About Sally
I live in an old house, mostly Georgian in style, although it was built a couple of years after Queen Victoria came to the throne. It has beautiful but draughty sash windows and floorboards that creak when I’m home alone. When doors click shut of their own accord, we put it down to the ill-fitting windows. That’s what we try to believe.
Our home inspired my first novel, Haverscroft. The story centres around a family trying to stay together as the parents’ marriage struggles to survive infidelity. Life gets much more complicated once they move to a new home for a fresh start. No one told them Haverscroft House was haunted.
Alongside the supernatural and psychological suspense, domestic noir threads run through my writing, fuelled by my many experiences as a family law solicitor. Dysfunctional family relationships and long-held dark secrets weave their way between the hauntings.
My second novel, Seahurst, is set on the Suffolk coast. The area is famous for its folklore, tales of Black Shuck and towns lost beneath the North Sea — all fabulous inspiration alongside abandoned abbeys and castle ruins. I was born in the county and spent my childhood on the beaches, running along narrow, sandy paths that crisscross the heathlands and thread through the dunes. The vast empty skies, mudflats and whispering reed beds have inspired writers over centuries. What better setting could there be for a contemporary haunted house ghost story?
Haverscroft was long-listed for Not The Booker Prize, was one of Den Of Geek’s best books of 2019, a semi-finalist in the Book Bloggers Novel of the Year Award 2020, and a Halloween recommended read in Prima Magazine.
Seahurst will be published by Salt Publishing on 15th May 2023 and is available for pre-order.
Meanwhile, I am writing my third novel. More about that coming soon.