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Retirement is supposed to come with a sense of closure. A handshake. A thank you. A moment of recognition for the years you’ve poured into a business, the clients you’ve supported, the problems you’ve solved, and the growth you’ve driven. But sometimes life doesn’t hand you the neat ending you deserve.

A new series called The Story Behind My Stories. It sits alongside my crime fiction, but it isn’t fiction at all. It’s the real-life thread that runs beneath the books: the places I’ve lived, the work I’ve done, the people I’ve met and the moments that quietly shaped the stories long before I ever wrote them down.

I’m in the final few days of this Crete stretch, and as usual, the end creeps up faster than I expect. One minute I’m settling into a routine, the next I’m counting backwards from three and trying to work out how much I can realistically get done before we start the long drive home.

And then there’s the other world — the one I built quietly, in the early mornings and late evenings, in notebooks, in half‑formed ideas held in my head. The world of stories. The world of DI Matthew Goodwin and Penny Stock. The world where I get to decide the pace, the stakes, the silence.

When readers think of Aloha Goodbye, they picture the Pearl of the Pacific: the ocean, the heat, the endless decks, and the murder that pulls DI Matthew Goodwin into an investigation he never planned to lead.

Some detectives walk into a room and make noise. Penny Stock walks in and makes progress. Her introduction in Connecting Trains is classic Penny: no drama, no ego, no need to announce herself. She simply steps in and starts organising the evidence, computers and the murder board.

This week Thai Die is on promo, and Don’t Die for Me, Argentina is heading towards its full launch on 2nd May. Two books set on opposite sides of the world, shaped by two very different chapters of my life — but tied together by one unexpected thread. Horses.

On Instagram, TikTok, and Threads, there’s a constant stream of posts urging people to “support indie authors,” “drop your books below,” or “share your links so I can boost you.” It sounds wonderful. It looks supportive. It feels like a chance to be seen. Except… most of the time, nothing happens.

There are moments when life feels like it’s handing you a metaphor with a bow on it. Last Friday, somewhere between Dijon and the Italian border, we had one of those moments. We’d pumped up a flat tyre the night before, hoping it would magically behave itself for the long drive. It didn’t. Of course it didn’t.

One of the constants in my writing life is that real experiences are fundamental in my fiction. Sometimes it’s a location I know well. Sometimes it’s a conversation I once had, or a character trait borrowed from someone I met years ago. It’s never a direct lift, and it’s never the whole story. But on The Story Behind My Stories, there isn’t that same layer of distance. When I talk about what inspired a scene or why a character behaves the way they do, I’m talking about the re

People often assume writers know the ending from the moment they begin. As if the story arrives fully formed, waiting to be typed up in a neat, linear line from Chapter One to The End. But that’s not how it works. Not for me, and not for most writers I know.

That moment, the first reader, is the heartbeat of my ARC team. The first to turn the page.

And when I write, whether it’s crime fiction, travel‑infused adventure, or the behind‑the‑scenes stories that shaped them, those places come back to life. They remind me who I was, what I felt and why the story mattered in the first place.

Lately, my writing life has stopped behaving like tidy shelves labelled “fiction” and “non‑fiction”. Instead, everything seems to be talking to each other — ideas crossing over, themes echoing, one project nudging another awake. And honestly, I’m enjoying the chaos.

a good review is worth its weight in gold. Not because it feeds an ego or ticks a box, but because it represents something far more meaningful—a reader who connected with the story I poured my heart into.

The last two weeks have been a lesson I didn’t expect to learn this year, how to stop. I went into surgery knowing recovery would take time, but I underestimated just how much my body—and especially my head—would insist on complete stillness.

This work has brought me the love of my life. It brought me my retreat in Crete. It brought me health and fitness, including two surgeries — knee and nasal — that sat on last year’s manifestation list like quiet, brave intentions. It brought me deeper connections, inside and out. And at the start of 2025, it brought me a call I couldn’t ignore: return to writing.

So yes, the fervour around KU and AI is real. But my response is simple: I will keep writing from the raw, unfiltered truth of my own experience. Because that is the one thing AI can never replicate.

Thai Die is a strong start to my series, and visibility matters. Getting it into the hands of readers is the ultimate goal.

We pause to remember the courage and selflessness of those who served.