'Living in Hope' is my current  work in progress.

I am very excited about this, my latest historical fiction.

For many years I grew up not knowing anything about my father's Canadian Weatherup family. Because neither did he.

So, having been inspired by BBC's 'Who Do You Think You Are' television series and aided by the 'Ancestry' genealogy internet site, I decided it was time to find my family roots.

What did I expect to find? A few skeletons for certain - and perhaps the reason why my Canadian-born father found himself abandoned in London, England by his mother during the Great Depression and disowned by his father.

What I hadn't expect to find was a gruesome murder in the family that, one-hundred- and- thirty- years later has slipped in the realms of being an urban Halloween myth.

From the wife of an Napoleonic Gunner to the wife of a Canadian World War 1 soldier- Living in Hope tracks the extraordinary lives of three women from three successive generations of this family - my family.