I wrote my first book when I was five.  Of course it was abysmal. I vaguely remember something about a squirrel and a big red apple. If anybody’s interested I’m pretty sure my mum still has it in the attic somewhere.

There was a long gap in my writing career while I grew up, which took a long time and is arguably a work in progress. After studying classical music, for reasons that now escape me, I took up public relations, campaigning and political lobbying, with a bit of freelance journalism thrown in. This is brilliant because it all involves writing, although my favourite form of writing – making stuff up – is sadly frowned upon in PR.

I  take an anthropological interest in family, friends and life in our West Sussex village (think, The Archers crossed with Twin Peaks). This provides lots of entertaining material although any resemblance between my fictional characters and real life never ceases to amaze me – life imitating art, and all that… please don’t sue.

I wrote two novels under my first pen name Rosie Howard. The first novel in the Havenbury series is The Homecoming and the second is A Vintage Year. I was also pleased to be invited by Orion publishing to write under the name Poppy Alexander, which is what I have been doing ever since.

So, that’s that for now, with my main challenge being to remember who the heck I am, most days.