From Coal to Sand is a coming of age story.  It describes how Rose, an English woman born into a coal mining village, leaves her home to become educated at university, and then travels overseas  to further her education and gain work experience.  After a decade of education and career development she decides to marry and leave the UK.  The decision was not easy, as readers of From Coal to Sand will discover.

 

 

 

The Fault Beneath Us takes the reader on Rose's marital journey in the Middle East.  As in most marriages, her story has its ups and downs.  But her experiences are intensified by the cross cultural context, with language and religious differences she must contend with.  Finally, Gulf War One explodes onto the scene.  Will Rose's marriage survive the explosion?

 

I hope you will find her stories interesting, and you will recognise some of the situations she finds herself in because of her decisions.

 

The onset of Arabian Gulf War 2 in 2003 awakens vivid memories for Rose, an Englishwoman working in New Zealand. She relives Gulf War 1, 1991, as she struggles to find happiness in the present.