the Way Wind Blows

A novel rooted in real events and real people. Based on events and characters passed down through the author's own family. When a man answers his door, everything he thought he knew is proved wrong. He is told his daughter, the daughter he has mourned for nearly forty years, is alive. The Way the Wind Blows moves between the coalfields of County Durham and the battlefields of France and Flanders, spanning four decades from the 1890s to 1933. At its centre is John Little, a stretcher bearer, a survivor and a father, who is drawn from real family history of the author. John’s life is shaped by a deception he did not know was happening and a love that believed the lie was justified. This is a novel about motherhood and loss, about betrayal and the stories families tell themselves to survive. About whether the truth, when it finally arrives, can heal what silence broke. Based on the author’s own family history, written with the authority of deep roots in the northeast mining community, The Way the Wind Blows is historical fiction with the intimacy of a secret finally told.