A Kind of Vanishing
ISBN: 9780954930950
Published: Myriad Editions – 21st June 2007

It is the summer of 1968, the day Senator Robert Kennedy is shot. Two nine-year old girls are playing hide and seek in the ruins of a deserted village. Alice has discovered a secret about Eleanor Ramsay’s mother, and is taunting the other girl. When it is Eleanor’s turn to hide, Alice disappears.

Years later, an extraordinary turn of events open up shocking truths for the Ramsay family and all who knew the missing girl.

This is a spellbinding mystery of obsession and guilt. It is also the poignant story of what happens to those left behind when a child vanishes without trace.

£6.99

The Brighton Book
ISBN: 9780954930950
Published: Myriad Editions – 2005

This collection of words and pictures was specially commissioned from established artists and emerging talents. It includes new fiction from Meg Rosoff, Louis de Bernières, Jeanette Winterson and Ali Smith, as well as Nigella Lawson’s favourite fish and chip recipe. Along with poetry, photographs and a graphic short story it also has a chapter from A Kind of Vanishing as part of a section entitled Three Women. This also has extracts from novels by Martine McDonagh (I Have Waited and You Have Come) and Melissa Benn. www.myriadeditions.com

£9.99

Hold On To The Messy Times – Sue Johnston
ISBN: 9780044404972
Published: Harper Collins – 1989

A collection of reminiscences by the actress Sue Johnston (Royle Family, Waking the Dead) that cover her childhood with The Beatles in Liverpool, the start of her acting career and touch on her work at Brookside.

I originally conceived the idea and approached Sue Johnston who bravely took up the challenge of writing a book. I worked closely on it with her and probably drove her to distraction during the process.

Out of print – available on Amazon.

Seven Miles From Sydney
ISBN: 9780863581274
Published: Pandora Press – 2nd July 1987

I sent Jeanette Winterson my first novel when she was fiction editor for Pandora Press in the mid-eighties. Although this book didn’t fit their list, she decided that I could write and commissioned Seven Miles From Sydney. This was it. It did well both here and in Australia, but didn’t mean I could give up the day job.

It’s out of print now, but you can get it second hand on Amazon or Abe Books. The hard back is steadily rising in value (when I last looked it was £132).

When Deborah Carry is invited to Australia to write a film about gangland violence, she gets murdered herself. The police and the newspapers are hardly sympathetic; any woman who jogs alone is asking for trouble. When her best friend May identifies the killer they let him go. But Deborah’s death forces May to re-evaluate her own life. Back in England she realises that she was in love with Deborah, that she has always loved women and for the first time she feels strong enough to love herself.

Out of print – available on Amazon.