About the Author

I was born in India , in 1959, the youngest of three children. My parents are a mix of Irish, Spanish and French. My whole family left India just before India received its independence from the British. I suppose this was largely due to the level of unrest that had settled over the country. I was brought up on tales of tickly tigers, ugly elephants and disobedient monkeys! My mum and dad loved making up stories to keep us youngsters quiet during the long winter evenings. After working for 30 years in the UK I moved to Holland where I finally settled in a quaint country village called Oranjewoud (Orange Woods). The house is a converted Dutch farm surrounded by rambling country lanes and a 'magical' forest. During a snow blizzard in January 1998 I was forced to remain indoors with nothing to do and more importantly - no one to do it with. As a last ditch attempt to cheer myself up I decided to turn my hand to writing.

About the Book

Sam is left alone with nothing and no one, or so she thinks. Shunted from one family to the next she withdraws into a magical, make believe world, where strange things start to happen. Lonely and confused she desperately needs someone to love and to be loved. After several failed adoption attempts, she is finally taken in by the Bags family, a group of loveable witches and wizards living in a beautiful manor house in the remote heart of an enchanted forest. Sam has to undergo transformation if she wants to become a witch, but things are not that simple. The Black Light, a powerful dark wizard of immense strength, wants her for his own and so the battle begins. After making friends with a grubby goblin, adopting a baby dragon and running around with tree elves, not to mention her encounters with expanding frogs, gnomes and fairies she finally manages to become a witch. But that's only the start, now she has to begin her witch's training at Winthrop 's School of Magic.