Eager for adventure, always leaping before thinking, Ms Martin’s desire to write has been endlessly diverted through her life. She has variously worked as a legal secretary, a personal assistant to a global company of agricultural advisors, a camping courier in France where she also picked grapes and lived out of her car. Once her two children were born, she became interested in health issues and set up her own business as a therapist in complementary medicine. But all along she knew her destiny lay in the medium of words. Lots of words. Now she has written eight novels and is delighted to find she can earn her living doing what she passionately loves.
Ms Martin grew up in Wiltshire, England, and its rich and ancient tapestry informs the first novel in The Katherine Wheel Series, DAFFODILS. It is set in World War One, a time when the role of women changed forever. The story follows Katy, a naive and restless domestic servant who, through personal tragedy, courage and intelligence, transforms her life and finds the adventure she always craved. She just never knew the price would be so high. The sequel, PEACE LILY, takes the characters into the aftermath of the Great War when they have changed but the old power struggles remain. In SPEEDWELL, the third book, the four protagonists race into the motoring age of the roaring twenties. The fourth book, WILLOW, is small, novella-sized and a children’s story. Katy and Cassandra’s children, Al and Lily, Lottie and Isobel, embark on a dangerous adventure on a river, unaware of the repercussions that will follow their innocent escapade. WOODBINE, the fifth book in the series, takes these young characters into both adulthood and the Second World War and their dramatic stories conclude in IVY, the sixth and final book when all the dots from the entire series are joined up in the most surprising and satisfying way.
Some recent adventures triggered a little collection of three short stories, called TRIO, and you can get a free copy here at http://www.intheplottingshed.wordpress.com by clicking on the shed on the welcome page!
THE ROSE TRAIL, slips between the time of the English civil war and the present day and is woven together with a supernatural thread by a malevolent spirit seeking revenge.
THE TWISTED VINE, Alex Martin’s debut novel, is based on her own knee-wrecking experience of picking grapes in the 1980s. You can catch up with the launch of new books, reviews, discussions and discount offers here at: http://www.intheplottingshed.wordpress.com or follow my Amazon Author Page
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