I am an English novelist, and not one of the youngest you’ll find around, although I’m both physically and mentally a lot younger than my Birth Certificate shows, and I live in Cheltenham, in the Cotswolds, a beautiful area of the South-West of England.

In an earlier existence which seems to be a lifetime ago, I taught French in a university, and for many years I wrote books  designed to help people who were trying to learn French – first published by Longmans, but later through a company called TD Publications which I founded myself.

I closed that business in 2008 when I was 75, thinking that it was time to retire and lead a quiet life. But then I started writing fiction and suddenly realised that this is what I should have started doing long ago, and here I am, six years later, with three successful novels to my name and still actively writing!

My first novel, Before the Swallow Dares, was published in 2012, the second, The Heat of the Kitchen, came out in 2013, and they were followed by the most recent, Billy’s War, in 2014. If you didn’t believe what was said above about being younger than my years, three novels in just over two years ought to convince you!