I was born on the 20th of May, 1959 in Windsor, New South Wales, Australia. The youngest of four children, I lived with my family in a small timber house on a farm on the banks of the Hawkesbury River. I started my school life at St Monica's Primary School in Richmond, catching the bus with my brothers and my sister every day until a major flood caused the Hawkesbury River to break its banks and sweep away the family home and all our belongings. It was a hard time for my parents. Other than a few precious photos and a refrigerator loaded on to a small boat, we had lost everything. I remember having to go and live with caring and generous relatives. I was only five, the year 1964, so I don't remember much, except returning to find the house completely swept away and a few family photos strewn across the yard completely ruined. After the flood we moved to Blacktown where we bunked into a shed on a friend's farm until our new house was built on a five acre lot in Plumpton.

At Plumpton, I attended Marayong District Primary School, then Rooty Hill High School. My favourite subjects were English and History. I discovered my love of books at school when I was eight-years-old. The first novel that had an impact on me was the Charles Dicken's classic, Oliver Twist. I loved how this book swept me away to its fantastical other world. It kick-started my love of reading.

The school library, both in primary and high-school were my favourite places to be. I spent many lunch sessions roaming the aisles and scanning the shelves, on the hunt for my next adventure. When I was in my teens I liked to read long dramas and devoured most of James A Michener's lengthy sagas. I think I read every book written by Leon Uris that had been published at that time. Then one day I read a novel written by Anya Seton called Katherine. This novel ignited my love for historical fiction. I still have this novel on my book shelf.

At 17, after attending secretarial school, I became a legal stenographer for a solicitor in a legal branch of a state government power agency. I left after five years because I had married and started a family. Three children later, my husband John and I decided to move our family to Coffs Harbour, on the mid north coast of NSW.  Once the children were off to school I studied and became a teacher of adult education, my specialty was office studies and computers. I enjoyed this work for five years, but I dreamed of becoming a writer and started working towards making my dream a reality.

Coffs Harbour is a beautiful tourist area, surrounded by beaches, rivers, mountains and rainforests. It was a great place to write and many artists live in the area. We stayed for twenty years and only moved to Queensland in 2008 after all my children had grown up and left home to find work and go to university. After Amanda and her husband announced Amanda was pregnant I wanted to be there for her and enjoy my grandchildren as they came along.  So we moved to the Gold Coast hinterland, another beautiful place to live and write my books.  By now I had four published.

The first was Old Magic, published in the year 2000. It was extremely difficult to find a publisher. Fortunately I had found an agent who loved the manuscript, but though he tried many Australian publishers, it was not until he decided to try London publishers that the book was sold within three weeks, with interest from three different publishers. It was an amazing moment when my agent phoned with the news. I couldn't believe it! Bloomsbury Publishing purchased world language rights and did a fabulous job at selling the novel around the world.

After writing Old Magic, I decided to expand on the concept of what might happen if someone purposefully tampered with the past, and the affect it would have on the present and the future. Before I started writing the Guardians of Time, I knew I wanted to write a story about three people - a brother, a sister, and a friend to form a love triangle and complicate things. I started researching the historical periods of ancient Rome, ancient Greece and early Mesopotamian mythology. My ideas started to develop in consultation with my daughters, and before long the Guardians of Time Trilogy began to take shape. Today, the trilogy has enjoyed as much success in international sales as Old Magic.

In 2002, the Warner Bros Television production company took out a 12-month option with the idea of making a television series based on the Guardians of Time. A producer, director and a script for the pilot was commissioned. Unfortunately, when the 12 months option was due for renewal, the WB decided not to continue. Since then two other movie companies have shown interest in making the trilogy into feature films, but so far nothing has eventuated.

I can't have a biography without mentioning my experience with life-threatening bone marrow cancer. I was diagnosed in 2004 with Myelofibrosis. It was a huge deal in my life and my family's life. Without a stem cell bone marrow transplant  I was going to die. Fortunately my sister was a wonderful match and though I was given only 35% chance of surviving the transplant, with no other option, I enthusiastically embraced the transplant.  I spent months in hospital, in quarantine, undergoing high doses of chemotherapy. I lost my hair and nearly died from kidney failure and a host of other problems, but I came through it with the help of the life-saving medical staff of Westmead Hospital, my beautiful sister's beautiful, healthy and abundant stem cells, the support of my family (all of them) and the incredible amount of prayers that were said for me. I am truly thankful.

For a year after the transplant, I was unable to concentrate well enough to even read. But it gradually returned and I began writing again. After such a dramatic experience the first writing I did was more cathartic than publishable. I wrote a novel called "Chains" about two brothers of Italian descent named, Julian and Vincent, who lose their mother to cancer and battle through their grief in different ways. And while this manuscript is close to my heart, it may never be published.
I mention this because it has been seven years since my last book, The Key, was published, and many of my readers wondered what happened and why I hadn't written anything since.

But the good news is that I have completed a new novel called HIDDEN, and Hidden is the first instalment in the Avena Series, with begins with three books. Hidden will be published in July and August, 2012.

The following are photographs of my family.
I have included them in this biography because they are the first to hear my ideas,
to read my drafts and offer their invaluable critiques.