Hello and welcome.
I’m delighted you’re here.
I love reading books, magical tales and horses. I guess you do too, which is why you’re visiting my website 🙂
I also love making spectacular adventures come to life in book form for you to enjoy!
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love books. I used to read ALL the time. Even when we had visitors, I was that quiet (rude) kid in the corner reading..!
Books about horses and ponies and magical adventures were my favourites – couldn’t you guess?! But I didn’t like the sad ones like Black Beauty. I devoured adventurous stories like The Midnight Horse by Monica Edwards and The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. Both featured Arab horses – well, Cascade in The Midnight Horse was an Anglo-Arab – something that sparked the belief that Arab horses are the most beautiful and courageous horses in the world. At one stage, I had a huge stable of horses – all imaginary and mostly Arabs. I’d ‘gallop’ them around the huge grassy park over the road from home with my best friend Sarah and our dogs running alongside. I suspect Sarah found it all a bit confusing at times – she wasn’t into horses nearly as much as I was…
I was lucky enough to get some riding lessons when I was about nine years old and then the BEST news – friends of my parents said I could ride their old pony Archie as their son wasn’t interested. I had a pony! Dear Archie had taught a few kids to ride over the years and at the age of 27 when I started riding him, he knew a few tricks. Going ‘lame’ at my first-ever Pony Club rally meant he could graze rather than trot circles with me bumping on his back. Funny how he trotted home perfectly sound! He was great fun though, kind and patient, just what ten-year-old me needed. I even won a ribbon or two at Pony Club events.
Two more ponies, Tontouta and Trixie, featured in my teens – I’ve written more about my ponies and horses here, as well as Sian, the Anglo-Arab I’m riding in the photo above.
Nowadays, I am very lucky to live in the beautiful Central Otago region of New Zealand with my husband, two dogs and two cats. We have a small farm and while there is room for a horse or two, we’re still settling in here. Of course, owning and looking after a horse properly takes time and I’m quite busy writing books around my everyday work, so want to be sure I’ve got time to before I get another horse. In the meantime, I am lucky to be able to ride a neighbour’s horse from time to time.