From the time I was eighteen years old, all my friends and family kept telling me, “You should write a book.”
But I always had the same answer:
“I don’t like to write.”
“I can’t describe things.”
But a translation project changed everything. It made me realize – “I CAN write!”
At first, I was translating pieces written by people who spoke multiple languages, so I already knew how they wrote in English. I could take their foreign words and put them into English in their voice.
Then came a project from someone who didn’t speak English at all. This time, I had to create a voice for him.
I was startled when everyone who read it was brought to tears.
It was then that I realized: I could bring people to life. I could carry their emotions through barriers, through centuries, through languages.
I specialize in writing the unwritten, giving voice to the silenced, and lifting secrets from the margins of biography. Since 2010, I’ve been following threads like these – piecing together stories of human complexity from fragments scattered across countries and centuries.
My first series, The Rival Courts, is founded on translation. It emerged from secrets revealed in the diaries and German correspondence of Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, Vicky, and her husband, Fritz – the future German Emperor Frederick III. They are slightly better known as the parents of Kaiser Wilhelm II – “The Kaiser” of World War I.
Beneath Crown and Court lie the stories I’m always drawn to – the emotional lives of the people who history tries to flatten into mere titles.
Some researchers call it “disrespectful” to call public figures by their family nicknames. But I live in a world where Monarchs sign their names as “Willy I.R.” and “King Georgie.”
Besides, it isn’t “the Princess” who picks up a shell from the beach.
It isn’t “the Queen” who splutters the first time she puts her head under water.
It isn’t “the Prince” who tenderly pulls each finger of a glove onto his little son’s hand.
It’s the person.
The person who loves.
Who works.
Who explores.
Who suffers.
That’s who I want to know – and who I want to share with you.
This is not just Historical Fiction.
I don’t write to “reconstruct history”.
I write to uncover the invisible layers that make it human.
If you’re a reader who loves the hidden human stories behind history – or a writer who longs to bring truth to life on the page – I’d love to have you along for the journey.