Second in a series of four novels inspired by a Gallup poll completed in 2009 showing that 700 million people worldwide thought that the grass was greener on the other side of the fence and wanted to move permanently to another country.

Diana De Gonia is the doyenne of Palazzo Botigliani in Valletta, Malta, as the British-born widow of the last Baron di Migarro. She opens it to the public on a daily basis, but is beset with problems, both financial and personal, as she fights to keep the grand house and its collection of artefacts safe from financial ruin and claims from pretenders to her late husband’s title.
Bound by a promise to her late husband to keep the place intact for his long-lost son and heir, she can’t help feeling trapped and desperate until evidence that the heir exists gives her hope of escape.
Assisted by a devoted Bulgarian sidekick and an enthusiastically destructive Maltese cleaner, she meets constant opposition from government officials, the bank, her late husband’s relatives and the weather, which alternates between extreme heat and torrential rain. Angry that the love of her life was taken from her, she soldiers on with her daily battle, but is unable to avoid yearning for life in the pub in England in which she spent her formative years. This yearning is made all the more poignant by the fact that, although the pub was bought by her husband years earlier as an investment, it must now be sold to finance essential repairs at the palazzo.
Diana travels to England to finalise the sale of the pub and to investigate the man who claims to be her late husband’s son and heir. Will the heir apparent prove to be genuine and, if he is, will he want to be saddled with the responsibility? If he does, will the irony that the pub has to be sold be too much for her to bear?

First in a series of four novels inspired by a Gallup poll completed in 2009 showing that 700 million people worldwide wanted to move permanently to another country.

Peter Roper, who runs a hairdressing salon in the Midlands, collects miniature portraits to alleviate his feelings of mediocrity. Although he has worked in the same village for almost all of his thirty-nine years with a dictatorial mother who will entertain no mention of his absent father, he has never felt that he belonged. Always plagued with remorse for having handled his love life very badly in the past, the two problems currently overriding this are a suspicion that he caused his mother’s sudden death and confirmation that a planned high speed railway will obliterate the historic monument he calls home.
Further turmoil follows when, in the process of organising his mother’s funeral, he discovers that he is not who he thought he was. To knock him further off balance, the visit of an enigmatic stranger to the salon points him in the direction of an aristocratic heritage.
Lured to a Mediterranean island by possibilities beyond his wildest dreams, Peter is exhilarated by his first experience of foreign travel and thinks he may have found his true destiny until he suddenly finds himself in grave danger. Has his dissatisfaction with life and search for pastures new led to an early demise?

The big news is that CURTAINS will be published this year, both as a kindle edition & as a paperback original (Cherwell imprint). I’m in mid-edit at the moment and could be on to galley proofs next week (provided I don’t get too diverted by the fact that the pool hasn’t been tiled because it keeps raining and the house is far from ready for the first guests at the end of the month. Focus, Drew, focus!!!)

“I feel the need, for the sake of my sanity, to begin this very personal memoir immediately – before the future becomes the present and the present becomes the past. Even the recent past is a fragile entity, more than a little at the mercy of memory.”

Danny Devereux is a shy and introverted cabaret performer with an astounding talent for mimicry, a raucous and controlling alter-ego named Stella and a preoccupation with curtains. He has been working the London circuit for years when he unwittingly acquires the ultra-ambitious Veronica ‘Roni’ Bedford as his manager then wife. Her relentless drive propels him to stellar heights of television success.

One television series leads to another, but all is not harmonious in the celebrity household, even before a major scandal hits the headlines.

In self-induced exile in a luxurious Thames-side apartment, Danny looks back on the power games involved in his reluctant but meteoric rise to fame and spectacular fall from grace as he engineers a plan to vindicate himself. Will he succeed in his attempt to make appearance triumph over reality?