Winter Heron

I'm thrilled that my watercolour painting is a finalist with the Broadway Arts Festival 2022 competition. I didn't expect this at all. I'm looking forward to the exhibition in October when the work of all the finalists will be on show.

Inspiration for Winter Heron came when I was writing Instructions For The Working Day, which features a brutal sweep of marshland and the cry of a lone heron. Although the book is not set in winter, it felt right for this lonely, yet clear-sighted and optimistic painting.

Publication Day for Instructions For The Working Day!

It's publication day for Instructions For The Working Day and I would like to thank Fairlight Books for all their hard work and for being such a fabulous team to work with.

To celebrate I painted this watercolour sunrise with images of Berlin rising from the early morning mist. I also had to include the silo in the village of Marschwald, to which main character, Neil Fischer, is so drawn, and which features in all its mystical eeriness on the cover of the book. The hot air balloon gliding through the clouds represents the characters' hope for escape from their own troubles and from the tumultuous history of Berlin.

Instructions For The Working Day is available to buy now in hardback and on Kindle at Waterstones and Blackwells.

First Look at Instructions For the Working Day and Interview

There are only days left until publication of Instructions For the Working Day. It is about betrayal and freedom, and the perpetual human endeavour to discard the burdens of the past.

If you would like to know more, please click here for an interview with me about my writing life and the forgotten village which inspired my novel. You can also read an exclusive extract from the first chapter.

Instructions For the Working Day is available to pre-order now from Blackwells and Waterstones