I grew up in Cornwall, England, as the youngest of three daughters. It was a regular occurrence to hear people remark I was always quiet and kept to myself, was a 'old head on young shoulders' and ended up in all of the gifted student clubs at school. Fast forward a few decades of struggling with social rules, an inability to perform simple maths and some depression, and I got my autism diagnosis the morning after my forty-first birthday.
Reading fantasy, horror and sci-fi books has always been my go-to way of escaping a world I didn't understand when I was younger. As I grew up, this then extended to gaming, and I'd spend hours immersed in games like Tomb Raider, Skyrim or even The Sims.
Writing is something I dabbled with in secondary school, and I dreamed of writing a Point Horror book. A draft I wrote scared a friend so badly so had nightmares! The idea of an epic fantasy story came much later, and looking back, I can see that I was trying to find a place for myself through the lens of a character in my head.
In the run up to my diagnosis I threw myself into writing harder than ever before, and this is when Ember and Steel took shape. With the loving support of my husband and my son, I did the thing.
And it seems....I did it well!
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