My love of books and reading started as a young child in a very small community library. Long before I could read I remember going to the library with my sisters and mother.

I spent most of my working life first as a nurse, then as an educator and an academic. I love nursing and will always call myself a "nurse". As a nurse you see others in their best and their worst moments. When you can help in any small way, often just by listening, you see and feel their pain, sorrow, joy and humanity.

I write in spare moments, essentially telling stories. Although the characters, setting and story are pure fiction, the lives and emotions and adventures of the people in my book remind us of real and shared experiences. We love, we raise families, we work, we experience tragedy and loss and sometimes we are frightened by the world around us. This book is about all of those things.

I hope you enjoy meeting my book family and their life experiences. It all started with my first book: The Gate-house. Secrets continues this family saga. Like the first it makes no claim to be a literary masterpiece. But if it makes you sad, makes you smile, or cry, or better appreciate the rich saga of human experience -- that will be good enough for me.