Contemporary Memoirs and Fiction About Issues That Matter

Stories about people, relationships, life and the things that matter.

What makes a book stay with you?

Perhaps it is a story that makes you laugh unexpectedly. Maybe it reminds you of something from your own life. Or perhaps it makes you stop and think about an issue that matters – something happening in the world, in our communities, or quietly within our own families.

These are the kinds of stories I am drawn to write.

My books include contemporary memoirs and fiction exploring issues that matter, from family secrets and domestic abuse, difficult relationships, loneliness and resilience, and the impact of technology on our lives in many different settings.

Although my five books are very different, they share a common thread: people and the experiences that shape us.

The Secret Legacy – family secrets, abuse, friendship and forgiveness

My most recent novel, The Secret Legacy, is a story about family secrets and the truths we sometimes keep hidden.

When Angela and Gail clear their late mother's house, they discover a letter and a story their mother never intended them to read during her lifetime.

What they uncover challenges everything they thought they knew about their family.

Beneath the story of a devoted single mother lies a past marked by abuse, difficult choices, friendship and moral ambiguity. As the sisters uncover the truth, they are forced to confront questions about justice, forgiveness and the secrets that can pass from one generation to the next.

At its heart, The Secret Legacy is a novel about the resilience of women and the extraordinary lengths people may go to protect the people they love.

It is also about the complicated nature of truth. Sometimes discovering what really happened doesn't provide easy answers.

The Last Text – technology, relationships and human connection

In The Last Text: One Woman's Campaign to Restore Human Connection, I turn to a very contemporary issue: our relationship with technology.

The novel is set in the small village of Saltharbour Bay, where a once close-knit community is gradually disintegrating. Connections are being destroyed, relationships are severed and local businesses are struggling.

At the centre of the story is Elizabeth, who recognises the unhappiness caused by subtle changes to people's lives and relationships.

The book explores the tension between our reliance on technology and our yearning for a slower pace of life.

Could a simpler life bring us more joy?

And what happens to human connection when our phones and screens increasingly mediate the way we communicate?

These are questions that make The Last Text particularly relevant to modern life.

The Evening Girls – nursing, community and a bygone era

My memoir The Evening Girls – Reflections of a District Nurse in the 1970s takes readers back nearly fifty years to a very different world of nursing.

In a Midlands town, a team of district nurses – affectionately known as 'the evening girls' – worked through the evenings, often until midnight and beyond, caring for people in their own homes.

Today, I, along with the other surviving team members still meet as friends and reminisce about the homes they visited and the people they encountered.

The book offers a glimpse into district nursing, community nursing and everyday life in the 1970s, but it is ultimately about relationships.

The relationships between nurses and patients. Between colleagues. And between the people who opened their homes to us.

It is a humorous, moving and sometimes nostalgic look at a profession and a way of life that has changed considerably. We wonder if for the better?

The Courage of a Ukrainian Family – war, refugees and opening your home

The Courage of a Ukrainian Family – Reflections from an English Host explores another very contemporary issue: war and displacement.

When I made the decision to welcome a Ukrainian mother and her fourteen-year-old daughter into my home as they fled war-torn Ukraine, I had no idea quite what the experience would involve.

The memoir looks honestly at the challenges we faced, as well as the humour that sometimes helped us through difficult situations.

It also includes something that was not always comfortable to acknowledge: my own prejudices and assumptions.

For me, writing about the experience became an opportunity to explore refugees, cultural differences, compassion, generosity and what it really means to open your home to strangers.

It is a very personal story, but it also reflects a much wider experience of people displaced by war and the families who choose to help them.

Reflections from a Narrowboat – change, relationships and starting again

Reflections from a Narrowboat is the first and perhaps most personal of my memoirs.

After a long career in nursing, caring for a family and step-family, and becoming recently widowed and lonely, I had withdrawn to a quiet Norfolk seaside village.

But approaching fifty, I was ready for adventure.

Then a charismatic man entered my life, and I found myself embarking on a completely different chapter involving a woman, a narrowboat, a grumpy cat and a new relationship.

The memoir grew from the blogs I wrote during that adventure.

It is about narrowboating, nature, relationships and the challenges of adapting to a very different way of life. But underneath the humour is a story about change, loneliness, resilience and finding the courage to try something new.

Sometimes life doesn't turn out as we expected.

Sometimes that's where the interesting part begins.

Why I write about issues that matter

I don't set out to write books that provide answers.

Whether I am writing contemporary fiction or memoir, I want my books to be more than stories that simply entertain. I want them to offer something to think about, something to recognise, question, challenge and perhaps something to talk about afterwards.

Five books, very different stories, common themes

The stories may be different, but they are all, in some way, stories about people.

People trying to understand their past.

People trying to make sense of the present.

And people finding the courage to face whatever comes next.

Explore my books

If you enjoy thought-provoking memoirs, contemporary fiction, personal stories and books exploring real-life issues, I hope you'll find something here that makes you laugh, makes you think, or perhaps reminds you of something from your own life.

Stories about people. Stories about life. Stories about issues that matter.