About me

I studied history and economics at university, and started my career as a lecturer, before becoming a journalist.
I was born in Glasgow, and currently live in the beautiful (if rainy!) south west of Scotland,  though I also have a great and abiding love of both Scotland’s capital city, and of our western islands. That’s where the books which make up the Balvaig Trilogy are set.

I’ve been writing for many years, and have had several short stories published in New Fiction collections.
I’m a member of the NUJ, and Scottish PEN. 

My Novels

My stories focus on relationships – between husbands and wives, between lovers, between friends, between lairds and crofters, between parents and children. I’m interested in exploring how those relationships shape my characters, as well as how my characters shape the relationships they find themselves in. Romance there may be, but it tends to be of the raw variety, and there’s also black humour.
Empowerment is a key concept for me, and it’s more important that my female characters reach a greater degree of self-determination, rather than a conventional girl-marries-boy ‘happy ending’. What’s important is that the resolution to the story is life-affirming.