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I haven't had a book release for quite a while so it is with great pleasure and some relief that 'Finding Rose' has finally made it to the shelves - well, to Amazon at any rate.  I don't know about you but I think the cover is absolutely gorgeous.

                                                                             

It is completely different from my usual Greek island mysteries and took the best part of two years to write. Why so long? It was inspired in part by my father's last days. As he lay in hospital, he came out with quite a few random sentences and non-sequiturs no doubt as a result of the morphine he was given. However, I began to wonder if perhaps they meant something to him. What if my father was re-living a previous life? This was the catalyst for my story. Naturally, it was very difficult emotionally to write a book that invoked so many bitter-sweet memories although it was also cathartic. It also gave me a chance to incorporate a period I love, the time of the Tudors, as my character exhorts his daughters to 'Find Rose' - a journey that will take them to the Courts of HenryVIII and Elizabeth I.

The other inspiration for my book came from my grandfather. I knew he had lied about his age, being only 16, to join up during WW1 and that he was at the Front during the battle of the Somme. Wounded and left for dead, somehow he survived but it was something he never talked about. I only have vague memories of him as he died when I was six. However, with 2018 marking the centenary of the end of WW1, I knew I wanted to include the Great War as background to my novel and also as a tribute to him. With just a few of his notes that he made regarding the key events of the war, the rest was all down to research.

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