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. And also on the terror attacks in my own neighbourhood in Paris.

While based in London I was diplomatic editor of The Independent, but these days I’m concentrating on fiction writing. I divide my time between London and Paris.

In my earlier life, 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 took a break from journalism to head 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.

Before that, 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. From there, I went to work in Paris.

Why Paris? 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…