I was born in Scotland but have lived for most of my life in the beautiful Channel Island of Jersey. At nine miles by five miles, the island is home to just over 100,000 people, with sandy beaches, rocky inlets, pretty villages, rolling fields and a bustling main town. It also provides plenty of inspiration for a crime writer.
I’ve been an avid reader for as long as I can remember, and I’ve probably been making up stories for almost as long. As a teenager, I wanted to be a journalist, an archaeologist, or an actress. Life intervened, and I ended up building a career in the finance industry instead, a career I love, but I never stopped writing. Notebooks filled up with ideas, scenes, and characters, and my computer accumulated an ever-growing collection of half-written stories.
Eventually, I decided it was time to stop collecting stories and actually finish one. That first book became Blood in the Sand and introduced DCI Jack Le Claire, a Jersey detective who has since developed a habit of finding considerably more trouble on this small island than Jersey’s actual crime statistics would suggest.
Jack returned in Blood Ties, Blood on the Rock and Blood Rights, and I’m currently working on the fifth book in the series, Blood Memory.
But I’ve never been very good at staying in one genre. Writing as Kelly J Clayton, I’ve also written Fortune’s Hostage and Scandal with a Duke, historical novels combining romance, mystery and suspense.
My standalone cyber thriller, Cyber Sisters, follows four very different women whose lives become entangled through the increasingly sophisticated world of online scams.
People sometimes ask why I write in different genres. The simple answer is because I can. I love different kinds of stories and I’ve never particularly wanted to put myself, or my characters, into a genre-specific pigeonhole.
I am also one-third of The Blonde Plotters, and you can find out more about us elsewhere on this site.
I still live in Jersey with my husband, and when I’m not working or writing, you’ll usually find me reading, walking by the sea, or thinking about whichever story I’m supposed to be writing next.