Jeff Hawksworth

In 2007 my wife was diagnosed with cancer in both lungs and given three months. Nine weeks later the hospital ran some more checks and discovered that they had made a mistake.

Predictably, we reviewed our past, along with future priorities and took a gap decade.

I had spent first half of my main career as an insurance broker before becoming an IFA and Pensions Specialist. After selling my company I began the new life by spending a year at a local college as an examinations officer, as well as driving coaches whenever I could, both here and on the continent.

In that same period we set up a second base in France. That house was destroyed by Storm Xynthia two years later, though the French government paid us compensation, along with the 650 other home owners in the area. It was enough for us to buy another place nearby, though four metres higher.

We became committed francophiles and the peace of rural France helped with a lot of my writing. The food and wine was pretty good too.

I began writing full time and still have an absolute passion for it. Moreover, the whole process was unlike anything I expected. To begin with, I soon realized that research often accounts for half of the project and proof reading can never be overdone. I usually proof mine at least nine times and have others do so as well.

I live in rural Leicestershire with my wife Pam. No dog at the moment, but weakening. One son, one daughter and three grand children.

The 'Grahams Chronicles' trilogy, including the research, spanned four years but the idea stemmed from a particularly vivid dream three years before that. Unusually, I remembered every detail when I woke, to such an extent that I threw on my dressing gown and went downstairs to spend an hour or so writing notes. I returned to bed, threw them in my bedside draw and said to my wife, "I reckon there's a book there you know!" They lay there for three years before seeing daylight again, but the first volume is remarkably true to those notes.

After a further fifteen months, I finished a short story entitled, 'The Carpenter's Gift' which is available from Amazon at .99p, BUT it can be downloaded from my website free of charge. www.jeffhawksworth.com

A year later we published my next novel, entitled, 'The Tack Chest', which is a mix of my own family lore and fiction. I leave it to the reader to imagine which is which, though I am mindful of the adage, truth is stranger than fiction.

In November 2015, we published 'My Dead Friend Terry', which received quite a number of kind reviews. A different genre to the earlier books, in that it fits easily within the thriller/drama category, but I enjoyed writing it just as much.

2019 I published my seventh book, entitled, 'Club Cognac', which was inspired by the Friday morning coffee club held in our village each week. None of the book's characters have been claimed by any of the members yet and no writs have appeared, though I did acknowledge my publisher's pleas for a disclaimer.

I will close with two very dear wishes; that I will always love writing and that people continue to enjoy the results.