In the Shade of the Mulberry Tree

Welcome to my home website and blog!

As those of you who have followed my blog over the years will know, I have written a book In the Shade of the Mulberry Tree. It is a memoir of our time in Zambia – the time when my children were toddlers and the last thing I wanted to do was leave the comfort of my life in the London to venture into tropical, sub-Saharan Africa.

The book is due to be published before Easter, but here is a sneak preview of the cover.

I am so excited by it! It finally makes the whole thing real. I love the way that the cover shows the tree growing out of the global map of Africa.

It was designed by Andrew Brown at designforwriters.com and I can thoroughly recommend him and his service. He did make me think, with a list of about thirty questions about the book that were designed to help him. They helped me too – as I focussed on what were the important parts of my story and how to present it to others.

I also enjoyed the experience of analysing others’ covers. It turns out I really don’t like very many! Perhaps I am over critical. For one, the design was okay but the colours? Yellow and purple – yuk! For many they were really fussy, with too much detail for my liking. In fairness (I always try to have a balanced perspective) they were writing different books – the cover does have to reflect the style and genre of the book itself.

But you know what’s best about my book cover?