About

My love of stories began as a child, when my overactive imagination would result in copybooks filled with detailed drawings of characters in glamorous evening gowns complete with exotic names, ages and occupations scribbled in the margins.

A passionate obsession for art and drawing led me to pursue a degree in Fashion design, despite my father’s advice to follow my writing talents into journalism. (Sorry, dad!) The dream to become the next Vera Wang sadly didn’t pan out, and I spent a number of years job-hopping until finally settling into a career in childcare. 

In 2011, I participated in my first ever NaNoWriMo, a writing challenge in which you attempt to complete a fifty thousand word manuscript in thirty days. Needless to say, the book was terrible and will never see the light of day but the experience was immensely valuable.

It made me realize I now had a new dream – to become a published writer. 

The following year, while planning my own wedding, a story idea came to me. It was about an uptight Irish wedding planner with a painful secret and the devilishly handsome owner of an Italian castello who sets her perfectly ordered world off-kilter.

That book went on to win first place in a global competition with Harlequin in 2014 and became my first ever published novel, Resisting The Sicilian Playboy. 

I now spend my days juggling the chaos of motherhood and manuscript deadlines and wouldn’t change it for the world.

Amanda

xxx