In 2010 I finished my first novel, which followed three generations in a rapidly warming Britain in the 21st century. Archipelago was far too long, at 130,000 words, but it was also fast outpaced by events. We are now seeing the type of flooding, heat waves, droughts and the beginnings of migration that this book explored, much earlier than was predicted.
My second novel, A Wilder Shore, is on submission through my agent Matthew Smith at Exprimez Literary Agency. It explores personal and climate grief through the eyes of an older woman, but its heart is love, for you only grieve what you love. Under various titles - titles are so tricky! - and also in various drafts, it's been longlisted in the Mslexia Novel Award (2015), was a Finalist in the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature (2018), shortlisted in the Yeovil Novel Prize (2019), longlisted in the Eludia Award (2020), and for the Pageturner Award in 2022. If you are a publisher and would like to know more about this novel, please contact Matthew directly.
My first novella, I Married a Wife, is the story of a lively young woman married to a staid middle-aged man, who gets more than he bargained for. It's in the form of linked flash fictions, and was longlisted in the Bath Novella-in-Flash Award 2018, and also longlisted in Ellipsiszine's Ellipsis Flash Collection Competition 2023.
First, Do No Harm, a speculative "soft" science fiction story about a young man who travels from an ice-bound Earth to its dark twin, is also a novella-in-flash. It was first longlisted for the Bath Novella-in-Flash Award in 2019, when it was half the length it is now, and has appeared on competition shortlists and semi-finalist lists three times. After much revision and expansion it is out on submission. If you are interested to know more, please use the contact form to get in touch with me.
My work-in-progress, another novel provisionally titled Shadow Brother, is the story of a teenage boy drawn into an eco-fascist movement.
