Books like Think of a Garden — picked by fans

I landed in Samoa when I was 36 and spent the next 26 years there, working for environmental, cultural, and historical resource preservation. The islands took me in. I found in the islands a natural and social intimacy unlike any I had known possible back stateside. I became committed to conserving it from the incursions of continental crudity. My final 13 years there I was State Historic Preservation Officer for American Samoa. Before I left, I wrote a series of novels to share by illustration what I had managed to learn about the cultural interface. 

I landed in Samoa when I was 36 and spent the next 26 years there, working for environmental, cultural, and historical resource preservation. The islands took me in. I found in the islands a natural and social intimacy unlike any I had known possible back stateside. I became committed to conserving it from the incursions of continental crudity. My final 13 years there I was State Historic Preservation Officer for American Samoa. Before I left, I wrote a series of novels to share by illustration what I had managed to learn about the cultural interface. 

I landed in Samoa when I was 36 and spent the next 26 years there, working for environmental, cultural, and historical resource preservation. The islands took me in. I found in the islands a natural and social intimacy unlike any I had known possible back stateside. I became committed to conserving it from the incursions of continental crudity. My final 13 years there I was State Historic Preservation Officer for American Samoa. Before I left, I wrote a series of novels to share by illustration what I had managed to learn about the cultural interface. 

I landed in Samoa when I was 36 and spent the next 26 years there, working for environmental, cultural, and historical resource preservation. The islands took me in. I found in the islands a natural and social intimacy unlike any I had known possible back stateside. I became committed to conserving it from the incursions of continental crudity. My final 13 years there I was State Historic Preservation Officer for American Samoa. Before I left, I wrote a series of novels to share by illustration what I had managed to learn about the cultural interface. 

I married Indian born Atam Vetta when mixed relationships were rare and viewed with hostility not just in the UK. In 1966, they were illegal in South Africa and in most Southern States of the USA (until Loving v Virginia). In India they are not illegal but many upper-caste Indians do not approve of marriage outside of caste. In the UK attitudes have revolutionised. Mixed relationships are no longer rare and it is predicted that by 2075 the majority of the population will be of mixed ancestry. There are mixed relationships in all three of my novels. My aim was to explore what we have in common whilst being honest about the challenges. The ultimate prize is an enhanced understanding and the creativity that comes with crossing cultures.

I have spent my working life as a journalist, author and storyteller, aiming to uncover complexity that sheds new light on stories we think we know. I got my training at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times—and from the wonderful editors of my twelve books. An Innocent Bystander, my book that deals with the Middle East, began as the story of a hijacking and a murder of an American citizen. But as my research widened, I came to see this story couldn’t be told without understanding many perspectives, including the Israeli and the Palestinian, nor could the political be disentangled from the personal.

I like to write about everyday people who—whether by overconfidence or desperation—are motivated to solve crimes that hit close to home. My first novel Girl, 11 is about a true crime podcaster investigating a serial killer who terrorized her town decades earlier, and my newest book Lay Your Body Down is about an ex-fundamentalist Christian who returns to her insular community to expose the church’s secrets and uncover the truth of who killed the man she once loved. Normal people can and do solve mysteries before police—and even when detectives are involved, they rely on members of the community. Those are the stories I love to tell.

My passion for story began while I was still in elementary school. I was an avid reader, taking the tram to the library whenever I could. I read biographies, short stories, comic books, and novels of all kinds. In college, I studied comparative literature, focusing on 19th and 20th-century novels in English and Spanish. I met many authors and was inspired to write my own stories. Eventually, this led to screenwriting as a career and then teaching and writing about screenwriting. I never abandoned my love of novels, publishing one of my first novels as a magazine for which I sold advertising to pay for printing.  

My passion for Greek literature began as a child when I was captivated by Greek myths and epic tales. As a student, I became fascinated with tragic revenge plots involving women, especially mothers who kill their children, and since then, I have published extensively on gender and violence in ancient Greek literature and life. I speak modern Greek and love thinking about these topics in traditional Greek folk poetry and literature as well, especially works like Alexandros Papadiamantis’ The Murderess and Pantelis Prevelakis’ The Sun of Death.

My passion for Greek literature began as a child when I was captivated by Greek myths and epic tales. As a student, I became fascinated with tragic revenge plots involving women, especially mothers who kill their children, and since then, I have published extensively on gender and violence in ancient Greek literature and life. I speak modern Greek and love thinking about these topics in traditional Greek folk poetry and literature as well, especially works like Alexandros Papadiamantis’ The Murderess and Pantelis Prevelakis’ The Sun of Death.