I’m a Lancashire lass but for most of my career, I’ve been a foreign correspondent. I’ve reported from all over the world on some of the most cataclysmic events of our time, including the Egyptian revolution and the collapse of the Berlin wall.

While based in London I was diplomatic editor of The Independent, but these days I’m concentrating on fiction writing. The fourth in my series of crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Sam Clayton, Murder at the Manor is out now, published by Joffe Books. My first novel, Food Fight, was published in 2015.

Until coronavirus struck, I was lucky enough to divide my time between London and Paris. Now I daren’t even think about what the future may hold.

I reported  from Paris mainly for The Independent and The Guardian, but I also contributed to France24 television and Monocle radio.  As a freelancer, I’ve written for The New Zealand Herald and The National (Abu Dhabi), as well as the LA Times, the New York Times, the Radio Times, the Oldie, Monocle magazine, Quartz, and Spark News.

Between 2009 and 2012, I headed the Washington office of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), a trans-Atlantic NGO focused on nuclear disarmament.

During my ten-year stint on The Independent I was one of the few journalists to report from Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia.

Earlier, I was a staff foreign correspondent with the French news agency, AFP, which posted me to Moscow during the incredible Gorbachev years. I also reported for AFP from France, and New York where I covered the United Nations.

I started my journalistic career in Canada, arriving with two suitcases to seek my fortune in Montreal, from where I reported for British newspapers before getting a job on the Montreal Gazette.

Before that, I was a postgraduate student at University College London whose French department nurtured my lifelong love of French literature and culture. It was only a matter of time until I became a French citizen…