About the author
As a child I wanted to write and loved the Greek myths and archaeology. I had visited Crete in 1980 and seen the island of Spinalonga. I was intrigued and returned the following year, trying hard to find a guidebook. There was not one available so I decided I would write one. I have the good fortune to have a stepdaughter who lives in Athens and speaks fluent Greek she was able to contact the hospital where the islanders had ended their days and found four still living there.
Over the next few months she would contact him and ask him questions on my behalf in Greek and relay the answers back to me in English. I was finally able to meet this charming gentleman who, through my stepdaughter, was willing to answer any question I put to him and embellish his answers with anecdotes.
The guidebook was finally published in 1982 and subsequently translated into five languages. There was also an interesting radio programme made using Greek actors to describe their life over there. At the time there were plans to turn the island into a large hotel complex, but Melina Mercouri, the current Minister of Culture, decided a Preservation Order was more in keeping. In 2013 I updated and published a new edition of the guide book as my original was no longer available.
Whilst doing the research and communicating with my Greek friend I realised the information he had given me was unique and would make an interesting novel. I started writing in long hand, then a manual typewriter, progressing to a word processor and finally a computer. My final manuscript contained one thousand, four hundred and fifty one pages! I cut, pruned, re-cut and re-pruned at various times until the whole became more manageable.
I would send off a synopsis to a publisher only to have it returned time and time again. Finally I threw it to one side and started on my next manuscript. By then the Cretan family had become a part of my life. I found that some of the pages I had cut from YANNIS would fit well into ANNA, the story of Yannis's sister, and of course I could not just stop there so I have published the next 25 novels in the saga GIOVANNI, JOSEPH, CHRISTABELLE, SAFFRON, NICOLA, MANOLIS , CATHY, VASI, ALECOS, JOHN, TASSOS, RONNIE, MARIA, SOFIA, BABBIS , STELIOS, KYRIAKOS, MONIKA, EMMANUEL, THEO, PHAEDRA, EVGENIY, LUDMILA, PIETRO, EIRINI and ANDRULA which I hope you will all enjoy reading equally as much.
MANOLIS was been written at the request of some readers who wanted 'to go back in time'. CATHY, the sequel to MANOLIS, was published in June 2011.
Both these books proved so popular that I followed them with TASSOS in 2013 and my later books MARIA, SOFIA ,STELIOS, KYRIAKOS, MONIKA, EMMANUEL, THEO, PHAEDRA, EVGENIY, LUDMILA, PIETRO, EIRINI and ANDRULA.
Over the next few months she would contact him and ask him questions on my behalf in Greek and relay the answers back to me in English. I was finally able to meet this charming gentleman who, through my stepdaughter, was willing to answer any question I put to him and embellish his answers with anecdotes.
The guidebook was finally published in 1982 and subsequently translated into five languages. There was also an interesting radio programme made using Greek actors to describe their life over there. At the time there were plans to turn the island into a large hotel complex, but Melina Mercouri, the current Minister of Culture, decided a Preservation Order was more in keeping. In 2013 I updated and published a new edition of the guide book as my original was no longer available.
Whilst doing the research and communicating with my Greek friend I realised the information he had given me was unique and would make an interesting novel. I started writing in long hand, then a manual typewriter, progressing to a word processor and finally a computer. My final manuscript contained one thousand, four hundred and fifty one pages! I cut, pruned, re-cut and re-pruned at various times until the whole became more manageable.
I would send off a synopsis to a publisher only to have it returned time and time again. Finally I threw it to one side and started on my next manuscript. By then the Cretan family had become a part of my life. I found that some of the pages I had cut from YANNIS would fit well into ANNA, the story of Yannis's sister, and of course I could not just stop there so I have published the next 25 novels in the saga GIOVANNI, JOSEPH, CHRISTABELLE, SAFFRON, NICOLA, MANOLIS , CATHY, VASI, ALECOS, JOHN, TASSOS, RONNIE, MARIA, SOFIA, BABBIS , STELIOS, KYRIAKOS, MONIKA, EMMANUEL, THEO, PHAEDRA, EVGENIY, LUDMILA, PIETRO, EIRINI and ANDRULA which I hope you will all enjoy reading equally as much.
MANOLIS was been written at the request of some readers who wanted 'to go back in time'. CATHY, the sequel to MANOLIS, was published in June 2011.
Both these books proved so popular that I followed them with TASSOS in 2013 and my later books MARIA, SOFIA ,STELIOS, KYRIAKOS, MONIKA, EMMANUEL, THEO, PHAEDRA, EVGENIY, LUDMILA, PIETRO, EIRINI and ANDRULA.
