuff (I’ve never quite grown out of my Blue Peter stage). I live in Brighton, but also spend as much time as I can in Barcelona!
