As a child I steadily worked my way through the local library’s book shelves, starting with Enid Blyton, then onto Ruth Rendell, P.D. James, Patricia Cornwell via Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers and so on, until I reached Dan Brow –as everyone does. I also read thousands of other psychological and crime suspense novels in between. I love a good thriller, especially if it’s a brain teaser. Gone Girl was good too, but I worked the plot out about five chapters in, and that showed me how much the psychological thriller format eventually worms its way into your psyche. All that reading taught me how to write thriller plots, but my reading background is far wider. I studied English Literature at university (a long time ago) and also developed a love of all kinds of genres – Shakespearean and Jacobean Revenge tragedy amongst them. If I took an overview, I can even see little traits of them in Patchwork Man, as well as the kind of moral twist there is in books such as Harper Lee’s  To Kill a Mocking Bird, which will always be one of my all-time favourites. It’s maybe also why I write in more than one genre. There is too much I love to read to stick to just one, and also too much to say in a lot of different ways! My first foray into writing was a – terrible – children’s book I started writing in my twenties and abandoned almost immediately, apart from some of the illustrations I made at the time. (I also studied Fine Art). The next was many years later, just after my husband died and when I was looking for something to do which was still close to home. My daughters were still young and shell-shocked by the whole horrible experience of cancer – we all were. I joined a local adult education programme and wrote my first short story. It, too, was terrible, but I persevered and the next few were better. My older daughter – by then sixteen – introduced me to NaNoWriMo and I found I could break the 50,000 word barrier – if shakily. Then the writing bug bit properly. I wrote a somewhat controversial first novel about a transitioning transgender, published in 2013, and which I am now planning on re-releasing next year and settled down to write in earnest.   I realise now I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have had such wide-ranging life experiences, even though it may not have felt that way at the time, and it’s these I draw on to write. Writing is therapeutic and also fascinating. I wouldn’t ever dwell on the bad experiences – such as cancer – but they do open doors to explain the human character and the things about it that inspire bravery and cowardice, good and bad, love and hate.